Hips, Blood and Teeth

I awoke a days ago to the news on the radio(it has)I discover been on the net for over a month...in short there are some problems with many thousands of hip operations that have been carried out across the world and certainly in the UK and over the next month or two virtually everyone who has had one will be called in for tests. Even though the person seems ok and feels fine, it affects metal joints and in simple terms bits(I assume like grains of sand/iron filings)are coming off the metal and they are failing but also this is working it's way into the blood and raising levels of metal not unlike how they used to be afraid and sometimes replace teeth fillings because of worries of mercury.

It could result in many hip operations having to be done again(if you are the unfortunate one)the blood test alone will cost the NHS a lot of time and money and there are so few labs in the country able to do it the blood will be analysed in other countries. Remarkably the story has not been as big as I thought it might be.

Mum has been remarkably calm about it but the prospect of another operation and the recuperation again doesn't fill us with joy. These operations are supposed to have a life of around 10-12 years...seemingly I now discover a ceramic hip replacement have no problem and they last 20+ years but most operations probably on cost and success are done using metal.

For now all we can do is see if Mum is recalled and wait for the letter to drop through the letterbox.

Then on Friday(I won't go into detail, it's very personal)but the clue is in the title of this blog post...unexpectedly we had an emergency and it was a shock to us both and we had to make a visit to Accident and Emergency but hopefully seems to be ok and Mum only has to return should the problem persist, they were very pleased with her.

Where do the teeth come into this post?

Some years ago I had all my teeth and regularly saw my dentist...had a dentist. Then my dentist did not remind us to go for our check up...when I contacted we had been removed from the patient list and we could not register. With all the problems with Mum and other reasons I have neglected trying to get treatment or been able to find another one and now one by one my teeth have become broken, some are missing and I can see that the front teeth are starting to decay so I have resigned myself that one day soon I will probably have to have those remaining removed and accept that I will be wearing dentures.

Whether I can find some I like, get used to them I will have no choice, other people manage and there are some nice ones available these days, it's not like it used to be. As long as I can eat food, if they are uncomfortable I can always leave them out when at home and just wear them outdoors. It's a pity when I have never eaten much in the way of sweets or drank much in the way of soft drinks.

In recent years toothpastes and other things have come onto the market to look after teeth and gums but sadly too late for me...