Saw young Dr Bacalhau (yes, that really is his name), the dental surgeon, today. In March 2020 I had a cracked tooth removed, with the intention that it would be replaced with an implant a few months later.

3 days later, the world went into lockdown. I never got the implant.

In the years since, I learned to live with the gap. It’s next to a tooth I lost for orthodontic reasons as a teen, so it’s quite a big gap.

But I have been told that the asymmetry in my bite and lack of support for adjacent teeth is causing a problem, so I need an implant.

Fist thing they did was a CT scan of my jaw. The resolution is really quite incredible. He showed me the 3D scan. Bicuspid next door has a really kinky root.

The bad news is, the jawbone there is only 6mm thick, and he wants 8-10mm.

So I need a bone graft. They scheduled me for one in September. Double appointment, done under local anaesthetic (not hugely looking forward to that, but I’ve had worse. Don’t ask. Really). He’s gonna do the graft (new technique I think - some sort of synthetic scaffold), and put the screw in. Then 4 months later, they place the tooth.

Will be nice to have my ability to chew properly on the left side back.

Whole lot (including today’s consultation and CT) is going to come in at under 2000 euros, and my experience of Portuguese dentistry thus far is that they do really, really good work.