Darren Wilkinson didn’t go to the dentist for almost three decades – and that had bad consequences.
51-year-old Briton Darren Wilkinson from Sheffield was so afraid of the dentist that he didn’t go there for 27 years. That had bad consequences. His wife kept trying to get him to an appointment. “I tried for years to have him registered with the dentist, and finally I was able to book an appointment,” his friend Mel told Mirror.
“There was a massive shadow on his x-ray, a black hole in the middle of his face and the dentist said he had never seen anything like it,” she says of the appointment.
His dental problems were already so advanced that he regularly found blood on his pillow when he woke up. His girlfriend repeatedly complained that he had bad breath: “I just thought he wasn’t brushing his teeth properly.”
Because he had not been treated by the dentist for almost three decades, the 51-year-old grew a tumor called ameloblastoma in his head. The Brit got sepsis and needed a total of six emergency operations.
“Getting the diagnosis was absolutely terrible. He wasn’t allowed to eat anything solid because his jaw was so thin in some places that he would only break,” said his girlfriend, adding: “I took him to the hospital and drove away – it was the longest and most bleak day of my life. “
Wilkinson is back home now. But his everyday life is anything but simple: “If I look into his mouth now, I can clearly see the exposed metal plates, wires and the dead bone.”
To rebuild his jaw, Wilkinson is now planning to have a transplant from his lower leg bones.
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