L. Ron Hubbard's teeth

[DeeAnna]

I have been wanting to see a thread about this subject for some time now.

Why? Two dentists in my family. So as you can imagine, dental health (or lack thereof) is a subject that is discussed regularly within my family I actually got one of my dentist relatives to look at that god-awful tape where the British guy is interviewing L. Ron Hubbard on the boat. Hubbard is smiling a lot in the video. And the videographer just loves zooming in on L. Ron's mouth. Dear God!

My dentist relative's reaction to the video: "Oy! Had to have been very painful at times; probably no longer very painful at the time of this video. They stink and the danger is infection that goes systemic. If the patient doesn't get a massive infection, eventually the teeth just fall out of the mouth." (Because the roots eventually die and resorb.)

I've read several references to L. Ron's horrible bad breath. Which would be from the rotted teeth, no doubt.

I also think I read a reference along the way that L.Ron did visit a dentist at some point, who administered nitrous oxide (laughing gas). But I can no longer find that reference.

Anyone who can add info to "L. Ron's teeth"?

 

[Danger Mouse]

Hubbard claimed that he died in a dentist's chair back in the 1930s. That's when he got clued in on the big secret of the universe: survive. I suppose that if I died in a dentist's chair, I might be scared of going back.

I had the same reaction that you did, when I saw that movie (in black & white) back around 1979 or 1980 in an org. I asked, "what's wrong with his mouth?"

Somebody, somewhere on ESMB, recently wrote that when people learn that he spent a lot of time with Hubbard, they ask him, "what was he really like?" and he answers that Hubbard had the worst bad breath of anyone he'd ever met!

 

[Miss Ellie]

His early photos show a mouth in trouble for sure. He had the money but not the nerve to get them handled from what I understand. He was afraid of the dentist and the doctors and the shrinks..... gee I wonder why?!?

I think it is odd that a whole society has built around his short comings, fears & insanity. Just like Hitler & many other insane rulers - thank God he never got his own country.

 

[PTS]

Between believing he was at cause over his dental health, and the Kools, his breath must have been damned near lethal.

 

[SweetnessandLight]

Speaking of Ron and teeth...I have this to add:

 

[lotus]

There is 2 situations for keeping away from needed dental care

1) money (lack of it or insurance plan)
2) Fear

Most of us (older ones) experieced pain on the chair in the old days - but we courageously decided it has to be done!
I guess LRH could afford dental treatments - but had been known for his many fears and lack of courage!

I wonder if he was afraid of hypnotic commands while given anethesia on the chair ????
(After all, he knew very much what can be done to people with hypnosis )

I can't figure out how a person can have all his teeth rotten while on proper nutrition and care ???
Did he brushed his teeth??? (the way to hapiness...)


to DeeAnna

Is it true that rotten teeth and root canal procedures, can later on lead to cancer - or be a causative factor????

 

[Panda Termint]

I've seen the "Ron's teeth" photos (stills from the video) shooped to worsen the appearance of them. I've wondered whether that was actually staining (nicotine and coffee stains) rather than rot. Maybe someone who was actually there at that time could confirm the actuality? Face? :confused2:

 

[SweetnessandLight]

Info for Lotus and anyone else who may have any concerns about root canals:

From:http://message.snopes.com/showthread.php?t=87783

"Are root canals dangerous?
There is a Facebook message going around about how dangerous root canals are and how they can cause extreme arthritis and cancer because they are dead teeth still in your mouth, any feedback?

Old 19 November 2013, 12:27 PM

Answer:

No.
All the scary info about links between root canals and cancer or arthritis or whatever are from websites that have less than stellar connections to logic, scientific studies, or sense.

If your badly infected tooth is NOT treated by a competent dental professional, infections can spread.

From Dental Disease.org; Root Canal Therapy, Overview:

Quote:
If an infection of the dental pulp is not treated with endodontic therapy, it will spread to the jaw bone and the connective tissues around the tooth. The infection will not only gradually destroy these tissues making them not longer able to hold the tooth in place, but it may also spread to other body organs. Except of tooth loss other serious complications may also occur, such as ludwig’s angina, a life threatening swelling of the neck which may be caused by infected lower molars.

Root canal therapy can save the tooth, prevent complications and provide immediate relief from the severe tooth pain caused by the pulp inflammation.

Once the infection has been competently treated (filling, root canal, crown, etc), and you follow good oral hygiene and make regular visits to your dentist and dental hygienist, that's it. You're good to go. Or chew.

If you feel safer having your teeth pulled, then you are left with a few options: leave one or more gaps where the tooth/teeth used to be, or have a tooth implantation (dead stuff?), or have a bridge built between the remaining teeth (dead stuff?), or get false teeth (dead stuff?) that you put in during the day and remove at night. There may be a few more that I am not up to speed on.

All the options except for leaving a toothless gap involve substitutes for "living" teeth. I have seen no no no reputable scientific studies that link dental care with cancer or arthritis. The use of the words "dead teeth" are just scare tactics for people who want you to pay money to them instead of to your dentist. The outer layer of the tooth is "dead", if you want to use that word. But we have them in our mouths until we die or until they get infected or until they get knocked out by accidents or rough sports. Teeth don't cause cancer or arthritis, whether they have living roots or not."

Also see info at WebMD, Dental Health and Root Canals.

http://www.webmd.com/oral-health/guide/dental-root-canals

 

[SweetnessandLight]

Looks like whatever else was going on...he clenched his jaw and ground his teeth! Stress...anger...or drug use? Or maybe a combination of all three?

Bruxism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruxism

 

[DeeAnna]

Well, I am not a dentist, but I will answer as best I can. I have never, ever heard of any connection between dental work, root canals, and cancer. None whatsoever.
There certainly are oral cancers and dentists are trained to recognize them. But I've not heard of any dental procedure causing cancer.


Believe me, I am STILL not comfortable in the dental chair. I am old(er) and remember the bad, bad dental experiences of my childhood. One of the biggest things that I never even realized that helps to make all injections - including dental injections - so much better nowadays is disposable syringes. In the "old days" hypodermic needles were reused, again and again, after in-office sterilization. For many years now, all injections, including dental injections are given using disposable sets. So every needle is new and sharp. No more of the "dull needles" of our childhood. This makes a big difference.

Root canals: I think the reason root canals got such a bad reputation is not particularly due to pain, but more because of the length of the procedure. This procedure does take longer than just drilling out some decay. If the area to be worked on is properly numbed with Novocain - and take my advice, do NOT let the dentist start to work on your mouth if you still fell ANYTHING! Ask for another injection and go sit in the waiting room for 15 minutes until the Novocain really has a chance to set in. (Personally, I prefer to have half my tongue or my nose numbed up - then I know the damn stuff is working.) Novocain takes longer to kick in on some people, so if you are one of those still feeling any pain while in the dental chair, but you are all numbed up on the way home in the car, you need to arrive early, go in an get injected and then sit in the waiting room. Dentists know this, by the way.


As for L. Ron "dying" in the dental chair, I wonder if he might have encountered a megadose of nitrous oxide? Because many years ago (not my current family member who does not offer it) I had a dentist who used nitrous for "painless dentistry". I liked it so much that I asked him to "crank it up". He did. And I thought I had died and gone to heaven!

As for my current dentist's assessment of the L. Ron teeth shown in that video, that is not just staining, that is rot.

 

[JustSheila]

I have been wanting to see a thread about this subject for some time now.

Why? Two dentists in my family. So as you can imagine, dental health (or lack thereof) is a subject that is discussed regularly within my family ...
Anyone who can add info to "L. Ron's teeth"?

Good subject, DeeAnna.

I know of an elderly woman with advanced dementia who died as a direct result of a tooth infection. The nursing home wasn't to blame, either, as the woman was violent and refused her medications, and the nursing home had no authority to use force or restraints, or to even administer medications without consent.

We will never know how much of her violent and irrational behaviour was actually due to the toothache and infection and misassigned to dementia.

Until dentistry, people died from tooth infections far more often. The infections can travel to the ears, gums, throat, and even the brain:

A case is reported in which an intra-oral focus of sepsis is thought to have resulted in the patient developing multiple brain abscesses without the presence of lung infection or cardiac valvular disease. The link between the two sites of infection is supported by the isolation of two Streptococcus viridans species normally associated with dental caries and periodontal disease.

http://psychoticdisorders.wordpress.com/category/dental-caries/

Some people don't like drilling. I don't. They might like to know that it is possible for an expert dentist to do a root canal by hand - no drilling. After I had a tooth infection recur in the same tooth after three different root canals by different accredited dentists, I went to an old Chinese dentist. He cost nearly double what the others did, but he fixed it. After x-rays, he discovered that no dental drill could reach the entire rotted area, so he took out these tiny little grabby sort of instruments - he had about 20 sizes in his kit - and did the root canal over again by hand. There was no pain, so no anesthesia needed. It took hours, but he didn't miss a thing. That was years ago and the tooth has been fine ever since.

 

[DeeAnna]

Here's the video with the rotten teeth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L_w-YWwC1lI

c. 1967

 

[AnonKat]

"Foul breath" has been the expression, I think by Sharone Stainsforth.

 

[Mimsey Borogrove]

Hubbard lectured on a tape that when he woke up from being gassed by the dentist, he woke up in a different location in his head - it was a discovery he said, that lead to epicenters. Perhaps he was afraid he'd wake up somewhere else? Mimsey

 

[afaceinthecrowd]

I've seen the "Ron's teeth" photos (stills from the video) shooped to worsen the appearance of them. I've wondered whether that was actually staining (nicotine and coffee stains) rather than rot. Maybe someone who was actually there at that time could confirm the actuality? Face? :confused2:

Wow, Panda. I never dreamed that I would someday be commenting about Hisself's teeth for "all the world to see".

As I have tried to do in the past, I'll attempt to give some "context" to my "Take", a Narrative answer and let the Folks make their own determinations from the "Tiles to the Mosaic" I lay down.

My parents were born 4 years after El Ron, were Westerner "rural" and not wealthy. Their adult teeth as I recall them from my childhood in the '50's (they were in their mid to early 30's) were representative of the era they grew up in...noticeable gold and silver fillings, bridge work (functionally but not aesthetically done), staining (they were not tobacco users) and somewhat crooked. As I know now, they had receding gum lines from periodontal disease. Their breath (and that of their parents) was often odorous and they smelled "Old".

I received fairly adequate dental care while I was growing up and, unlike my parents and sibs, was blessed with fairly straight teeth and abnormally hard enamel (I've had two cavities in my life, one in a baby tooth and the other in an adult molar). I say all this to "foreshadow" the following.

El Ron's teeth had dental work that was obviously of my parent's era. More so, Hisself's teeth were very stained and in need of much attention and competent restoration work. Like most folks of my Parents and Hisself's Era, El Ron most likely had Periodontal Disease. I didn't notice any obvious abscesses but, needless to say, I never looked inside El Ron's mouth while Hisself said, "Ahhh". Hisself's breath was, depending on the time of day, sometimes unpleasant to just plain foul. It was obvious that Hisself smoked heavily and, although El Ron never had "BO" that I noticed, Hisself often smelled "Old" like my Parents and Grandparents. At it's worse, El Ron's breath wasn't something you'd not notice unless you were within a few feet or less from it...Most folks never got that close to El Ron that I saw...Only the Pers staff and family. On the other hand, pretty well all of the Ship's Physical Quarters and areas had "Halitosis" and "stank", as well as many Crew.

The condition of El Ron's teeth was one of my WTF's. I knew Hisself could, at that point in Hisself's life, afford first quality dental work but, for some reason, El Ron chose not to. I think part of Hisself's dental problems might have been genetic. Diana had extremely "soft" teeth and by her early twenties had been through restorative/cosmetic dental work, including "painting" of her badly discolored teeth.

Mary Sue had pretty much OK teeth, as I recall, and was, IMO, not "blind" to Hisself's dental condition...on several occasions she commented to me that I was lucky to have such "nice, pretty teeth".

Many of the Crew on the Apollo had significant dental issues...backwater Ports, far less than minimal medical/dental care and, save for a severe emergency, only those that had some personal funds could get dental work done. There were many "WTF's" for me during my first months on the Apollo but the condition of a significant number of the Crew's teeth was a biggie. I had never on a regular basis been around so many people with so many obviously severe dental problems...some of them to the point that I personally found it quite disturbing and felt badly for them and how much they must be suffering. I shudder to this day recounting this...I pray that, wherever they are today, they've received competent corrective care.

Bottom line, I've been around folks from El Ron's Era, and on the Apollo, with worse teeth, breath and odor than Hisself. But, I've never been around anyone with even a 10th of Hisself's resources and Public Persona with such awful looking teeth.

Face

 

[apple]

Looks like whatever else was going on...he clenched his jaw and ground his teeth! Stress...anger...or drug use?

His bottom teeth are worn down and some cavities. Probably poor diet, smoking, drugs, acidic body, hereditary, grinding his teeth, eating sugar, poor maintenance.

 

[DeeAnna]

So it was nitrous oxide for L. Ron:


"In 1938, John Campbell, the editor of Astounding Science Fiction magazine, persuaded Ron to try his hand at science fiction. The result was successful and Hubbard's stories in this genre began to appear regularly, alongside his regular adventure stories and westerns.

During this same year, there is a curious story about Hubbard. He apparently began to tell friends that he had written an important book, called Excalibur, which he claimed would have a greater impact on people than the Bible. He seemed quite excited about this book. He told his wife that it would earn him a place in history. Yet, strangely, no one ever saw the book.
Hubbard claimed that the first six people who read the book were so overwhelmed by its contents that they went out of their minds. He claimed that the inspiration for the book came from an out of the body experience he had under nitrous oxide while at the dentist. To prevent any more casualties, he claimed to have the book safely hidden. Although Hubbard would mention this book from time to time, its existence has never been proven."

http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~dst/Library/Shelf/wakefield/us-02.html


Oh, forgodsake. The asshat got high on nitrous and thought he had an out of body experience? Yeah, him and thousands of dental students.

 

[HelluvaHoax!]

..

Funny that there is an entire thread about L. Ron Hubbard's teeth! LOL

And remarkable that someone with atrociously bad teeth feels that they should lecture others with such scriptural gems as:

The precept "Take Care of Your Teeth"

The precept "Be of Good Appearance"

The policy "The public knows us by our MEST"
​

I would assume that if Scientologists were surveyed about why Hubbard's teeth looked hideous, the number one answer would be something like:

"Because Ron was so completely OT and exterior
that he didn't have any attention on his meat body."
​

That brings up another question. Why do Scientologists feel the need to use the word "meat" as adjective? Is there some other kind of body that exists? Oh yeah, I just remembered. Saying "meat" body is like saying "on this planet". It demonstrates that the speaker has an expansive and omnipotent view of life--confirming how OT they are.

If you listen to Scientologists, you can learn an embarrassing amount about them because their speech is densely embedded with so many tells of wishful thinking, delusion and megalomania.

​

 

[phenomanon]

Nobody asked me, but I'll tell you anyway.
In the 50's LRH's teeth were stained and somewhat crooked.
In the 60's, LRH's teeth looked more stained and somewhat crooked.
In the 70's, his teeth were rilly discolored and more crooked.
In the 80's, he died.

 

[HelluvaHoax!]

Nobody asked me, but I'll tell you anyway.
In the 50's LRH's teeth were stained and somewhat crooked.
In the 60's, LRH's teeth looked more stained and somewhat crooked.
In the 70's, his teeth were rilly discolored and more crooked.
In the 80's, he died.

That's helpful! LOL.

So that takes us through the 80's. Does anybody have a more recent update on the condition of Ron's teeth?