It was a quite dull morning in the blistering cold winters of Victoria. The southern winds blew strong into the skins, giving chills that ran down the spine. Tucked into their winter coats right up their neck, wrapped around with silk mufflers they waited for the 6 a.m. train to arrive. It was a Wednesday morning, just another busy day of the week in the states of Melbourne. Occupied with their unvarying daily errands, everyone was eager to get themselves onboard on that train at the break of dawn.
Damaries, a petit 60 year old medical nurse was onboard the train that morning. Seated comfortably at the corner of the train carriage, she was half asleep while waiting for her station to arrive. She suddenly woke up with a streak of sharp agonizing pain on her left side of her face. She looked up, and saw a young fairly built individual swinging his arms against her, she tried to avoid but the guy kept assaulting her without mercy until she was beaten down to the floor. Damaries vision blurred, she passed out. She woke up in a hospital, her face badly assaulted. She had suffered a fractured jaw and multiple abrasion wounds all over her Left side of her face. She had injured her facial nerve due to the impact and had completely lost her sensation over her Left side of her face.
Damaries was terrified of what happened to her. It took her 10 months to recuperate physically and mentally, but the assault incident had caused her to loose most of her bottom teeth, and all of her upper teeth. She had to now survive without having much teeth left to eat with, and also adapt to her new dental environment. The doctors had given her options to get her dentures done, but she wasn't very happy with them.
Damaries started to google up dentists that offer reconstructive dental procedures. She figured that she needed a makeover. Through a recommendation from a friend and after visiting our website, she decided to fly down to Malaysia for a holiday and to get her dental treatment done here. Upon arrival in Kuala Lumpur, she paid us a visit the very next day. She poured out her heart contents and expressed her disappointment of not being able to eat, chew or taste food properly since the incident took place almost a year back. We paid full attention to this poor aged woman, petit in size and having shown signs of undernourishment and fatigue. We knew we had to instantly do something to get her to be able to chew again normally.
lost of facial texture and muscle support on the Left side
Protrusion of lower jaw to compensate loss of teeth over time
A thorough examination was done, with a full mouth dental inspection from extraoral and intraoral point of view. She had only 11 teeth left in her mouth, out if which 2 of them were extremely mobile and suffered severe bone loss, causing them to undergo gum recession. The remaining teeth had over erupted over the past 1 year as there were no opposing upper teeth.
She had a vague smile line, showing her lower teeth which seemed protruding out in an awkward manner. She was not happy about this, and it often caused her ulcers as a result of lip biting from her front teeth.
Protruding lower front teeth which are not aligned properly
A full mouth image was recorded, to paint the full picture of what she was actually having to deal eith everyday, and what we were about to face in order to design a beautiful set of fully functional teeth for her. We knew at this point this was not going to be an easy case, and we had some work to do !
A good and precise treatment plan was done for Damiries. The aim of the treatment was to give her :-
1. Good dentition, to allow her to chew food like normal
2. Align her teeth according to her jaw arch
3. Shorten her over erupted teeth
4. Replace her missing teeth
The 1st line of treatment was getting rid of the rotten redundant tooth on her lower Left jaw. It had a very poor prognosis since it was extremely mobile, over erupted, protruding forward and suffered severe bone loss. Since nothing could be done to keep the tooth in, it was best to remove it. Next, we did a full mouth scaling, removing all source of plaque and calculus surrounding the existing healthy teeth. This was followed by the use of Laser equipment. We used the ARC Laser together with Emundo dye, which was a photodynamic therapy that specifically targeted the bacteria infiltrated tissues that caused tooth mobility and gum diseases. After securing the periodontal tissues, we started designing a prothesis for her.
Finally, Damiries had her smile again. She was able to eat, chew and taste her food as before. She was overwhelmed with joy, she felt the pleasure of having a good smile, appearance and ability to even speak well.
... before and after ...
