Consuelos, meanwhile, said he was trying to make sure his wife followed her doctor’s instructions.
“She’s such a great conversationalist,” he said. “But I’m trying to keep her [compliant]. ‘Follow the rules, follow the directions.’”
By the following day, however, Ripa had apparently found a way to bend the rules without entirely abandoning them.
When Jonas asked how she was doing, Consuelos said his wife was “feeling better” and had even started “saying certain things.”
Jonas questioned whether she was actually supposed to be speaking yet.
“I don’t think so,” Consuelos admitted.
Instead, he said Ripa was managing to talk “without moving her bottom lip.”
‘This one hurts’
If being told not to speak wasn’t enough of an indication that this was no minor dental procedure, Consuelos also revealed just how unusual it was to see his wife bothered by the pain.
According to him, Ripa normally has an exceptionally high tolerance for it.
“She famously doesn’t feel pain,” he explained. “When she goes into the dentist, she doesn’t use the novocaine.”
This procedure was different.
“But this one hurts, so I know it’s bad,” Consuelos said.
Jonas compared Ripa to his wife, Danielle, who he said similarly tends to brush off pain.
“I’ll be like, ‘Are you in pain?’ She’s like, ‘I’m fine!’ Come to find out her foot’s, like, falling off,” he joked.
“Well, they do have kids. They deliver kids,” Consuelos replied. “We’re not built for that.”
As Ripa recovered, several guest hosts stepped in next to Consuelos, including Jonas, Buteau, Mila Kunis and Jenna Dewan, while viewers sent messages wishing her well.
But one major question remained: Why had Ripa needed gum graft surgery in the first place?
The habit that caused the damage
Ripa finally answered that question on the Aug. 12 episode of Let’s Talk Off Camera, revealing that the problem wasn’t poor oral hygiene.
Quite the opposite.
“I’m an over-brusher. I brush my teeth too much. It’s a good-bad habit,” Ripa told Buteau. “But I’ve caused gum recession down here specifically, and so they have got to re-gum my gums.”
Ripa’s extended absence has since run into Live’s annual summer break, with the show airing a combination of prerecorded material and previous celebrity interviews through the remainder of August.
She is expected to make her full return to the live broadcast on Sept. 8.
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