The Side of Tooth Loss Nobody Talks About | 21D TV

Added: 2026-05-25

[00:00:01]Quiet man Dan.

[00:00:03]He doesn't like to say stuff. Apparently he's shy of getting in front of the This is the second time you've been in front of the camera. For a guy who doesn't like being in front of the camera, you're doing pretty well, Dan.

[00:00:13]>> [laughter] >> Yeah. I mean I said I said to Paul before um you called me and I went for me dinner and went I need you on a camera. He's like No.

[00:00:23]>> [laughter] >> I'm very persuasive. And a lie and I went Maybe.

[00:00:30]>> [laughter] >> And here we are. And here we are. Here we are. So when was your correction?

[00:00:34]June 2025. Coming up on a year now.

[00:00:38]You don't mind me asking. How old are you? 33. 33. Now, I get asked this question all the time.

[00:00:47]Which is how old I I never get asked the question how young. Young. Yeah.

[00:00:55]And here's the sad truth of the matter.

[00:00:58]This disease is indiscriminate.

[00:01:01]Now luckily we don't really see it rear its ugly head until people are into their 30s and 40s. So we don't see it in 20 year olds. We definitely don't see it in kids.

[00:01:14]But at 33 tell me how you felt when you Did you know you were going to lose your taste?

[00:01:22]At some point.

[00:01:24]How did you know? When did you know? I had an accident. We've talked about Paul. I had an accident when I was a kid, 13.

[00:01:30]Um and then from then I was I pretty sure everyone had the shame, the fear.

[00:01:37]Yeah, but the shame. Tell tell me about the shame.

[00:01:40]It's just So you just feel like something's wrong with you.

[00:01:47]You felt that.

[00:01:48]>> Yeah.

[00:01:49]And then you hide from it.

[00:01:51]The problem's No one's telling you about the problem. The problem's not there.

[00:01:55]And the dentist every time you go so there's always a problem there.

[00:01:59]Come back in 6 months.

[00:02:01]What were they expecting to happen? I don't know.

[00:02:05]And then Back in 6 months. Wow. You just have to stop going. I did. Stop going.

[00:02:10]And then I only went when it was a severe issue. How severe? Like I needed a tooth pulling because that was the tooth missing and it's just a root left.

[00:02:19]And then they'd go over You just let that happen. Yeah. Because you just didn't want to face up to Like what what state I was in.

[00:02:28]Um Wore a partial denture from 13.

[00:02:32]They're great, aren't they?

[00:02:35]Aren't they? Just the most wonderful things that a human being has ever invented. Never took it out at night.

[00:02:40]Every time I went to the dentist, got told you must take it out at night and you're going to lose bone and blah blah blah. So I stopped going cuz if you're not telling me, doesn't exist. Yeah.

[00:02:51]To the point where I went I didn't have enough of this now. What was that point where you went I've had enough? What was it? What was the trigger? What was the final final trigger?

[00:03:00]Because as a few people have said and a few people we speak to every day say the anxiety and depression really got to me and I went Pills are great.

[00:03:11]Not really helping.

[00:03:13]Let's look at the root cause.

[00:03:16]This is one of my big root causes. One of your big ones. Yeah.

[00:03:21]Um self-confidence growing up.

[00:03:24]Shot completely.

[00:03:26]As we've talked about before, growing up from 13 foundation of who you are as a person Correct.

[00:03:33]>> kind of just wasn't there for me. I was the quiet guy in the back.

[00:03:37]Um So yeah, I thought, well reach out, see if you can help.

[00:03:42]From there obviously everything went great.

[00:03:46]And now I'm doing things like in in therapy for social anxiety and Got me on bloody video.

[00:03:54]>> [laughter] >> I see you're on YouTube. Brilliant.

[00:03:57]>> Here I am.

[00:03:57]Um Yeah, um my missus my missus has got me eating greens.

[00:04:04]So, well done, Rachel.

[00:04:07]Um Yeah, so it's good. It's How do you feel about you now?

[00:04:12]A lot better. A lot better.

[00:04:14]>> there.

[00:04:15]Um Every day is better.

[00:04:18]Honestly.

[00:04:19]I mean, you are front-facing. You actually speak to people.

[00:04:24]That's your job. Yeah.

[00:04:26]Tell us what >> you.

[00:04:28]>> [laughter] >> But you're really good at it. That's what I hear from everybody. Yeah. It's like you you you literally want to communicate, really, and you do communicate really well.

[00:04:40]But also, the other word I heard from the team and from some of the patients, really genuine, isn't he?

[00:04:47]See, that's naturally permeating out of you. And I just can't imagine for 20 years that it wasn't.

[00:04:55]That's the weird thing for me. I see you all on the other side, I can't imagine from the stories that you could possibly have been a recluse.

[00:05:04]Complete >> [laughter] >> Are you not just naturally? I would never have had you down as the quiet guy. Never, not in a month of Sundays.

[00:05:16]Are you the quiet guy at the back now?

[00:05:19]More middle. Middle. Quiet guy at 12 middle.

[00:05:22]I'm coming I'm coming for >> [laughter] >> Coming for Gillian.

[00:05:26]BJ.

[00:05:27]Come on, talk to me, Gillian. Well, I had my surgery back in May 24. Wow. So, that's quite a while ago. Um yeah, and what can I say? It actually um had such an impact on me because it took away a great deal of misery.

[00:05:51]Um I can relate to what [music] uh Dan was saying about, you know, the childhood accident. Yeah, I was 10 and I fell off 15 ft off a wall and broke my teeth.

[00:06:02]I had a denture from age 10 to 18.

[00:06:05]And then I had a succession of bridge work.

[00:06:09]And uh yeah, had to live with it, but it was always always there, constantly.

[00:06:17]This >> In your mind.

[00:06:19]Yeah.

[00:06:21]In my mind because, yeah, funnily enough, you know, family and friends were like, "What are you talking about?"

[00:06:26]And then then they would look closely at my teeth and go, "Oh, yeah, get that."

[00:06:30]But I just have this, you know, the the reme- the memory of the trauma as a as a teenage girl.

[00:06:37]And this hideous tooth on a plate that would have the habit of falling down at the most inopportune moment, you know, when the guy that you fancy is sort of trying to build up to ask you out for a date and then >> [laughter] >> the tooth drops and oh my god, the agony.

[00:06:53]>> funny at the time. But it was awful. It was, yeah, and it was a lifetime of basically And there were times when the bridge work looked okay.

[00:07:03]The teeth were okay, but then one when the gum disease really hit in my 40s and 50s, the obviously, you know, the teeth were looking long, they were getting loose.

[00:07:15]The whole the last bridge I had was really like a suspension bridge. It was literally hanging on by a whisper.

[00:07:23]And it was a struggle because I just kept getting told, "No, you know, we can't do any more bridge work. You're going to have to have dentures. We'll start off with taking a few out."

[00:07:34]Well, >> Yes, uh one private dentist did say, "Mm, well, you really haven't got the bone, so we could look at doing bone grafts and they quoted me over 50,000 pounds. Mhm. And at that point I just went home from that surgery dentist surgery just crying. I don't know how I drove home because I was just thinking what am I going to do? I've got to have no teeth and I and the thought of going back to that trauma of a denture after that childhood I just thought no, I can't I can't do that.

[00:08:09]And then >> [music] >> I found you. Yeah, but you see what you're telling me now.

[00:08:14]Did you ever tell them what you're telling me now about the trauma, the emotional and mental trauma to you of wearing a denture?

[00:08:23]Um, I did mention it to one dentist.

[00:08:26]>> Did you mention it or did you tell them like you're telling me? Well, perhaps I wasn't as emotional then with them, but I told them matter-of-factly that no >> You weren't as emotional because you didn't feel like you could be. I yeah, I don't think I was listened to basically or understood.

[00:08:44]They just told me you haven't got enough bone. One what you know, actually the the dentist that was absolutely wonderful, he was like a unicorn among dentists. He really worked hard with me.

[00:08:55]He got me into the dental hospital and they did the gum surgery the treatment as far as they could. He got me to the stage where they did the last bridge.

[00:09:04]And he was amazing and but I was having to go literally every 3 months for keep the cleaning up.

[00:09:10]And he said to me don't let anybody tell ever tell you that you can have implants because you haven't got the bone for it.

[00:09:18]Do you know how many people that are probably watching have been told that?

[00:09:22]Mhm. Yeah, they've been told that. Or sinus lifts. I was told about sinus lifts and lots of people are told about sinus lifts as well, aren't they? Show me the proof. Mhm. I I'm I'm an obvious guy.

[00:09:33]I want numbers.

[00:09:35]Okay? You haven't got enough bone.

[00:09:37]Sounds like shitty opinion, not facts.

[00:09:42]What it doesn't sound like is the measurements that we live by.

[00:09:46]So, we wouldn't say you haven't got enough bone unless I can go look at the measurements. It shows you don't have enough bone. You need 4 mm in width and 8 mm in height and you across 40 mm and you haven't got that.

[00:10:03]Not you haven't got enough bone.

[00:10:05]That's just some woolly What are you basing your measurements on? Yeah, and the great thing was, you know, I came to you.

[00:10:15]You I had to wait, I think, 10 days or 2 weeks to actually get to go through further planning and get the yes, [music] but you found a way to do it and for that I'm eternally grateful.