Summary
Overview
An Armchair Anonymous episode featuring three dental disaster stories: Christy breaks her front teeth diving face-first into furniture while using VR goggles, Amanda projectile vomits ramen noodles during a three-hour crown appointment in an open-concept dental office after using laughing gas, and Elizabeth recounts a mysterious childhood incident where a pool ball somehow landed on her face during a sleepover, shattering her four front teeth.
VR Goggles Lead to Face-First Furniture Collision
Christy shares her harrowing experience from February 2022 when a virtual reality plank-walking game went terribly wrong. At her brother's house for a family birthday party, she put on VR goggles to try a simulation where you jump off a building. Misjudging the physics, she leaped forward instead of up and dove mouth-first into the entertainment center, instantly breaking the bone above her front teeth and leaving visible teeth marks in the expensive reclaimed wood table.
- Christy worked in dentistry for eight years and knows good dental care when she sees it
- The VR game involved walking a plank 40 stories high in New York City - highly realistic with city sounds and sensory immersion
- She jumped as high as possible off the virtual plank but jumped forward instead of up, diving into the entertainment center
- She broke and fractured the bone above her top front teeth (maxilla) but amazingly broke nothing else and lost no teeth
- Emergency room doctor had never dealt with dental trauma and only had one tube of dental cement in the entire ER
- She had to wear braces for 10 months following the accident to hold teeth in place
- Her nephews immediately sold all their VR equipment after witnessing the accident
" I feel a tooth on my tongue. "
" My very first thought was I cannot miss my six-year-old's birthday party on Sunday. I'm hosting a birthday party on Sunday, two days from now. Second thought is I guess I'm getting implants. "
" We all watched you dive into this head first. Everybody was just like mouth open, like in shock. My dad's still traumatized to this day. "
Ramen Noodles and Laughing Gas Don't Mix
Amanda describes her nightmare three-hour dental crown appointment that turned into a projectile vomiting disaster. After eating ramen noodles and drinking three cups of coffee for breakfast, she arrived at her open-concept dental office for laughing gas sedation. The combination of anxiety, prolonged nitrous oxide exposure, and her carb-heavy breakfast led to her passing out and vomiting spectacularly while strapped down with a dental dam covering her face, clogging the suction system for the entire office.
- Amanda has severe dental anxiety stemming from childhood when she was gaslit about anesthesia during a tooth extraction
- She ate ramen noodles and three cups of coffee before the appointment - an empty carb breakfast with 2000mg of caffeine
- The dental office has an open-concept layout with no doors between treatment areas
- She passed out while wearing the dental dam and nose mask, then projectile vomited sideways with blood, coffee, and visible noodles everywhere
- The vomit clogged the central suction system for the entire open-concept office
- She had to finish the remaining 90 minutes of the crown procedure without laughing gas after fishing her AirPods out of the vomit
- The office staff never mentioned it at subsequent appointments but clearly discussed it after she left
" They are actually not made for noodles. "
" I can see a noodle on your shoulder. "
" I'm washing my noodle hair in the sink, which is literally the same texture as the ramen noodles that I'm trying to wash out. "
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