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Do you believe in dental superstitions?
Halloween is slinking ever closer. You are thinking about costumes, parties, pumpkin-spiced everything and other treats. But take a moment to make dental hygienists happy and consider your teeth too. Don’t be tricked into making the holiday a dental emergency, protect your smile on this spooky day.
Sensible subjects covered, we’re moving onto the silly. Here are some of the strangest superstitions about teeth from around the world.
- It is unlucky to count your teeth.
- It is also unlucky to throw your teeth away. The best thing to do is bury the tooth, toss it up on the roof, or keep all your lost teeth in a jar and ensure that you are buried with them.
- Need a tooth pulled? For the least pain and fastest healing have it done during the waning moon.
- If you want more luck, burn your pulled teeth (good luck with that). There’s another superstition that a pulled wisdom tooth is a lucky charm.
- A broad space between front teeth signifies a long life. But it also signifies that you’ll spend much of that life far from your childhood home.
- When your baby loses a tooth, drop it (the tooth, not the baby) into a rat hole and the new tooth will be exceptionally beautiful.
- Got broad front teeth? You’ll do a lot of travelling.
- If you wisdom teeth come in late you’ll have a long life.
- If a pulled tooth is left overnight in a glass tumbler, next morning you will see a piece of money instead of the tooth. (Don’t count on it to pay your bills, though.)
- If you have your first tooth pulled without using an anesthetic, throw the tooth over your head and you will never have another decayed tooth until you die. (Assuming that you also brush and floss daily, and see your dentist regularly.)
- If your front teeth are set wide apart, you will accumulate wealth.
- “Keep your tongue out of the hole left by the extraction of a tooth to prevent a gold tooth from growing there.” (errr… have you checked the price of gold lately?)
- Picking your teeth with a pin will cause bad luck. (Yes, because you’ll probably jab your gums painfully with that pin.)
- Preserve your teeth by washing them with urine. (There are better ways to preserve your teeth, friends)
- Put a pulled tooth behind your grandmother’s water pitcher and she will have good luck. (This seems oddly specific).
- Sleep on a pulled tooth and good luck will come to you. (Like the TOOTH RAT!)
- You will never gain any knowledge or be wise until you have cut your wisdom teeth.
- Had a dream where all your teeth fell out? You’ll be experiencing a big change soon, or are regretting something that you said.
- Babies born with teeth were considered lucky by ancient romans, and were often named “Dentatus” in honor of their ambitious dental development. Elsewhere, a child born with a tooth was expected to become a vampire.
The truth about dental superstitions
Superstitions can be spooky, but what’s really scary is not being able to afford preventive or restorative dental care because you don’t have dental insurance. But you don’t need to be afraid of the dentist when you have a dental savings plan! Plan members get discounts of 10-60% at a nationwide network of 100,00+ dentists. Your savings depend on the plan you choose and the procedure you need, so compare the plans on DentalPlans.com and pick the dental discount plan that saves you the most on all of your dental care.
