The situation got so bad that Angie Barlow lost 90 per cent of the bone supporting the teeth in her top jaw and the amount of superglue she used meant she had created the equivalent of her own dentures.
In the end dentists had to remove most of her teeth and insert titanium pins into her skull to screw false teeth onto in order to transform her smile.
Angie , 48, a professional dog walker from Altrincham, Cheshire, spent 10 years too frightened to get professional help for her teeth and resorted to DIY dentistry after losing her mother to throat cancer.
She said: “I’ve always been scared of the dentist because my mum died at 34 from throat cancer.
“She had a tooth out, and that’s how they found she had cancer.
“That fear has always been in the back of my mind… you just get your mind set and you just think, you don’t go. You don’t make that phone call.”
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| Angie Barlow fixed her teeth back in with superglue when they fell out |
Dentists who examined Angie think smoking may be the cause of the damage to her teeth which led her to resort to using household superglue to fix them.
Dr Serpil Djemal, consultant and clinical lead at Kings College Hospital, said: “It’s probably one of the worst cases that I’ve seen and certainly one, one of the worse cases of desperation, to superglue a tooth back in the mouth.”
Speaking before an operation to correct the damage Angie said: “When the tooth comes out, I just put a little bit of glue and try and hold it in place to keep it…so I don't have a gap in my teeth.
“I used glue on the top of the tooth, and then I put it back in place until the glue is set.”
She said she became reclusive because of her embarrassment and said: “I just feel so self-conscious that I don’t do, you know I don’t go anywhere really.
“Even going in the shop, I feel embarrassed, they’d be like, nudge, nudge, look at her, you know.
“Even in front of my son I’m embarrassed to like sit and have a conversation with him.
“So I’ll just turn my head away while I talk to him. Half the time I talk with my hand over my mouth.
“I know I shouldn’t really because it draws the eye even more.”
But in a new BBC documentary about teeth viewers see Angie spend her life-savings to have her smile rebuilt.
And in a cringe-worthy moment Angie pulls out her front teeth complete with superglue filler to the astonishment of private dentist Kailesh Salenki.
He said: “Really that’s a denture. She’s made herself a denture out of superglue, calculus…just having that out her mouth is going to make her mouth feel so much better.”
During the operation 11 of Angie's top teeth were extracted and 6 titanium screws were inserted into Angie's jaw with 12 new teeth permanently attached.
After the operation Angie said: “Wonderful isn’t it, I feel amazing, and there’s no hands over my mouth or embarrassment, and, the difference people have said in me, noticed in me, my friends, things like that, they’re just like, oh my God, you’re more outgoing.”
Treatment for this type of surgery costs between £6,000 and £16,000 and takes three to four hours.
(Daily Mirror)
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