As part of the measuring up for my new falsies, the dentist shaved a bit off my lower right first pre-molar. Right from my point of view that is. A very ordinary proceeding. But what was new to me was the time it took for my tongue to adjust to the very slight change in shape, with the tooth feeling odd for a week or so.
One can only suppose that in the fifty or more years that the tooth has been there, using signals from the tongue, my brain has slowly built up its map of the tooth, its shape and texture, a small but clearly important part of the brain's image of my body & soul, and it takes a little while for it to be reprogrammed to take account the altered shape, perhaps deciding on the way that the change is not life threatening.
I remember something of the same sort happening when I last had a tooth out, although that seemed to be a day or so of adjustment rather than a week or so.
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