Do You Have Teeth? Call Your Doctor Immediately

Have you ever heard of teeth? Most haven’t. They’re a strange and rare symptom, a growth sometimes found along the gums, which can indicate a variety of — potentially severe — diseases. Teeth are hard white or off-white things that can appear in the mouth of unhealthy individuals, with room for up to thirty-two teeth in adult mouths. Horrifying, we know.

A common illness with teeth as a symptom is called chewing. This is defined as a chronic grinding of the jaw, gums, and — you guessed it! — teeth. Another similar disease is known as biting and involves performing a regular snapping motion conducted via the jaws, with the hard teeth typically clanging into one another. Both of these actions are involuntary and can cause serious detriment to one’s mental and physical well-being. In fact, 100% of people who “chew” or “bite” will one day die.

Even if one does not develop chewing or biting, it is still debilitating to have teeth for too long, a condition known as chronic tooth-having. (“Tooth” is the singular form of “teeth.” These are very old and irregular words; the condition, though relatively unknown today, was far more common in the distant past.) Chronic tooth-having can result in such comorbid maladies as tooth pain and plaque. The former is a pain in the gums that develops when teeth are injured, as when teeth form, the minerals do not only calcify atop the gums, but within them as well, and link up to the nervous system; this is how teeth reproduce. The latter condition, though it sounds like a nice little sign to commemorate something (perhaps a great hero who died from having teeth?), actually refers to a deleterious substance that can develop on the teeth and affect the entire mouth system.

Furthermore, there are the social consequences of having teeth. One locally famous tooth-haver is Herky the Hawk, who suffers doubly from the ostracization and stereotyping to which tooth-havers are routinely subject due to the fact that he is a bird, and birds almost never develop teeth. You don’t want to be like Herky, do you? No one should want to be like Herky.

Even more terrifyingly, there is always the possibility that the current Herky is preparing to pass into the earth and disintegrate, before which he must choose a successor. Having teeth is a tell-tale sign that you may have been chosen, and will be subject to the eternal torment of being our horrid and obscenely muscular mascot for the rest of your life, until the day comes that you, too, choose a successor and pass into the earth.

So please, if you have teeth, if you have even one single tooth, for the sake of your health and quality of life, call your doctor or schedule an appointment with the UI Hospitals & Clinics. Teeth are curable, and you do not have to suffer them.

This has been a public service announcement from the Eastern Iowa Teeth Awareness Advocacy Board.