Pubdate: Wed, 10 Aug 2005
Source: Herald, The (WA)
Copyright: 2005 The Daily Herald Co.
Contact:  http://www.heraldnet.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/190
Author: Sharon Salyer
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/meth.htm (Methamphetamine)

METH MANGLES USERS' MOUTHS

Dental Practitioners Find Many Drug Users Are Losing Their Teeth

In his early 40s, after several years of heavy methamphetamine use, Carl 
Mann started losing his teeth.

"My teeth didn't abscess or anything," he said. "They would just get loose 
and come out."

By the time he was fitted for full upper and partial lower dentures about a 
month ago, only 10 teeth remained, five of which were pulled. The rest fell 
out.

"I had a smile only a jack-o'-lantern could love," Mann said, adding that 
half of his front teeth were missing, likely as the result of smoking meth.

Severe dental problems linked to meth, such as Mann's, are so common that 
they now have their own nickname, "meth mouth."

"We do see it a lot," said Ron Guderian, the program director for Northwest 
Medical Teams' dental van, which travels throughout Northwest Washington. 
It serves low-income patients who can't pay for dental service.

As meth use has increased, "suddenly this is a side effect no one thought 
of until you start seeing it," Guderian said.

At first, Mann said, he was mildly surprised by losing his teeth. "Then you 
get used to it," he said.

"I mean, to tell you the truth, I expected to overdose and die," Mann said. 
"I wasn't planning on sticking around."

Mann, 44, said he worked for 25 years as a structural steel painter. He 
said he's been off drugs about two years. He's finishing a one-year Bible 
study and discipleship program at the Everett Gospel Mission and getting 
help to rejoin the workforce.

Northwest Medical Teams' mobile dental van visits both the men's and 
women's shelters run by the gospel mission once a month, just two of its 
regular stops in the county.

The dental van added the missions to its routine stops "when we saw the 
severe damage done by meth," Guderian said.

One case involved a 20-year-old "who had nothing left but stubs."

"You can imagine the pain," Guderian said, in addition to the damage being 
a major social barrier. "Getting back to society was totally impossible."

It's not just meth, but also drugs such as heroin and cocaine that can 
cause dental problems, said Linda Renner, dental director for the Community 
Health Center of Snohomish County. Although meth use has received lots of 
media attention in recent years, cocaine and heroin are widely used in the 
county, too.

In part, the problems are caused because good dental care, such as brushing 
and flossing, "is the least of their worries," Renner said.

"These people don't care about themselves and their physical bodies 
anymore," she said. "Then, on top of that, when they're high, they tend to 
clench their teeth," which grinds them down. "There's a lot of things going 
on at the same time."

Mann said he used cocaine for about six years before switching to meth when 
he was 39 because it was a cheaper and longer high. Cocaine may have 
contributed to his dental problems as well, he said. "Drugs came before 
anything else," he said.

"My teeth were bad when I was using coke, but they were falling out when I 
used meth," he said.

Mann said he had problems with alcohol as well. He lost his driver's 
license but continued to drive.

Meth gave him more energy to work the long hours that came with running a 
mobile mechanic business that required going to people's homes to fix their 
cars, he said. He sometimes stayed up for five to six days at a time.

"I didn't realize it was so addictive," he said.

His drug use evolved into a gram-a-day habit.

"After a while, I started dealing. It was a lot easier to deal than to 
work," Mann said.

Along the way, he said, he racked up three felony convictions for 
attempting to elude a police officer and possession of cocaine and meth. He 
said he was in and out of jail for 10 years.

After trying about five times to quit his drug use, he said, a six-month 
jail stint helped break his addiction. When he got out, he decided to stay 
off drugs and went to the mission.

During the past year, he has done volunteer work at its laundry and 
donation departments and at the front desk.

He can stay at the mission for up to four more months. He knows his felony 
convictions are a big barrier to future employment. Nevertheless, he wants 
to get a job, perhaps at a hospice service.

Mann said he tries to share his drug abuse experience with others at the 
mission.

"They're going through the same thing I went through," he said.

"They believe it," he said of their reaction. "But they come in for about a 
week, and then they're gone for a while."
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