Dental Rejuvenation on The Doctors

Doctor, doctor, give me the news.

My teeth have been decaying since I was a little girl. I have at least seven teeth that should have root canals. My teeth have been decaying so bad that some teeth cause pain in my jaws. It shoots through my head and I just start feeling nauseous. Most dentists I have been to think that my teeth became bad when I was young and I had lots of medications recently. This year, I was just picking at my teeth because they hurt. And out of nowhere, tooth just crumbled in half. And I just sat there for hours and just cried and cried and cried. It hurts when my daughter's like, why are your teeth so bad, mommy? Like, why are your teeth falling out? I always feel hopeless about this. I don't have the kind of money to fix it. My biggest dream of my entire life is just to have a perfect smile, nice straight teeth, no pain would just mean everything to me. I think it would change my entire life.

And here to help us explain what's going on with Danielle's periodontist, Dr. Sanda Moldovan. Thank you so much.

Thank you for having me.

Let's first talk about the emotional toll that clearly this is taking on Danielle and I'm assuming so many other people out there.

Yeah, Travis, I really agree with you. I think the problem is with teams, teenagers, especially in early 20s, what we see is that they feel ashamed. And I see a lot of girls walking around with bad teeth covering their mouth. They don't want to smile. They don't want to go out in public. They don't want to be social.

Well, I'm sure it's with guys too, but especially with women, physical appearance, you know, really plays so much into your self esteem, whether it's your smile or your hair. I mean, we just, you know, all of these things just really affect a woman's self esteem. And they found out in the US that 55% of people say it's one of the most important things in physical appearance.

And a lot of people make the assumption when they see someone with poor dentition that, you know what, they just don't take care of themselves. And I think I want to focus on this because just because someone has poor dentition does not mean they've done anything wrong. Let's talk about what could be causing this for Danielle and so many other people out there who have poor dentition despite maybe doing all the right things.

I agree with you. Oftentimes we see these problems, Lisa, starting as early as during pregnancy and could be due to antibiotic Use could be due to malnutrition, oftentimes or even severe illness as young babies.

It's actually very important in pregnancy because there's one especially tetracyclines, that we absolutely do not prescribe during pregnancy because we know it's associated with dental abnormalities later on.

Yeah. You know, a few years ago, a study came out that showed that kids when they were young babies between ages 6 and 3 months, if they were on a certain antibiotic, it tended to double the risk of tooth and animal problems later on in life. And it kind of reminds us that you got to be careful with any medical treatment, has potential for a rare side effect like this. And you need to make sure you use antibiotics appropriately when they're necessary and not use them when they're not necessarily.

And that was a study of the antibiotic that's typically used for kids who.

Have ear infections, which is very common.

We know, quite commonly used. So is this just one more thing to ask yourself, you know, what do I really need? Or does my child really need that antibiotic?

Yeah, that's a really good question. Parents should always be asking. And I always encourage my patients. You know, if you're coming into the doctor, don't ask for antibiotics. Ask almost ask for the opposite. Ask the doctor, do you really think I need these? Because I'm kind of hoping I don't. And, you know, if the doctor feels the freedom to not give them, you will get better care and the doctor will probably sit down and talk to you, you know, why you don't need them or why you do need them, and go from there.

It's important to note that just because you have an antibiotic when you're a child, that doesn't mean you're going to end up with tooth a day. It's just there's an association. So let's move on here. And you take someone like Danielle, who's just obviously devastated by this, whether it was due to antibiotics when she was young. What are some things you can do to help prevent tooth decay from getting to this point?

Well, I really think prevention should start during pregnancy. And nutrition plays a big role, I think, in the development of teeth and enamel.

Absolutely. What a woman puts in her body goes into her baby and makes up everything. There's a lot of responsibility on women. You know, that's why we say you need this much calcium. It's very important for women to know exactly what they need to be eating and what kind of things they need to be doing during pregnancy for their baby.

Teeth are a little different than other parts of our bodies. If you have a bone and it's constantly remodeling, once your teeth come in, the enamel's formed. If you lose that enamel, it wears away. It's not coming back, right?

It is not coming back. That's true.

That's why this is.

But also for new mothers, because I actually went through this with my son Daniel. I mean, even as much as I knew with the bottle, I mean, he still lost teeth because of sugary things in the bottles. And you have to be very, very, very careful. He actually ended up having some of them removed and had a thing put in.

Yeah, just the rubber nipple can wear the teeth down. And what's in the bottle? Juice, even milk has sugar in it. And if you're going to bed with a bottle like that, you don't want to do that, because then that sugar sits on the teeth all night long.

So first things first. Prevention. But the good news is there is hope. And up next, the medical transformation that you don't want to miss.

My teeth have been decaying since I was a little girl. I don't feel good. I don't feel pretty. I'm so scared they're just going to continue to fall out and rot. My biggest fear is that in the next 10 years, I'll have no more teeth.

That was Danielle, who's been living with an employee, embarrassing smile, and countless dental issues her entire life. We actually sent Danielle to periodontist Dr. Sanda Moldovan to find out what could be done to fix her teeth once and for all.

We're so excited today because Danielle gets dental rejuvenation procedure, and she's gonna have a completely new smile. I'm gonna start getting you numb. You feeling mellow? We're all done with the anesthetic, so Dr. Malkin is getting ready to start shaving back the teeth. Daniel's teeth have quite a bit of discoloration and cavities. So I'm going to remove all this infected tooth structure. This dark area is decay. Now it's pretty much done. So now there's enough space to put new crowns over her teeth, except for this little guy that Dr. Moldovan is going to remove. So I will be doing a little bit of tapping around this tooth, gently detaching the muscle attachment. Ah, here it is. Nice long root there. You could see the dark infection. So this part right here was sitting deep inside her jawbone, causing her pain. And the implant itself is made out of pure titanium. And this part will actually integrate with her bone, and she'll have it forever. And there she is, like nothing happened. So this is an impression material. Now it's set, so I'm going to remove it. So we're just finishing up Danielle's procedure. Everything went perfect. And Dr. Malkin delivered some beautiful prototype temporary smiles.

So that procedure Danielle had was just yesterday. And like Dr. Moldovan just said, she has not seen her new smile. We covered all the mirrors in her hotel room, in the bathroom. We had her wear a surgical mask everywhere she went. So she hasn't seen it, neither has anyone else. We even covered the mirrors in our dressing rooms here at the studio. So Danielle and you are about to literally see her teeth for the very first time. But before we bring her out, I do want to introduce you to her mom, Jacqueline, and her four year old daughter, Tuesday, who both came today.

Hi there.

Tuesday. Are you excited to see your mom's new smile?

Oh, I bet.

Yeah.

Are you all ready to see Danielle's new smile? I want to remind you all of Danielle's old smile because this transformation is truly amazing. Are we ready? Danielle, Come on out.

I haven't seen it.

I know, I know, but sounds fantastic.

Are you ready?

Yes.

Yes.

Oh, my goodness.

Cute. Oh, my God.

I can't believe this. This is amazing. I've never.

I'm so glad you love it.

I've never had a pretty smile. Thank you so much. My daughter is beautiful. And now I'm glad to see her smile.

Let's show everyone with this animation exactly what you were doing there during this procedure.

So what we did, we actually ended up taking the tooth out. And what you see going in is the implant itself, which is made out of titanium. And on top of it, there's, there's a zirconia abutment or neck, into which the crown gets screwed on. And I want to thank definitely Dr. Malkin, who's here in the audience today. She put 19 crowns on Danielle's teeth.

Wow.

And also I want to thank Nobel Biocare for donating the implants. And also at the Beverly Hills Dental Lab, who donated all their work so she could look so beautiful.

All right, so let's see your smile. Before, 24 hours ago, this was your smile compared. Dr. Morvaughn, great work. Thank you both so very much. Enjoy your new smile. Daniel.