Potentially too much information - about teeth and being my "age"
You can blame this on the fact that last October my dentist told me my wisdom teeth had started to come through. That and a couple of other You can blame this on the fact that last October my dentist told me my wisdom teeth had started to come through. That and a couple of other incidental events that have got me thinking...
I've done a little researching that most children loose their baby teeth by the ages of 12 - 13... females earlier than males (apparently by 1-2 years). And that wisdom teeth typically show up between the ages of 17 and 25.
So I know I lost my last baby tooth on the last day of year six... the teacher gave us lollies in a mug... my tooth came out as i ate a mintie. I would have been 12.5 (or close enough to it... 5 months and a bit if you want to be technical).
As I said before my dentist told me last October my wisdom teeth were coming through... I'm not sure when they started - although it was sometime after October 2008 which is when I had seen him before. So my wisdom teeth started (because they still have a lot way to go yet) to come through when I was at least 25.25... more likely closer to 26.25 (because the dentist said that it was probably only in the last month before my appointment this had happened).
So I'm at the late end for both age ranges. Especially if girls/females are meant to loose and get teeth earlier.
I can't help but wondering if it's my growth/development rate playing up in some ways again...
To backtrack and explain a bit.
My father (and I'm sure my mother too) were a bit concerned at the rate with which my sister was growing when compared to me when we were kids. Before the time she was ~5 years old she was taller than me (at ~7 years old)... (my parents are also both 178/178.5cms tall so even now I'm short comparatively) So I was taken off for testing to check there was no growth hormone deficiency causing this. There wasn't. But one of the "tests" they made me do was to have xrays of my hands. This was then compared to a book full of "typical" xrays of various aged individuals. The comparison was made as to how much of my bones were bone vs how much was cartilage (because as we age it becomes more bone). My "bone" age was, up until when I stopped this annual testing, 3 years behind my chronological age. Which is something I still consider fairly significant*.
There is of course no problems with this... but I do wonder if my teeth coming through when I am at the late end of things (particularly when compared on a basis of gender) has anything to do with it. Several places seem to suggest that tooth development is completely unrelated to other physiological development... but yet I'm curious... too bad I won't be seeing my dentist for another 8 months by which time I'll have probably forgotten I was even curious.
* - of course this doesn't explain people under-estimating my age. When I was 21 and a bit (the day before I got married) someone told me they thought I looked about 14. Then when I was somewhere around 23 someone told me they had mistaken me for one of their daughters fellow youth group kids, not a leader. The girl was also 14/15 years. And then at Christmas time last year I was again told by someone they thought I looked about 14.
I've had a couple of explanations... that I don't wear make up (Alex), that I am skinny (patients), that I wear my hair long/not styled in a "professional style" which I think means cut to no longer than just on the shoulders (other patients). I'm honestly not sure what it is. Nor do I really care. It's just an interesting conversational point, and sometimes I think about how I might change my appearance to seem older, but then decide instead to just sound intelligent. One of the patients referred to me by another doctor in my building told me he said to her "She looks young, but when she starts talking you'll realise she knows what she's talking about" (or words to that effect). Not that he can really talk, he looks about 20 years younger than all the other ENTs in the building, which probably works in his favour considering he sees a lot of paediatric patients.
I've done a little researching that most children loose their baby teeth by the ages of 12 - 13... females earlier than males (apparently by 1-2 years). And that wisdom teeth typically show up between the ages of 17 and 25.
So I know I lost my last baby tooth on the last day of year six... the teacher gave us lollies in a mug... my tooth came out as i ate a mintie. I would have been 12.5 (or close enough to it... 5 months and a bit if you want to be technical).
As I said before my dentist told me last October my wisdom teeth were coming through... I'm not sure when they started - although it was sometime after October 2008 which is when I had seen him before. So my wisdom teeth started (because they still have a lot way to go yet) to come through when I was at least 25.25... more likely closer to 26.25 (because the dentist said that it was probably only in the last month before my appointment this had happened).
So I'm at the late end for both age ranges. Especially if girls/females are meant to loose and get teeth earlier.
I can't help but wondering if it's my growth/development rate playing up in some ways again...
To backtrack and explain a bit.
My father (and I'm sure my mother too) were a bit concerned at the rate with which my sister was growing when compared to me when we were kids. Before the time she was ~5 years old she was taller than me (at ~7 years old)... (my parents are also both 178/178.5cms tall so even now I'm short comparatively) So I was taken off for testing to check there was no growth hormone deficiency causing this. There wasn't. But one of the "tests" they made me do was to have xrays of my hands. This was then compared to a book full of "typical" xrays of various aged individuals. The comparison was made as to how much of my bones were bone vs how much was cartilage (because as we age it becomes more bone). My "bone" age was, up until when I stopped this annual testing, 3 years behind my chronological age. Which is something I still consider fairly significant*.
There is of course no problems with this... but I do wonder if my teeth coming through when I am at the late end of things (particularly when compared on a basis of gender) has anything to do with it. Several places seem to suggest that tooth development is completely unrelated to other physiological development... but yet I'm curious... too bad I won't be seeing my dentist for another 8 months by which time I'll have probably forgotten I was even curious.
* - of course this doesn't explain people under-estimating my age. When I was 21 and a bit (the day before I got married) someone told me they thought I looked about 14. Then when I was somewhere around 23 someone told me they had mistaken me for one of their daughters fellow youth group kids, not a leader. The girl was also 14/15 years. And then at Christmas time last year I was again told by someone they thought I looked about 14.
I've had a couple of explanations... that I don't wear make up (Alex), that I am skinny (patients), that I wear my hair long/not styled in a "professional style" which I think means cut to no longer than just on the shoulders (other patients). I'm honestly not sure what it is. Nor do I really care. It's just an interesting conversational point, and sometimes I think about how I might change my appearance to seem older, but then decide instead to just sound intelligent. One of the patients referred to me by another doctor in my building told me he said to her "She looks young, but when she starts talking you'll realise she knows what she's talking about" (or words to that effect). Not that he can really talk, he looks about 20 years younger than all the other ENTs in the building, which probably works in his favour considering he sees a lot of paediatric patients.