"An Illness Changed My Life, An All-On-4 Gave Me Back What I Had Lost "
It’s been a hell of a journey, you know? I’ve already told people about it. I’ve already helped others with it, like a woman came to me, she goes, “Oh, that’s a hell of a scar.” And I told her the story and she paused. She was, “My husband just had mouth cancer and they took his jaw. And so, there was nothing they could do about it.” There is. He’s got it all where to go, and can all the people.
After something that was done the first time that should have been perfect, everything went so far South. Dr. Kumar gave me my life back. It's incredible. I would say to anyone out there who has a problem with their teeth or gums.
Colin:
Ever since I had braces as a teenager, I don’t know if it was from brushing too hard, or flossing or whatnot, but over the years after the braces came off, [inaudible] you see this. And it got to a point where my teeth started moving around again. I’ve seen professionals over this and they’re like, “Oh, yeah, your teeth move around after braces. Nothing to be concerned about.” Well, it was because my teeth weren’t just moving around. They started coming out. Also, I didn’t even have a cavity when this was going on. So, this was kind of shocking, hell just seeing these nice, white teeth just coming out like, but anyway after multiple partials, and realizing that I need a solution to this, not just a Band-Aid over the problem. I looked into dental implants, and I did decide to go with full a mouth reconstruction. They had 6 implants on the top and 4 on the bottom. The 2 were in my cheekbones and I had those for about a year and a half and during which that year-and-a-half nothing really fit right. I was constantly severely biting my tongue and my breathing got bad, which is odd.
Colin:
And one night I was sleeping, and I had jumped up and I had bit my tongue, and I bit my tongue so bad that I bit right through it. I had a hole there and I went to the hospital to get stitched. When I got to the emergency room to show my tongue, they leaned me back to look into my mouth. They decided I was aspirating, and they intubated me almost immediately. So, I was there, maybe five minutes next thing you know, I am intubated, hooked up to a respirator and in the Intensive Care Unit. Apparently, I had developed acute respiratory distress syndrome, sepsis, and pneumonia.
While I was intubated, they operated on me and they removed all my dental implants, my teeth, everything, even all the bone it was attached to. They woke me up a month later. They’re talking to me. They’re like, “Hey, you were asleep for a month, Joe Biden’s president now. Alex Trebek died. Oh, we had to rip all your teeth out.” And I’m like, “What?” You know, feeling around like, “Wow, they really did.”
Come to find out the root cause analysis was the mouth became infected. The implants became infected. The infection spread to my lungs and that is what almost killed me. 110 pounds after going in at 190. I couldn’t walk, I couldn’t really speak. It was a long recovery, and I was not prepared for that. During that recovery not having anything to smile about, anything to talk about anything that you do with anything. It sucked. It was bad, it was bad. If I hadn’t dealt with Dr. Kumar and his staff and his colleagues, I would have been hopeless. I would have had no teeth for the rest of my life at 40 years old and no solutions, even go with it. It was insane.
Dr. Sadesh Kumar
I kind of felt bad for this guy, if I don’t help him, then nobody’s going to help him because he’s not an average case, not average people will take interest and time to find out how this case can be brought back. So having worked with different people, seeing different technologies, and had some experience with this kind of case, I could know. Okay, who can do this procedure, who I can refer, who I can trust then and who I can communicate. This is what we need. So, I referred him to University[?] of Miami.
Colin:
I kind of felt bad for this guy, if I don’t help him, then nobody’s going to help him because he’s not an average case, not average people waThey do surgeries where they remove people’s jaws because of cancer. But then they also restore them. They came up with a solution called the fibula-free flap. That’s when they take your fibula bone out of your leg and recreate your jaw out of it. They rebuilt my entire upper jaw with maxillary, ground up the rest of it, mixed it with morphogenic protein and created a bone graft, and rebuilt my mandible, my lower jaw with it. And then came the challenging part was designing new teeth for these new jaws. It is amazing what they did.ill take interest and time to find out how this case can be brought back. So having worked with different people, seeing different technologies, and had some experience with this kind of case, I could know. Okay, who can do this procedure, who I can refer, who I can trust then and who I can communicate. This is what we need. So, I referred him to University[?] of Miami.
Dr. Sadesh Kumar
For the next four to six months. I was following up his case, taking CT, how his bone has matured and other stuff. When you do this kind of surgery, you know, the whole mouth and soft tissue, everything changes. So, our goal, okay, we know we can place that implant, but this bone is entirely different than a regular jawbone because it’s harder than your maxillary or top jaw. You have to have certain type of technique to place this implant and secure those implants. I have to train myself to do this. So, I am also continuing my journey going side by side. Step 1, he’s getting done, what I should be looking for are certain things, because ultimately, I’m the one seeing the final results, right? And he was, you know, he has previously, it was first pushing everything. So, I have to open it up like this. We opened his bite and we brought all the steep forward. Now he’s comfortable and so we can proceed.
Colin:
After something that was done the first time that should have been perfect, everything went so far South. Dr. Kumar gave me my life back. It’s incredible. I would say to anyone out there who has a problem with their teeth or gums or what not. There’s a solution out there, you just got to see the right people. I’ve seen what happens when we’d see the wrong people and the results can be fatal. I promised Dr. Kumar and say, “Hey, when this is over, I am going to get back to living life to the fullest.” And I sure am. I definitely am. Words can’t express how grateful I am. It’s wonderful. It’s all thanks to here at Wickham Dental.
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