When you need a person,

when you need a person and they give you a nice warm smile,

it's welcoming, it's friendly, it's warm.

It feels like somebody's taking a knife up in my tooth and just grinding that knife in the middle of my tooth.

You look at a man, he has super white healthy teeth and he's like laughing his mouth and his mouth

you look into his mouth they're just like I want to be there.

There was 15 of us in our family and I didn't have a toothbrush until I was

about 12- 13 years old.

When you lose your teeth, you lose a whole lot.

A dentist drill is a sound that probably makes everybody wins, even if they have perfect teeth.

We've all been in that chair and most of us have a story to tell.

I'm Natalia Gerero and for this program I've been collecting those stories on a dental journey of discovery across the United States.

As part of the BBC World Service across the United States.

As part of the BBC World Services Money and Power Season,

I've been trying to find out if in America the state of your mouth depends on the state of your bank balance.

What I can't understand is that every year at Wise Virginia,

we pull out 4,000 teeth. And it's the same people coming every year and this will be our

20th year there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

At one extreme, there are those who can spend small fortunes in pursuit of the perfect smile.

But the US is also the country where tens of millions of people struggle to afford a dentist.

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