A woman pulled her own tooth out with pliers and replaced it with a fake one she bought for £2 on the internet due to a lack of dental appointments in her town.
Helen Sheen, said she was forced to take the course of action after her dentist closed two years ago and she could not find another one nearby that would take her on.
The 61-year-old suffers from gum disease and said one of her teeth started to come loose forcing her to take matters into her own hands.
During the pandemic the gran purchased a glass tooth from online shopping platform Wish for just two quid.
Helen, from Scarborough, said: “I have bleeding gums every time I clean my teeth and it’s making me not want to clean them as I hate the taste of blood and all my teeth are getting wobbly.
“One in front was so wobbly it had to come out as I couldn’t eat with it so I put Elastoplast on the end of the pliers and tugged it out.”
Ms Sheen said this left her with a big gap in her bottom row which she decided to tend to with glue and a fake tooth she bought from Wish, according to YorkshireLive.
“The only thing I could think of was melting glue and moulding it into the gap. It’s been two years now,” she said.
“It’s working okay, I can actually smile without seeing a gap.”
Ms Sheen’s case is one of thousands that highlight the current lack of NHS dentists across the country.
The British Dental Association said over 38 million appointments have been lost since lockdown, and oral health inequality is set to widen.
The unprecedented backlog has left dentistry “hanging by a thread” with many dentists looking to change careers or seeking early retirement.
On January 25 NHS England pledged an extra £50 million for dentists to provide additional urgent care for NHS patients.
Funding will be available until the end of March and will be paid on a sessional basis.
“Any additional funding is long overdue recognition of the huge backlogs facing NHS dentistry” said General Dental Practice Committee Chair Shawn Charlwood.
“After a decade of cuts a cash-starved service risks being offered money that can’t be spent. Hard-pressed practices are working against the clock, and many will struggle to find capacity ahead of April for this investment to make a difference.
“Until today not a penny of the government’s multi-billion-pound catch-up programme had reached dentistry. This is progress but must be just the start if we are to rebuild a service millions depend on.”
When Ms Sheen was asked whether she would continue to try and get an appointment, she said no.
“I’ve given up trying.
“I’m 61, so let’s hope the rest of my teeth will be with me till I die.”
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