Crack, Crumble, Swallow and Pay!

Andy and I were eating popcorn and watching telly on Thursday night. I love to eat the popcorn kernels that have not popped fully which are always in the bottom of the bowl. I was doing just that when I felt a kind of crack in my mouth and I took a "popcorn kernel" out of my mouth only to discover it was in fact a piece of tooth! I then felt the rest of the tooth kind of crumble and before I could do anything I had pretty much swallowed my crumbled pieces of tooth!
Eeeeeeeeew!!!!
I felt around with my tongue and then tried to see what the damage was with a mirror and from what I felt and saw it was pretty bad.
Anyhow I saw my Dentist yesterday and the bad news is I have 3 cracked teeth (two molars and one premolar all on the bottom jaw) including the now crumbled one but the good news is he can sort it out and have me right as rain after 3 weeks of intermittent dentistry including a cap on one and a bridge over the two. Fortunately dentistry is now not only aimed at repair but also aesthetics so my teeth will probably look better than ever.
I was however quite alarmed at this as I am still pretty young for this type of thing and asked the Dentist if I should increase my calcium intake. He said that while calcium replacement is excellent for bones it does not do very much at all for teeth. Weird if you think teeth are bone. Anyhow he said I must just use a toothpaste and rinse with a good fluoride in them and have 6 monthly dental visits and the big shocker.... start wearing my plastic retainer at night again. The reason for this is that I am a grinder and at night I am slowly wearing my teeth away and causing pressure which is the root cause of the cracks. He said apart from the grinding related problems my teeth are healthy so I guess that's good. Oh yuk I hate that thing but best I do it or all this expense dentistry will end up being swallowed all over again.