Anatomy Atlas Part 9 – Mouth


I hate having to have teeth. Intelligent design my ass – two sets for the whole life and even with modern technology nigh impossible to keep clean and free of cavities. And I am one of the few lucky people who at the age of 40 years has all 32 teeth and only four fillings despite indulging in sweets  a lot. I dread the day when I will have to have one of my teeth to be pulled out. Two of the four filings are in one tooth, the likely candidate for this lovely process.

Content warning – description of a bungled medical procedure.

Mouth anatomy

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

When it came to mouth Professor Kos had a very sad story to tell. It involved his brother, who had the misfortune of having impacted wisdom tooth that had to be removed. And the doctor who did that task was not a dentist, but a surgeon, who approached the thing in a surgeon-like way – he cut through he left cheek and removed the tooth from there.

However he made a mistake – he did not manage to avoid parotid gland and he cut into it. The constantly flowing saliva prevented the healing of the cut having to have drainage in his left cheek constantly. Then the surgeon decided to remove the gland on this side of the face completely, thus his brother ended up disfigured for life.

Professor Kos was very angry and agitated when he told this. He concluded that a surgeon as incompetent as this has no business operating on people and should have his licence revoked. I agree.

Comments

  1. voyager says

    What a terrible story! I had all 4 of my wisdom teeth out at once and the whole mouth was healed up in about 10 days.

  2. avalus says

    AARRGH! My dear, what a horrible story!

    I am so glad for my doktor. My wisdom teeth-cuts healed in a week. But the chrunching sounds while operating, that is nightmare stuff. As are false teeth for me. Glass eyes? Pah, has not every grandpa one? I was used to that. But false teeth … *sivers*

  3. says

    Jesus, what a horror story!

    All of mine were badly impacted, and I was not conscious for the operation, but pieces of my jawbone had to be shaved off in order to get them out, and it was a miserable recovery. My face was so swollen, and the first night, the plugs in my uppers came out, so I woke up lying on a pillow soaked in blood.

  4. jazzlet says

    Why on earth did that ‘surgeon’ think that would be a good way to remove a wisdom tooth? Crazy.

    I only have three wisdom teeth, and was told at my last check-up that there is some decay on the one with no ‘pair’. Apparently this is not uncommon where there is one as the action of the teeth against each other cleans them to an extent. I am now assiduously cleaning that tooth as it will have to come out if the decay gets too bad.

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