A woman who got her teeth new veneers has spoken of her horror when they began to crack and crumble just days later. She was hoping for a new smile - but Jade Simmons from Stockport was left in a nightmare situation.
The mum-of-three paid £1,700 for the change at a London clinic - but revealed that when she started eating soon afterwards she could hear cracking and realised her teeth were disintegrating. She said: “I was scared to eat food. Every time I heard a crack I instantly knew what it was and would burst into tears.
“I was too embarrassed to leave the house, I even started to avoid my own family because I was scared they would judge me for how bad they’d got.” The 37-year-old ended up going to her local dentist because she was unable to get the help she needed from the clinic, she claimed.
And the prognosis was not good - serious damage was discovered. She told the Manchester Evening News the dentist told her she had three fractured teeth and a nerve that was severely damaged required an urgent root canal.
Jade didn’t have the necessary funds after paying for her initial treatment at the London cliinic - and over the next three years they have been getting worse and worse. Jade said: “I didn’t want to leave the house; I wore a mask at work to keep my mouth covered at all times and I even avoided seeing my own mum out of anxiety and embarrassment.”
After years of avoiding looking in the mirror and being too ashamed of her smile, Jade decided enough was enough and filmed an emotional video explaining what had happened to her. She hoped that sharing her story might aid with her solicitor’s battle for compensation.
Her video went viral on TikTok and quickly gained more than 500,000 views, and soon after, Jade was contacted by a clinic based in Turkey. She was worried about the horror stories many have told about Turkey - but ended up paying £4,100 for a procedure at the Your Smile Turkey (YST) clinic. The same treatment would have cost £22,000 in the UK.
She is delighted at the change which was a success and said: “It’s honestly changed my life. The clinic must think I’m not grateful because even now, a few weeks after the treatment I’m still having to train myself to smile again and remind myself that I no longer have horrendous teeth. I speak to people now and feel more confident, but it’s a slow process.
“People used to think my teeth were bad from taking drugs and my own daughter said I looked like I’d been chewing rocks. It’s a difficult thing to come to terms with but when I look at my smile in the mirror now, I’m forever grateful to the clinic for completely changing my life.”
Following her successful treatment in Turkey, Jade shared a second video on TikTok with an update on her dental journey. “I’ve had so much support from people but also thousands of messages and comments saying that I’ll regret going to Turkey and that they’ll be falling out again soon, with a lot of people being very negative about it. Having my teeth done in Turkey was the best decision of my life, the clinic have done such a good job. You hear so many horror stories about Turkey teeth, but like any country there’s good and bad dentists.”