No really. I thought it was a joke at first.
Just the other day I had a gentleman turn up at my surgery for the first time with one of his front teeth missing. When I asked the obvious ‘what’s happened’ he said that his own dentist extracted the tooth but forgot/didn’t bother to replace it with a temporary tooth at the extraction appointment!
I have to say both myself and Victoria my assistant looked at each other and were too shocked to speak! (not for long -ed)
Now, I’ve had plenty of patients walk into my office with front teeth missing over the years but
- most frequently the tooth has been knocked out in an accident
- they walk out with a tooth in place where there was none before.
I find it utterly amazing that in the developed world in 2008 someone can walk into a dental office with a tooth (albeit a wobbly one) in place – and walk out with no tooth at all!!
Suffice to say, despite there being no time in hand to sort this problem out – we had a ‘working’ lunch – we had a new tooth built from scratch and glued into place in less than an hour.
Once the gum has healed where the tooth was extracted we will be putting an dental implant tooth in as a permanent solution.
Had the patient come to Winning Smiles, it may well have been possible to put the implant tooth in at the same time as the extraction. Unfortunately a few days late is too late, as the gum grows down into the socket making immediate implant placement impossible.
OK Rant over!