It was a back molar. One bite of something hard, and part of it was gone.
I was 65 years old. I figured I would go to the dentist, get it fixed, and be done in a week or two.
That was two years ago. I am still dealing with my teeth.
The Day a Back Tooth Broke
I did not feel pain right away. The piece just came off cleanly, and I thought — this is probably a simple repair.
I made an appointment. I sat in the chair expecting a quick fix.
Instead, the dentist took X-rays and said two words I had never heard before: katakami and kagai kougou — one-sided chewing, and a deep bite where the upper teeth cover the lower ones too far.
I had no symptoms. No pain. No discomfort. But apparently my bite had been uneven for years, and the broken tooth was the result.
I was not expecting that.
When “It Will Be Fixed Soon” Fell Apart
I went to a second dentist. Same diagnosis.
At that point I had to accept it: this was not a one-visit problem. The broken molar could not simply be patched. The options were a bridge or an implant.
A bridge means grinding down the two healthy teeth on either side to use them as anchors. Those teeth were healthy. To use them as anchors, they would have to be shaved down.
An implant means a titanium post goes into the jawbone, and a crown goes on top. It is independent. It does not touch the neighboring teeth.
I looked into both. I read whatever I could find. I asked questions at both clinics.
In the end, I chose the implant.
The 420,000 Yen Decision
The cost was 420,000 yen. That is not covered by Japanese national health insurance. You pay it yourself.
There is a medical expense deduction available in Japan — if your annual medical costs exceed a certain threshold, you can claim a portion back on your taxes. That helped a little. But the upfront number was still 420,000 yen.
Some people will read that and decide immediately that it is too much. I understand that.
I thought about it for a while.
Around the same time, a different tooth needed root canal treatment. Canal sterilization, medication packed in, and months of observation. That was happening in parallel, at a different clinic.
So I was managing two dental situations at once. Neither was an emergency. Both required patience.
Surgery Day: What Fear Actually Is
I will be honest. In the days before the surgery, I was uneasy.
I was scared of what the surgery would actually be like.
The day came. I sat in the chair. Local anesthetic was administered.
And then — almost nothing.
It was a quieter time than I had imagined. There was no pain. The room was quiet. The procedure moved forward in a way that felt almost routine, at least from where I was lying.
I had spent more energy worrying about it than the thing itself required.
The suture removal was almost disappointing, it was so quick and easy.
The fear had lived entirely in my imagination.
A Factory Worker Looks at His Teeth
I spent forty years in manufacturing. Machining, assembly, quality control — that kind of work.
In a factory, you learn something early: one bad part does not stay isolated. A component that is slightly off will affect the next part, and the part after that. The problem travels through the system.
My bite was uneven for a long time before anything broke. The broken molar was not the origin of the problem — it was the visible result of something that had been building quietly.
In manufacturing, we call this preventive maintenance. You do not wait for a machine to fail completely. You watch for early signs, and you act before the failure spreads.
I did not do that with my teeth. I waited until something broke.
That is the thing nobody told me. Dental problems at this age are often not isolated events. One issue reveals another. The mouth is a system.
Do I Regret It?
No.
The implant is in. It functions normally. I do not think about it when I eat.
Nearly two years have passed. I am still going to dental appointments regularly. That is just the reality now.
If I regret anything, it is that I waited as long as I did before taking my teeth seriously. Not the implant decision — that I stand behind. But the years before, when I treated my teeth as something that would take care of themselves.
They do not.
420,000 yen is a real amount of money. I am not going to pretend otherwise. But I am 67 now, and I plan to keep eating properly for another twenty years or more.
One part breaks. You look closer. You find out what else has been under strain.
That is what nobody told me before I started.
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