True gross dental story!!!

A patient came in yesterday, the reason being that she chipped her tooth. She brought the piece in wrapped in some cellophane wrap. I can never get over why so many people do that! Its not as if we can do anything to it or with it. It fell off for a reason!! Unless its a crown or made of gold or porcelain, the general public are far better off just throwing it away.

Well, I had the initial examination and did not find any of her teeth to be missing a piece. She carefully unwrapped the piece and showed it to me saying, "I bought a cake from (insert grocery store name here), It had almonds in it and I thought it was an almond but I had a look at it and it was a piece of tooth! So I relaly need to get it fixed as it is quite large. I carefully examined the facing (also known as veneers) whicha ppeared to be made out of composite (white filling material) It was quite large and possibly coming from one of the central incisor teeth. I turned it around and it had traces of brown decay on the uneven side which joins the tooth. This was probably the reason why it fell off in the first place.

I had a second long look at her before slowly telling her, " I don't quite know how to say this but ... this is a lost piece of filling ... but it is definitely not from one of _your_ teeth." She looked up in a silent scream before choking out, " And I used my toothbrush to scrub it and everything!!!!"

Ick this is definitely one of the yukkiest cases I have seen. Perhaps the lady was better off not bringing the piece in? Ignorance is bliss sometimes. Not sure if that grocery company will do anything for her if she chooses to bring it up.

Anyway here is a picture of Magic with his bandana just to detract from the yukky story.