Oddly, dentists always commented on what "great teeth" I had. Never had a cavity. Sort of the opposite of thin enamel I guess -- until they started disintegrating from the inside with "internal resorption."
When the first extraction was recommended due to bone loss about 15 years ago, I was under care at the University of Washington Graduate Periodontics clinic. The supervising doctor overruled, basically saying I had "great teeth" and the tooth could be, and should be, saved by attaching a wire connecting it to its neighbors.
That worked out well for over 5 years. Then the "shadow" appeared in xrays on an upper canine. Then on the lower canine connected to my "bad incisor." Then it was a lot of back and forth between the School of Dentistry student I had been assigned to for basic care and the Graduate Endodontics clinic that ended up performing four root canals, two of which failed a few years later.
The bone loss -- particularly the extreme bone loss around my "bad incisor" was a thing that the periodontics people never had much of an explanation for. (Why the hell in one area? The answer was always something like "one of those things." )
Anyway, I feel incredibly lucky to have gotten myself into the UW system. Every move was reviewed by an entire team. I imagine my case was an interesting one that is still presented to students. I have no doubt that the care I got from general dentistry clinic, and the graduate endodontics, periodontics, and prosthodontics clinics was top notch. It took a long time with weird temporary appliances, but now that it has been more than a year since the six lower teeth on two implants was installed, I'm used to it and realize the "fake" teeth look totally natural and are straighter than the canines/incisors they replaced.
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