The Truth About... s01e06 Episode Script
Your Teeth Part 2
1 There's something rotten in the state of Britain's teeth.
Today, millions of people are living with tooth decay, gum disease, broken teeth and bad breath.
And for some people, the problem has got out of control.
We want to do something about it, So, we've set up our own special clinic in one the busiest dental hospitals in the UK - King's College Hospital in London.
Over the next six months, our team of top consultants and dental specialists will help to fix Britain's teeth.
I'm Jasmine Harman, tonight, I'll be meeting the people whose problems with their teeth are ruining their lives.
From a talented singer, who's been silenced by the look of her mouth You worry that you're going to be judged, you know? .
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to a young man whose teeth are old before their time.
You've got the teeth of a 65, 70-year-old.
I'm Dr Chris Van Tulleken.
From our clinic, I'll be investigating how the latest scientific discoveries can change the way we all look after our teeth.
'Tonight, I'll take part in a clinic trial, 'to see if brushing your teeth can add years to your life.
' Basically, in three weeks' time I'm going to be inflamed, I'm going to be a wreck.
All in the interest of science.
'I'll discover if the secret to good teeth is not about what you eat, 'but when you eat it.
' She's been stealing biscuits and hiding them down her underwear.
No! 'And I'll investigate if drinks we thought were harmless, 'are really dissolving our gnashers.
' You know, fruit tea is really acidic.
Whoa! 'Everyone who comes into our clinic will have their smile transformed.
' Oh, let's see.
Ah! Amazing.
This is the show that will fix your teeth and change your life.
I'm going to cry again.
Aw! Thank you.
This is The Truth About Your Teeth.
Today, we're back at our special clinic in the heart of London.
Is this patient here, as well? Yep.
Yep.
Our clinic will be run by Dr Serpil Djemal one of the UK's top dentists, and clinical lead at King's.
So, that's going to be quite a bit of a dilemma, which one do you sacrifice? Serpil's dedicated much of her life to fixing the nation's teeth.
So, Christine, you're looking a lot better than when I last saw you.
She'll be in charge of giving all our patients back their smiles.
Dentistry is not just about fixing teeth, it's about changing people's smiles and boosting their confidence.
How good does that look? It can have a massive impact on them for the rest of their lives, and that's what it's about.
In the UK, over the last 50 years, we've completely changed not just what we eat but when we eat it.
We're a nation of snackers and it may just be costing us our teeth.
Four out of five snacks are eaten at home, which makes it especially tough for parents.
Can you walk by the wall, please, and not on the edge of the road? So, today, the first patients to our clinic are the Finlay-Strickley family.
Mum! That one is overlapping that one.
I'm the little lady.
Mum Emma, Dad Lee, and six kids aged from 18 down to 7! Oh, my God! Hi, guys! ALL.
Hello! This way, my darling! You pop these on for me, my darling.
Their snacking could just be ruining their teeth.
Urgh, your teeth are gross! Oh, thanks.
Taking six kids to get teeth checked is no mean feat.
Have you been to the dentist before? It was ages ago.
Ages ago? Years ago.
Have you been to the dentist before? Never? Oh! X-ray.
But after eight checks-ups, eight X-rays All done! .
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and bit of dental house-keeping Are you hot? If you're hot I can cool you down a bit.
.
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it's time to reveal the state of the family's teeth.
I've never see so much enthusiasm for seeing a dentist.
It's great, they've loved it here, haven't you? Yeah! Yeah! How many teeth do you think you have as a family? I'd never have guessed.
What do you think Ellie May? All together? 100.
About About 200? Yeah, 195.
So, you've got 195 teeth as a family and 24 teeth with decay as a family.
And the key thing is that you guys, the younger crew, if you don't cut out sugar, although they've got decay in their baby teeth, they'll get decay in their adult teeth, as well.
So, you're talking about diet, is diet the most important thing? I would have thought they just need to brush more.
It's actually the diet that's the key thing, brushing is excellent and it's really important, and it helps with gum disease, but with tooth decay and cavities and holes in teeth, it's all about diet and it's about the frequency of sugar exposure.
This is a family with a sweet tooth, is that Definitely, definitely.
It's not like we're constantly eat sweets all day, we have a When they come in from school it's a dinner, it's a dessert, but in between they do, I mean, especially Billy Jean she's been caught stealing biscuits and hiding them down her underwear! No! You're going to have to lock it all away.
She actually ATE them, as well! But it is quite hard when you've got quite a few kids.
I just think, "Aw!" I don't want to be a horrible mum and say, "No.
" Especially not with Billy Jean, she's the youngest and she'll look at me like, "Please, Mummy," like I'm really, really bad.
But how do you feel now knowing that they've got decay? I feel really, like really bad now.
I think I've got to be cruel to be kind.
Yeah, yeah.
This is a really typical family is what Serpil says, and that's lovely to hear.
We all love sweets, no-one likes being lectured at, and it seems like the main thing is going to be to change the diet of this family which has a real sweet tooth.
And I think we can come up with some really fun experiments that are just going to change the way this family looks after their mouths.
So, I'm heading home to the Finlay-Strickley's home in Birmingham.
Put your seatbelts on, Billy Jean.
Who are these for? Let me take them.
Emily and Amy, you can take them.
There's some exciting research that suggests it's not only important what you eat but when you eat it.
Amy, Tommy Lee, Ellie May, brush your teeth! Tomorrow, I'll be getting them up early for a little experiment.
Onethree.
'While the kids are eating their breakfast, I'm turning their lounge '.
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into a dental laboratory.
' As soon as they've finished eating, I'm ready to start.
Today's experiment is really simple.
Every time our family eat, they are going to be pounced on by our scientists who are going to measure what's happening with the life inside their mouths.
Billy Jean, open up! We want to see how food and drink affects the little eco system that is going on in here.
Tommy Lee open your mouth look at the camera.
We need to divide into two teams.
The red team which is Billy Jean, Tommy Lee, Emma and Ellie May.
you guys get red T-shirts.
Green team - Amy, Emily and Lily Anna you all get a green T-shirt.
Right shall we get our T-shirts on? Yeah.
Both teams are going to eat exactly the same food they're just going to eat it at different times and because Dad, Lee, is at work, I'm going to join the green team.
Now for this experiment, I'm not interested in what they eat, just when they eat it and the reason why is acid.
If you've not eaten or drunk for a while, you mouth is essentially at rest and your teeth are safe.
But just after you've eaten your mouth becomes acidic and this is when your teeth begin to dissolve It takes about 40 minutes for your mouth to return back to a safe level of acidity.
'We all ate the same breakfast, 'but only the red team will be eating snacks outside meal time.
' Snacks! Billy Jean, do you normally have a sweet snack at this time of day, at 10.
30 in the morning? Tell the truth.
Remember who hides their biscuits in their underwear! The green team will have to wait until lunch for theirs.
Aw, you're making me hungry! I think that the green team got the raw deal, didn't we? Yeah, yeah.
Lunch is lovingly prepared by Emma and me.
Aw, it's not even ready.
Keep an eye on it.
I'll do toast.
Don't let it burn.
All right.
I promise.
'We're all having beans on toast.
' Who wants snacks? Me! Yeah, only green team.
'Finally, the green team will get their cereal bars and tangerines.
' 'Throughout the day, we measure the acidity in everyone's mouths 'to work out exactly how different eating times have affected our teeth.
'And we're recording it on our home-made graph.
' Ellie May and Lily Anna.
'By dinner time, we've all eaten exactly the same food, 'in exactly the same amounts.
'But the red team have snacked throughout the day 'and the green team have eaten their snacks only at mealtimes.
' 'By bedtime, we've taken over 60 measurements, and the results are in.
' So, guys, what we've drawn here is the levels of acidity in your mouth over the course of the day.
So, the green team, so we didn't have any snacks, can you see? Immediately after we ate breakfast we had lots of acid but then we had a long period of the day with no acid.
But now look at the red team.
So you guys had lots of snacks and you actually had 60% more of your time was spent with enough acid in your mouth to dissolve your teeth.
Billy Jean, you're the biscuit thief, are you going to keep nicking biscuits? You're a good liar, Billy Jean, it's quite alarming.
So, the message is pretty simple.
Avoid snacking and eat your sweet things at meal times.
But if you can't then afterwards, drink water chew sugar free gum or even eat a piece of cheese.
All these things let your teeth get back into that safe zone.
I'm just looking at the gum at the moment.
Bite together for me.
Back at the clinic, Serpil and her team are working at full pelt.
In the UK, NHS dentistry teams treat more than 15 million patients each year and two thirds of us use an NHS dentist.
But for some people the idea of going to the dentist is truly terrifying.
So much so that it's ranked number one for making people nervous, even more than heights and ten times more than a visit to the doctor's.
I'm going to meet a mum whose fear of the dentist has held her back from doing so many of the things she loves.
Hi! Hello, Samantha.
How lovely to meet you.
And you too.
'Sam and her husband Jimmy got married a few months ago.
' Oh, you look absolutely beautiful! Thank you for saying so.
You do! Doesn't she?! 'But Sam's so ashamed of her teeth, 'she's never let Jimmy see inside her mouth.
' A lot of the photographs, my mouth's closed.
I make this sort of smile, where I keep my lips together.
I feel sorry for her really, you know, cos, you know, because to have to look through all your wedding photos like we're doing and, "Oh, that picture's no good" that's awful.
I'm trying to look see at what the problem is because I can't see.
I've got an obvious missing tooth, and the top teeth, again, are very long, where the gum has shrunk.
And what's this down below? That is what's stopping those two teeth from falling in on each other.
I can't even see any gum there at all.
Uh-uh.
No, they're hanging on by a thread.
'Sam used to be a lead singer in a band 'but hasn't been on stage for years.
' It's one of the reasons I stopped singing, years ago, because it made me feel so self-conscious.
As soon as you put a microphone in front of my face, then all the focus is here.
I'm going to get all tearful now.
You worry that you're going to be judged, you know? I'm going to lose my teeth and that makes me feel helpless.
'Sam knows that if she doesn't get help, things will only get worse.
' Deep breath.
Yeah.
'A fear of the dentist has meant 'she's had no treatment for the last ten years.
' My worst nightmare is that they say, "Oh, actually, there's nothing we can do.
Sorry! "There's nothing we can do.
" You must be Samantha.
Yes.
Nice to meet you! Today, she's finally found the courage Make yourself comfy.
.
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to come to our clinic.
I'm so fearful that the pressure of the scraping, the cleaning, is going to loosen my teeth further.
And, er, I was so frightened the last time I went, the dental nurse had to hold my shoulders down cos I was shaking so much.
And I had my eyes shut and my headphones in, and I was still terrified.
Yeah, I didn't go back.
Can I just quickly ask, do you smoke at all? I do.
How many cigarettes? I smoke about seven a day, but I have smoked more heavily in the past.
'It's time for the part of the visit that Sam is terrified of.
' OK.
All right? Yeah.
So, swing your legs round.
Take a little seat.
'I think, if I had to think of one incident in my life 'that's given me dentist fears, 'when I had the four teeth out in the chair 'with injections when I was a child.
' You stop me if you need to at any point, OK? I'm starting to shaking little bit.
No, no, no, try and relax, cos all I'm doing is having a look.
'And it's given me the childhood fears again.
' OK? You're doing really well.
Really well.
'Thing is, it's worse being an adult because you know more.
All right? Yeah.
OK.
All right.
I'm OK.
'You're terrified cos you know exactly what's coming! Two mobile.
That's all.
That's all I need to do.
All right? Ah! You all right there? I'm shaking.
It wasn't too bad though, was it? No.
OK.
Try and relax.
That's it, all done.
My bit done anyway.
All right? Yeah.
After the examination it's time for Serpil to decide if she can save any of Sam's teeth.
This is what she was really worried about, the lower front teeth, and she's lost, around this lower left one, virtually all of the bone.
There's virtually no bones holding that tooth in position.
But there is a glimmer of hope.
Depending on how well you improve your cleaning, if you can give up smoking as well, you've got enough bone left around all the other teeth to make it worth trying to save them.
A lot of it is to do with what you can do to help yourself, cos what you do at home on a daily basis is probably the most important thing.
It's now up to Sam.
OK.
Come on then.
If she can makes some changes, she just may be able to save some teeth.
Hello.
What's up? You all right? How you doing? Hello.
It was all a bitscary.
There's nothing like confronting your fears head on, is there? Look at you.
If I don't laugh, I'm going to cry! That is the biggest smile I've seen on your face.
That's a bigger smile than she had in your wedding photos.
Sam was absolutely terrified today, and I think she's been really brave to take that first step.
Now she just needs to muster the courage to come back and have her treatment.
And if she can do that, then she could get her smile back and she could even start singing again, which would be amazing.
I'm just having a look at the X-ray again.
All right.
Thank you.
Bye.
So far, most of our cases have been about appearance.
Fixing bad teeth, creating the perfect smile, and giving people back their confidence.
And those things are important, but it turns out that looking after your teeth and gums could also be the secret to a longer life.
Today is actually a really big day for me because I'm joining the clinical trial that's investigating the science behind these claims.
Unfortunately, in order to join the trial, I have to give myself the early stages of gum disease.
I'll be joining a group of volunteers and we'll all be giving ourselves gum disease to see how it affects not only our mouths, but the rest of our body, too.
Just let your cheeks go really slack, don't try to open too wide.
That's good.
'The man in charge of the experiment is Professor Iain Chapple from Birmingham Dental School.
He's one of the UK's top dentists and a specialist in gum disease.
So, what we're going to do is we're going to measure the amount of inflammation in your gums, all right? This is the side that we're going to be placing the mouth guard on.
'Iain's interested in how my mouth and body changes over the next three weeks.
'He'll be looking at my gums' They look pretty healthy.
OK.
My mother will be delighted.
I'm sure she would.
'.
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what my plaque looks like' Sorry, Chris, this looks pretty gross.
Oh, no! Yeah.
Pretty gross.
'.
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and he even wants to analyse my blood.
' What do you expect at the end of three weeks? Are my gums going to be bleeding everywhere, are my teeth going to fall out? Well, we'll see, won't we?! 'And with that vote of confidence, I'm free to leave.
' Iain's given me a mouth guard that covers the teeth I'm not allowed to brush.
It's time to get started.
But within a few days, there's a side effect.
Can you smell it? I can smell it.
Sorry.
Well, it got me a little bit of space on the Tube anyway! 'And after just one week, I'm feeling pretty unloved.
' Let's see how this guy feels about my bedtime breath.
Even my cat doesn't love me.
'There are around 20 billion bacteria living in our mouths 'and every day I don't brush, 'millions of new angry bacteria move in.
'It's got so bad, I've been banished to the allotment' Ergh.
Thing is, I really hope my teeth don't fall out at the end of this experiment.
'.
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until, thankfully, three weeks are up.
' There's nothing worse than bad breath.
I must say, I am looking forward to this.
I bet you are.
The fur! 'It's time to find out just what's going on 'with all that fur on my teeth.
' OK, let's have a look then? shall we? Yep.
So, this is a sample of three-week-old plaque, and you can see there's a little bit of bleeding there, can't you? Yep.
Which just shows the inflammation.
Yeah, my gums never bleed.
No.
'My inflamed and bleeding gums are the telltale sign 'that I now have gum disease.
' So, what state are my gums in overall? So, after three weeks of the plaque build-up, what you have now is reversible gum disease.
And this is Although this is reversible, this is the early stage of it becoming irreversible.
If I left this for what - months? It would become irreversible.
Yeah.
And to see the effect of gum disease, Iain wants to show me two very different types of plaque.
OK.
So, this is healthy plaque? Yeah.
Quiet, not doing much.
Yeah.
It looks calm, it looks relaxed and there's a picture that we would expect to see from a pretty healthy mouth.
If we look at this You helpfully put a video here, yeah? Yeah.
This is bad.
That's bad, yeah.
This looks like a war zone, doesn't it? It's just chaos.
It is.
There's huge amounts of activity going on.
These bugs are flying around the place.
The whole place is a lot more active.
It's a change from health and it's not good.
And then these bugs, then, with the gum inflammation, these are the bugs leaking the toxins and maybe even getting into the blood themselves? Yes, absolutely.
Ian's research shows that these bugs causing gum disease wage a long war on our immune system and over time, can cause a host of other problems.
This disease tends to go on quietly, silently, without being recognised for many, many years.
The impact on the rest of the body, cumulatively, that sort of added impact year on year on year could be quite significant.
It's enormous.
That would be bad for your heart, it would be bad for your brain, it would be bad for your blood vessels, you know, this will hurt every single organ in you.
Yep.
And, and again, there are lots of big studies showing a relationship between severe gum disease and all of those conditions that you've mentioned.
It's amazing, in just three weeks, I gave myself gum disease.
The good news is, in another two weeks, I'll get it back to normal, once I get to my regular brushing routine.
But I think what's really interesting is, if I let that go on for months and months, not only would it cause permanent and irreversible damage to my teeth and gums, but that inflammation would spread throughout my body and THAT would take years off my life.
So, we've got enough nurses for today.
Just now, yeah.
Brilliant.
OK, let me know if there's a problem though.
I will do.
All right.
Thank you.
Over in Basingstoke, someone's been very busy with her toothbrush.
It's been two weeks since Sam discovered she has to lose her three front teeth and she's now on a mission to save the rest of them.
She's drastically changed her cleaning regime and has quit smoking.
And how have you done this week? Ten days today it is.
Ten days? This is the tenth day.
Ten days without a cigarette, which is amazing.
Quitting smoking will really help.
Studies have shown non-smokers are up to 20 times less likely to suffer from gum disease.
Well done today.
But as treatment day approaches, she's still terrified.
I want to be sedated.
That's how I'm feeling right now.
Because I don't want to be awake.
Even once I'm numb and gone through the injections and everything else, I'm not sure I can actually go through with having them pulling my Oh! I'm worried I will just get up and walk out.
And then I'lleveryall the, you know, hard work of getting in the chair and having the injections in the first place just would've been for nothing.
I'd rather just wake up and they be gone.
Hmm, you're going to be fine, cos I'm going to be there to hold your hand.
THEY LAUGH It's the day Sam's been dreading.
She and Jimmy are on their way to our clinic at King's.
This is where it's all going to happen, where you're going to come out with shiny gnashers and a bag full of confidence.
And a bag full of teeth! SHE LAUGHS Thank you! Cheers, mate.
Sam's made it to the clinic.
But she's still frightened of being conscious during her treatment.
Better than last time.
Pop your stuff on the side.
My biggest fear that I will get to the point where you're about to take them out, and I will flip, and I won't be able to go through with it.
So, I thought sedation is probably the best option for me.
The thing is, though, you'll be aware for all of ten seconds, because that's how long it'll take to take the teeth out.
So, that's what we're talking about.
But I'm so frightened, though.
I'm so frightened at the prospect of that.
Erm, my palms are sweaty just thinking about it.
I think it'd be nice for Sam to have the treatment under local anaesthetic because it'sthe treatment is quick and easy and straightforward.
She'll be able to go home and there's no recovery period.
Erm, with sedation she has to be taken home and erm, not do anything - driving a car or anything like that for the rest of the day.
But some patients are more easily persuaded than others.
If I try and do it and then you freak out and say stop, nothing lost.
No.
With a long day in hospital ahead of him, even Jimmy gets in on the act.
I'm just thinking, six seconds to take your teeth out! No.
No.
Definitely not.
Definitely not.
I've thought about it, I can't do it.
No? No.
OK.
Good try, though.
OK, are you ready? You'll feel a sharp scratch.
The sedation doesn't knock Sam out, but she's now relaxed enough for Serpil to get on with her work.
You're not asleep, are you? No.
I like my patients awake, honey.
Wake up.
I am awake.
Good.
Ready? One, two, three - open as wide as you can, my darling.
Well done.
Sam has such severe bone loss, the teeth come out in seconds.
There we go.
All done! Lovely and clean now without those teeth.
To prevent infection, she now needs a thorough clean.
Perfect, she's all done.
Sam's been at the clinic for hours and hours.
Oh, it's almost healed already.
Look at that.
Her mouth needs to recover before anything permanent is fixed but Serpil doesn't want to send her home with a gap, so she fits a temporary denture.
OK, so I'm hoping they'll be a nice snug fit.
And that it is.
Have a little peek.
Shall I hold the mirror? What do you think? They look, they look like real teeth.
Yeah! I was really worried about this bit! Thank you so much.
I'm going to cry again.
Aw.
At least now you're crying because you're happy, and it's not cos you're worried or upset.
Today's been such a big deal.
It's been traumatic, but it's had a good end result.
Smashing.
Brilliant.
Just open for me.
No mobility.
Can I just have a little feel as well? When we first set up this clinic, we asked Serpil and her team, "What are the main issues with Britain's teeth today?" And they all agreed the biggest problem is with kids' teeth.
A third of kids when they start school in the UK have rotten teeth.
I'm scared, I'm scared, I'm scared.
Mummy's coming.
We know you're scared.
You don't need to be scared.
It's going to be really easy today, OK? One of the main reasons that kids get hospitalised is to have teeth extracted.
Reem Jabry? So, our first patient in clinic today is eight-year-old Reem.
This way, please.
Right, so tell me, are any of your teeth hearting you at all? Hmm, only the like back ones.
Right.
She has the worst case of tooth decay we've seen.
So, some of these, yeah, they are quite decayed.
That one's a wobbly one at the moment so you're going to say goodbye to that soon.
Does she have a sweet tooth? Yeah.
What does she like to eat? Haribos.
Haribos? Oh, no.
What about other things she likes to eat or drink? Basically, when she was young, she used to have her bottle in her mouth.
Right, and what did she used to have in her bottle? Just normal milk.
She would sleep with the bottle.
OK.
So, a lot people know that milk has calcium in it which is of course good for our teeth.
But it also has sugar in it, which isn't.
So, a baby going to sleep at night immediately after drinking milk is a bit like a grown-up going to sleep at night immediately after eating chocolate.
Unfortunately, there's quite a large number of holes in these teeth.
We're looking at nine very, very bad teeth that we have to say goodbye to.
Yeah.
I did feel bad, yeah.
Milk can cause decay.
That's shocking.
We always know milk is a good source of calcium and it's very good for the teeth.
I didn't realise it would cause her so much damage.
Yeah.
Thanks a lot, thank you.
Bye-bye.
Three days later, Reem is back at King's for her treatment.
Big, deep breaths.
All right, Dad, do you want to give her a kiss? You're sleeping now? We'll look after her.
Thank you.
We're actually extracting 12 teeth today.
Three of them, to be fair, are wobbly ones, but the other nine unfortunately are very decayed.
Almost 50,000 kids and teenagers were admitted to hospital last year for dental cavities.
Almost half of these were 5-9 year olds.
Didn't really hurt.
Didn't hurt? You're very, very brave.
Well done.
There's Reem's tooth.
Can you see which ones have got decay on them? All of them.
They're terrible.
So, what are we going to do with the new ones? Look after them.
Yes.
Now, one of the reasons Reem's teeth were in a bad state was because of the hidden sugar in milk.
But there are hidden sugars in food you would never expect.
So, I'm going to take a look at just how much hidden sugar I eat in a day.
So, a breakfast of orange juice and fruit and fibre cereal.
And after a morning at work squeezing pipettes, I've definitely earned my lunch.
Tomato soup.
And by the time I get home for dinner Pizza and chips, because I have had a long day and I'm a rubbish cook.
.
.
It's not exactly cordon bleu.
Does it taste better than it looks? Couldn't taste worse.
So, this is all the food I ate today.
Let's see how much sugar is in it.
So, this was an unsweetened bowl of not traditionally sugary cereal, and it has the equivalent of four cubes of sugar.
The glass of orange juice I had for breakfast has the equivalent of seven cubes of sugar.
The tomato soup I had for lunch has three cubes of sugar in it.
Even the pizza has four cubes of sugar in it, and then I had a big squirt of barbecue sauce - that is another two cubes.
This is how much free sugar I've had today - 31 cubes of sugar.
It's 120 grams, and that is five times more sugar than the World Health Organization recommends that you have in a day.
The point is that there are hidden sugars in foods where you'd never expect them.
But you can reduce the amount of sugar without completely overhauling your diet.
So, let me show you some simple substitutions.
Porridge instead of cereal from a pack.
Instead of orange juice, an orange.
Instead of tomato soup, some soups like leek and potato have much less sugar in them.
Finally the pizza.
A bit like the soup, you've just got to read the pack and look at the amount of sugar.
Some pizzas have a lot less sugar than others.
With these changes, you've got only six sugar cubes' worth of sugar in your day's diet.
The good news is, you can still eat the chips.
Chips are bad for you in lots of ways, but this is programme about teeth so I don't have to tell you about that.
Can I have a little feel, as well, yeah? Are you having trouble eating? The next patient coming to our clinic is Joe, a 22-year-old lad from Uxbridge, who's confident about most things.
Yeah.
Except his smile.
I guess my teeth are the only things that's kind of holding me back.
Like they're so small and different to everyone else.
I learnt to get over it.
I'm 22 years old, I've got more important things to worry about than people's comments, but they still do affect me.
Like when they say, "What's wrong with you," and that's one thing I really don't like, is when people say what's wrong with you.
It's like, well, there's nothing wrong with me.
It's just how I am.
For a long time, his mum didn't realise how much Joe's teeth were affecting his life.
It was actually more to do with eating.
Joe had a very peculiar diet.
Very bland food.
Didn't like meat and it was ages before we realised that it was because of his teeth.
He could bite things off, but couldn't then chew it properly.
Cos it doesn't dig in very far any more because my teeth are so small.
But er Yeah.
And because they're so small, I ended up like pushing my nose back, kind of like That's right.
Breaking the skin and stuff is difficult.
When I used to eat apples, I'd sort of throw my head Do you remember? I don't know if you ever saw like that.
Just to get in there.
Oh, yeah.
Here, look.
Oh, no.
Joe's baby teeth.
Aw! It's one of those things that mothers always keep, is their kids' teeth.
Look at this.
God, they're tiny.
Yeah.
Even when you had baby teeth, they were really tiny.
Well, eventually, especially because they wore away to nothing.
But the sad thing is that now your adult teeth look like most people's baby teeth, I think.
Sort of small and spaced apart.
But you still look gorgeous.
You have to say that! Joe's desperate to fix his teeth.
So he's coming come to our clinic to see if Serpil can help.
For this to be sorted would be a lot of relief for me.
I even try and practise smiling in the mirror, just so I know I'm not looking stupid.
How long have you been aware of the shrinking of your teeth? I've noticed for a couple of years but I've never really thought of getting anything done about it.
OK.
I'm going to lie you back and have a little peep, and we can see what the problems are.
All right? Just have a little peep inside.
Left and right cheek biting.
The volume loss of tooth tissue is about 40-50%.
That's a colossal amount of tooth surface loss and tooth wear for somebody of his age.
We've seen cases like that where nothing has been done and as the patient gets older, the wear continues.
They end up with just having roots in their jawbone just at the level of the gum and they've just got a gummy smile and no teeth, and we've seen that happen.
Serpil is quick to diagnose Joe's problem.
Try and go onto these front teeth for me.
He's grinding his teeth away.
And side to side, all the way over that way.
OK, brilliant.
And over this way, all the way, and get your teeth to meet.
You're getting your mouth into all these positions when you're sleeping, cos when you bite together Bite together? .
.
they don't meet at the front.
Joe's situation is close to my heart because I clench and grind my teeth at night, as well, and I've caused a fair amount of damage to my own teeth as a result of that.
Tooth-grinding affects about 10% of the population.
It's a stress-relief mechanism and some people know that they grind their teeth at night, and other people don't know they grind their teeth.
You're grinding your teeth such that you've got the teeth of, I would say a, maybe a 65, 70-year-old.
Great.
Yeah.
That's not good news, because, I say to everyone, once a grinder, always a grinder.
And so it's going to be a combination of putting back what's been lost but also putting into place prevention, and that is in the way of a mouth guard.
And I think that you're almost going to be committed to wearing a mouth guard for the rest of your life.
OK.
All right.
A mouth guard will help, but Serpil suspects that other factors may explain how Joe's teeth have become so damaged.
What about fizzy drinks, that sort of thing? Yep, I erm What's your intake? So, I would normally drink a fizzy drink once a day, one of the small bottles of Coke, maybe once or twice a week I would drink beer or erm vodka.
With What do you have with your vodka? With a, with a, with a fizzy drink actually, yeah.
All these fizzy drinks may be exacerbating the effect of the night-time tooth-grinding.
You can see that flatness here.
But it's not all bad news.
What can be done is to actually put back what's been lost and the way we do that is by literally building up the teeth using tooth-colour fillings to bond it back on the teeth.
Joe will be back in a week's time for his treatment.
But long-term, if he wants to save his teeth, he's going to have to make some changes.
So, we all know that sugar is the sworn enemy of all teeth, but Joe's teeth are being eroded by another very potent force.
And this force is acid and it turns out there is loads of acid in a lot of what we eat and drink.
But it can get confusing, so I've come to help Joe and his friends understand what to avoid.
OK, so we've got a range of drinks on the table, and they all have more or less acidity, and I want you to put the glasses in order of most acidic to least acidic.
OK.
OK.
And don't drink them all.
OK? I'm going to leave you to it.
I think water would be a safe bet to put down here somewhere.
Yeah.
Fruit.
And then We'll stick it next to apple.
Fruit tea.
Fruit tea.
Actually, it's probably less I think that might be right because that's actually called citric acid, which is lemon juice.
You've got an order! Yeah.
OK, so you think that alcopop is the most acidic and peppermint tea is the least acidic.
OK, well peppermint tea is the least acidic, and that is correct.
Wahay! In fact, peppermint tea is the only one of these drinks that is not acidic enough to damage your teeth.
The next least acidic.
Do you want to change? I'm telling you you're wrong.
Oh.
The next least acidic is Oh, wow.
.
.
is the orange juice.
That surprised me, I was very surprised.
I thought it was really acidic.
I remember being told that it actually damages the paint on your cars.
So, the enamel on in your teeth is as hard as iron.
If it can damage the enamel of your teeth, which it definitely can, it can damage the paint on a car.
OK? Wow! Then, the water.
The lemon juice does affect it.
If you really squeeze the lemon, then you might move that up even further, but we'll just put that over there.
Then apple juice.
Apple juice is more acidic than orange juice.
No, not at all.
Then wine.
And then fruit tea.
Now fruit tea is really acidic, but it's also hot.
Boiling acid, now that feels like a bad thing for our teeth.
Doesn't sound good.
And then finally, lemon alcopops.
So lemon alcopop is about the same acidity as stomach acid.
Woo! So, really, really, really acidic.
I drink several of those on a night out.
Well, who doesn't love lemon alcopop! Oh, goodness! I don't want to be like a party pooper.
Like obviously, no-one wants to stop you enjoying your lemon alcopops, but if you're going to drink it, you can sloosh it down with water afterwards, so just rinse the mouth and dilute the acid so the acid isn't in there for a long time.
I don't need to carry my toothbrush in my back pocket all the time? So the toothbrush is really bad.
If you brush your teeth after an acidic drink, within an hour, you can actually start to brush the enamel off, because it's softened, like your dad's car paint.
You're essentially pouring acid on the car paint and then like scrubbing it .
.
with a, with a Brillo Pad.
Exactly.
And that's what you're doing to your teeth.
Right.
And finally, don't have a little bit throughout the day, that's really bad.
Literally did that yesterday.
Is that what you did? Had a little bowl of orange juice, and was sipping it through the day.
And that with the grinding, you know, you have orange juice or your fruit tea before bed, then you grind your teeth at night I might as well just chew nails.
It's a perfect storm.
Joe plucked up the courage to come to our clinic and have his teeth fixed but for many, it's not that easy.
Dentists top of the list, along with heights, spiders and snakes, as the things that most rattle our nerves.
Oh, justno.
They're just, ugh! The psychology team here at King's have told me that phobias and fears can be tackled at any age, but it's easiest when you're young.
Our next patient is someone very close to my heart.
Now, where's your toothbrush? Today, my 15-month-old daughter Joy is getting her teeth checked for the very first time.
Now's the best time to take her to the dentist, rather than waiting for a problem to develop, because she won't have any bad experiences.
If you've developed a fear of the dentist, here are a few tips to help - try not to arrive early.
The sounds, the smells, and anticipation while you wait will only add to your anxiety.
Oh gosh.
Oh, she wants to fiddle with everything.
Oh, my, don't! It's OK.
However you want to lie down, as long as I can see your teeth.
Whether you're a child or an adult, you can ask for first trip to the dentist to be pain free.
No drills or injections.
Do you want to try sitting up on the chair? Lie back, Joy.
Lie back.
No! They need to get used to kind of these smells, the environment, before they kind of feel a bit more comfortable.
If you're nervous, let your dentist know in advance.
There are even phobic-friendly dentists - you can find them online.
Can you go like this.
Ah! And if you don't like the sounds or bright lights, listen to music or bring along a tablet to distract you.
I'm a little disappointed that Joy didn't let the dentist look at her teeth.
But all the research shows that, if the child has a good experience the first time they go to the dentist, then there's much less likelihood of them developing a phobia in later life.
So, this morning, everyone's got a nurse.
I believe so, yeah.
Yeah? When the Finlay-Strickley family from Birmingham came to see Serpil In you go, then.
Don't touch anything! .
.
she spotted the beginnings of tooth decay in the kids.
Serpil! Hello! We've already helped them cut down on snacking I feel like a rugby player! .
.
and now we're going to uncover the Holy Grail.
All right, it's a little bit tight, but that's comfy.
How to brush your teeth perfectly.
Look at that, guys! Call Mum.
Mum! So, what we're going to do is see how well you brush your teeth.
So imagine you're at home.
Don't look at me, brush your teeth, because I'm going to tell you how well you do it or not later.
So, you've woken up, run into the bathroom, had a wee first and then brush your teeth.
Good boy.
Ready! There should be no red spots.
The red spots are called hot spots and these hot spots are the spots that haven't been cleaned very well! OH! I didn't do it in there.
you don't want any red worms like that on your teeth! To be honest, I didn't know how to brush my teeth until I went to dental school.
I didn't.
It's a behaviour that's learnt from very, very young age.
Ultimately, you watch Mum and you do what they do.
At the end of the test, the magic toothbrush showed we've all missed bits - including me, and that's because we're brushing randomly.
And what you're trying to do is go from one corner of the mouth all the away round slowly to the next, remembering to keep the mouth closed, to get to the very back teeth.
I always say that you should tickle the teeth to get them cleaned! Do you think you'll all brush your teeth a bit better now? Yeah.
So, shall we actually go and brush our teeth? Yeah! Come on.
Billy Jean, this is your sink.
Tommy Lee, this is your sink.
Lily Anna, this is your sink.
Ellie May, this is your sink.
Serpil has some tips on perfect brushing.
Brush for two minutes twice a day.
A tooth-brushing music app can help with timings.
And Go! MUSIC STARTS Tickle every tooth.
Work your way from one corner of the mouth to the other.
What are you doing? Top left, top.
Oh.
OK, change sides.
Only ever use a smear of toothpaste.
A smear has more than enough fluoride in it.
Use too much and you're simply spitting money down the drain.
Next one! Next corner.
Always brush before breakfast, because after you eat, the acid in your mouth softens your enamel.
OK, change sides.
So, if you brush within 40 minutes of eating, you'll brush your enamel away, leaving sensitive teeth.
Good! Well done, well done! And finally, don't rinse, just spit out what's left in your mouth.
That way the fluoride stays on your teeth, keeping them healthy.
In the clinic You OK? Good! Lift your bottom up a little but more, then.
Aw, there you go.
It's another busy day in the paediatric department.
Let's have a quick look.
30% of schoolchildren suffer trauma to their teeth Tell me how did you do it, mister.
.
.
and some of the most common causes Head back.
Head back, and relax! .
.
are falls, bike accidents and sporting injuries.
You slipped, and what did you bang it on? Just the concrete.
When a child damages their milk teeth, there's another set to take their place.
But when their adult teeth are knocked out, it can mean false teeth for the rest of their life.
But now a radical new technique is about to change all that.
I'm meeting Professor Monty Duggal, Head of Paediatric Dentistry at Leeds Dental Institute, to find out more.
So, this is a pretty cutting-edge procedure that you're going to perform on Christopher, isn't it? Yes, it is, and it's a part of a multi-disciplinary effort, to make sure these children when they grow up, they have a normal front tooth, after having lost it when they were little.
Christopher knocked out his front tooth when he was seven.
What's going to happen today - this front tooth here, this one, it's gone, so we have to take this one out.
Today, whilst his parents watch nervously, a tooth from the back of his mouth will be transplanted to take the place of his dead front tooth.
And I'm going to take that one there, and I'm going to then move it to there.
That's what we call transplantation.
Are you going to take that pre-molar out? Yes.
And then that's going to go in place of his front tooth? Front tooth, yeah.
Is that not going to look strange? It will for a few days.
But then we will build it to make it almost exactly like a front tooth.
Really? Yes.
Now we're going to hold this dodgy tooth.
Just pushing.
There you go, lovely.
Now, we've just taken out his front tooth.
It was already dead.
It put up a bit of a fight, to be honest.
What's the success rate of this operation? Er, average success rate is about 87%.
Goodness me.
So, why is it better to use one of his own teeth rather than an artificial implant? Because an implant has a definite life cycle.
Five to ten years, you need a new implant.
But if this works, he'll have his own natural tooth - er, forceps, please - at the front of his mouth for ever.
So he's taken out the premolar, which was a healthy tooth that Christopher was going to have to lose anyway, to straighten out his teeth, because his teeth were overcrowded and crooked, and stuck it into the root of where the dead tooth has come out at the front of his mouth.
It is extraordinary.
Hold that for me, please.
And you can see now, that tooth fits beautiful into the new socket there.
So, we're very fortunate in this country that we can perform this treatment on the National Health Service.
We have done some calculations and a transplant with orthodontics and all the related treatments can cost in excess of ã15,000 for the patient.
It is a second chance, isn't it, for young people? It is, absolutely.
It's crucial, it's very, very important for his self-esteem and personality in the long term.
Christopher has been extraordinarily brave.
But, you know the best thing about this is that it's not just Christopher who can benefit from it.
Other young people who've had accidents or have damaged their teeth will also be able to have this on the NHS.
In a few weeks, Christopher will be returning to have his new front teeth reshaped.
But before he goes, we're going to meet another young man whose transplant has just been completed.
So This is Ashem.
Ashem, nice to meet you.
So, what happened to your teeth? I was on a pedal bike and I got knocked over by a car.
Do you mind if we have a closer look to see the final result? Yeah, I don't mind.
Just have a look at these front teeth.
And you can just try and guess which one is the transplanted tooth.
Er, let me see.
Left? No, it's the right one.
It's that tooth which is the transplant.
That's amazing.
I am so impressed.
So your transplanted tooth actually looks - well, you can't tell any difference at all, can you? No, not at all.
I'm amazed.
Not only can you remove a tooth and transplant it, you can make it look completely perfect.
This is new science that's going to change people's lives.
Ah, they really want to come in today, don't they? They do.
Today's a big day for Joe.
He's come back to our clinic at King's College Hospital in London to have his worn-down teeth rebuilt.
I'm going to be walking a bit taller, I think, when I come out.
A little bit more composite, please.
Serpil is adding a tooth-coloured resin to restore Joe's teeth.
OK, let's clear that.
Blue light hardens it, and sets it in place.
Oh, wow! Can you see? That's how much you've ground away of your teeth.
That's amazing.
So what do you think about the length? Yeah, it's a better length than they are now.
And what about the colour match? Yeah.
You can't even see where the join is, so I don't think people will notice that it's been Yeah.
.
.
adapted like this.
Going to put it on this one first.
Nothing in life is permanent, but these have been shown to last up to about six years, and yours will chip more than somebody who doesn't grind their teeth but if we make you a mouth guard that's almost like an insurance policy to reduce the risk of that happening.
Building up the teeth isn't as easy as it looks.
I mean it does take, you know, lots of practice to actually get to that level.
It is an artistic skill that most dentists have.
OK, lovely.
And after less than two hours in the chair Are you ready to have a look? I think so.
Yeah? I'm ready.
OK.
Ah, I don't want to look.
SHE LAUGHS OK.
Oh, my God! That's amazing! That is so good.
I never thought they'd look like this.
You're an artist.
I'm going to be smiling all the way home now.
Mum's going to ask me why I'm so happy.
Aw, that's good.
That's good.
It's amazing.
They're, they're the things we all take for granted.
Exactly.
I'm really happy with them.
Great.
It was great, wasn't it? Thank you.
You're welcome.
You're going to get a hug! And there's someone else Joe needs to show.
Are you ready to have a look at my teeth? Yeah, go on.
Let's have a look.
SHE LAUGHS AND CRIES THEY LAUGH Show me! Oh, wow! Oh, they seriously They look good, don't they? No, seriously, they do.
Oh, my God! I was so pleased with Joe's teeth.
I was delighted, but he was delighted as well.
I haven't seen Sam since she finished her dental treatment and she's invited me out tonight, which is really nice.
I'm looking forward to catching up with her and finding out if anything has changed since she had her teeth done.
Hi! Hello! How you doing, you all right? I'm good.
Let me have a real look! 'Her treatment is complete and a new bridge has been 'permanently fixed to the teeth either side.
' You're not.
I know.
And they're straight.
There's no, there's no, none of that closed-mouth smiling.
Have you noticed the change? Marvellous, definitely.
Cos, this was a So much happier.
If you could talk to the old you, and what advice would you give her? Oh, go to the dentist! No, it makes me look back and think, "Why didn't I get this sorted out sooner?" 'She's now so confident with her new smile that she's playing her 'first gig in ten years.
' After a long absence, please welcome back Sam Page, and her band, Blank Page.
CHEERING # Show me, you got to, you got to show me, # Tell me all day that you're lonely # Show me, show me, show me tonight Show me, you got to, you got to show me Seeing Sam up there tonight on stage, just made me realise that there's so much more to it than fixing her teeth.
It's almost like she's got her life back, along with her teeth.
CHEERING You are high priority for us to try and help.
Definitely.
We opened the doors to our clinic six months ago.
Over that time, our patients have had their teeth fixed Oh, let's see Amazing.
What are we going to do with the new ones? Look after them.
Yes! .
.
and got their confidence back.
Let me see that smile.
Oh, my goodness.
I know.
Oh, my God.
You're an artist.
Our clinic has uncovered the secret science behind getting great teeth.
Brush your teeth.
Cos I'm going to tell you how well you do it or not.
That would be bad for your heart, it would be bad for your brain, it would be bad for your blood vessels.
This will hurt every single organ in you.
At last, I look like the lady on the box! And keeping great teeth.
So, it's pick it, lick it and then finally stick it back in the gum, in exactly the place it came from.
So, now we're sending everyone home with their teeth fixed and they're feeling good.
Wowzers.
And I've still got me front teeth.
That's amazing!
Today, millions of people are living with tooth decay, gum disease, broken teeth and bad breath.
And for some people, the problem has got out of control.
We want to do something about it, So, we've set up our own special clinic in one the busiest dental hospitals in the UK - King's College Hospital in London.
Over the next six months, our team of top consultants and dental specialists will help to fix Britain's teeth.
I'm Jasmine Harman, tonight, I'll be meeting the people whose problems with their teeth are ruining their lives.
From a talented singer, who's been silenced by the look of her mouth You worry that you're going to be judged, you know? .
.
to a young man whose teeth are old before their time.
You've got the teeth of a 65, 70-year-old.
I'm Dr Chris Van Tulleken.
From our clinic, I'll be investigating how the latest scientific discoveries can change the way we all look after our teeth.
'Tonight, I'll take part in a clinic trial, 'to see if brushing your teeth can add years to your life.
' Basically, in three weeks' time I'm going to be inflamed, I'm going to be a wreck.
All in the interest of science.
'I'll discover if the secret to good teeth is not about what you eat, 'but when you eat it.
' She's been stealing biscuits and hiding them down her underwear.
No! 'And I'll investigate if drinks we thought were harmless, 'are really dissolving our gnashers.
' You know, fruit tea is really acidic.
Whoa! 'Everyone who comes into our clinic will have their smile transformed.
' Oh, let's see.
Ah! Amazing.
This is the show that will fix your teeth and change your life.
I'm going to cry again.
Aw! Thank you.
This is The Truth About Your Teeth.
Today, we're back at our special clinic in the heart of London.
Is this patient here, as well? Yep.
Yep.
Our clinic will be run by Dr Serpil Djemal one of the UK's top dentists, and clinical lead at King's.
So, that's going to be quite a bit of a dilemma, which one do you sacrifice? Serpil's dedicated much of her life to fixing the nation's teeth.
So, Christine, you're looking a lot better than when I last saw you.
She'll be in charge of giving all our patients back their smiles.
Dentistry is not just about fixing teeth, it's about changing people's smiles and boosting their confidence.
How good does that look? It can have a massive impact on them for the rest of their lives, and that's what it's about.
In the UK, over the last 50 years, we've completely changed not just what we eat but when we eat it.
We're a nation of snackers and it may just be costing us our teeth.
Four out of five snacks are eaten at home, which makes it especially tough for parents.
Can you walk by the wall, please, and not on the edge of the road? So, today, the first patients to our clinic are the Finlay-Strickley family.
Mum! That one is overlapping that one.
I'm the little lady.
Mum Emma, Dad Lee, and six kids aged from 18 down to 7! Oh, my God! Hi, guys! ALL.
Hello! This way, my darling! You pop these on for me, my darling.
Their snacking could just be ruining their teeth.
Urgh, your teeth are gross! Oh, thanks.
Taking six kids to get teeth checked is no mean feat.
Have you been to the dentist before? It was ages ago.
Ages ago? Years ago.
Have you been to the dentist before? Never? Oh! X-ray.
But after eight checks-ups, eight X-rays All done! .
.
and bit of dental house-keeping Are you hot? If you're hot I can cool you down a bit.
.
.
it's time to reveal the state of the family's teeth.
I've never see so much enthusiasm for seeing a dentist.
It's great, they've loved it here, haven't you? Yeah! Yeah! How many teeth do you think you have as a family? I'd never have guessed.
What do you think Ellie May? All together? 100.
About About 200? Yeah, 195.
So, you've got 195 teeth as a family and 24 teeth with decay as a family.
And the key thing is that you guys, the younger crew, if you don't cut out sugar, although they've got decay in their baby teeth, they'll get decay in their adult teeth, as well.
So, you're talking about diet, is diet the most important thing? I would have thought they just need to brush more.
It's actually the diet that's the key thing, brushing is excellent and it's really important, and it helps with gum disease, but with tooth decay and cavities and holes in teeth, it's all about diet and it's about the frequency of sugar exposure.
This is a family with a sweet tooth, is that Definitely, definitely.
It's not like we're constantly eat sweets all day, we have a When they come in from school it's a dinner, it's a dessert, but in between they do, I mean, especially Billy Jean she's been caught stealing biscuits and hiding them down her underwear! No! You're going to have to lock it all away.
She actually ATE them, as well! But it is quite hard when you've got quite a few kids.
I just think, "Aw!" I don't want to be a horrible mum and say, "No.
" Especially not with Billy Jean, she's the youngest and she'll look at me like, "Please, Mummy," like I'm really, really bad.
But how do you feel now knowing that they've got decay? I feel really, like really bad now.
I think I've got to be cruel to be kind.
Yeah, yeah.
This is a really typical family is what Serpil says, and that's lovely to hear.
We all love sweets, no-one likes being lectured at, and it seems like the main thing is going to be to change the diet of this family which has a real sweet tooth.
And I think we can come up with some really fun experiments that are just going to change the way this family looks after their mouths.
So, I'm heading home to the Finlay-Strickley's home in Birmingham.
Put your seatbelts on, Billy Jean.
Who are these for? Let me take them.
Emily and Amy, you can take them.
There's some exciting research that suggests it's not only important what you eat but when you eat it.
Amy, Tommy Lee, Ellie May, brush your teeth! Tomorrow, I'll be getting them up early for a little experiment.
Onethree.
'While the kids are eating their breakfast, I'm turning their lounge '.
.
into a dental laboratory.
' As soon as they've finished eating, I'm ready to start.
Today's experiment is really simple.
Every time our family eat, they are going to be pounced on by our scientists who are going to measure what's happening with the life inside their mouths.
Billy Jean, open up! We want to see how food and drink affects the little eco system that is going on in here.
Tommy Lee open your mouth look at the camera.
We need to divide into two teams.
The red team which is Billy Jean, Tommy Lee, Emma and Ellie May.
you guys get red T-shirts.
Green team - Amy, Emily and Lily Anna you all get a green T-shirt.
Right shall we get our T-shirts on? Yeah.
Both teams are going to eat exactly the same food they're just going to eat it at different times and because Dad, Lee, is at work, I'm going to join the green team.
Now for this experiment, I'm not interested in what they eat, just when they eat it and the reason why is acid.
If you've not eaten or drunk for a while, you mouth is essentially at rest and your teeth are safe.
But just after you've eaten your mouth becomes acidic and this is when your teeth begin to dissolve It takes about 40 minutes for your mouth to return back to a safe level of acidity.
'We all ate the same breakfast, 'but only the red team will be eating snacks outside meal time.
' Snacks! Billy Jean, do you normally have a sweet snack at this time of day, at 10.
30 in the morning? Tell the truth.
Remember who hides their biscuits in their underwear! The green team will have to wait until lunch for theirs.
Aw, you're making me hungry! I think that the green team got the raw deal, didn't we? Yeah, yeah.
Lunch is lovingly prepared by Emma and me.
Aw, it's not even ready.
Keep an eye on it.
I'll do toast.
Don't let it burn.
All right.
I promise.
'We're all having beans on toast.
' Who wants snacks? Me! Yeah, only green team.
'Finally, the green team will get their cereal bars and tangerines.
' 'Throughout the day, we measure the acidity in everyone's mouths 'to work out exactly how different eating times have affected our teeth.
'And we're recording it on our home-made graph.
' Ellie May and Lily Anna.
'By dinner time, we've all eaten exactly the same food, 'in exactly the same amounts.
'But the red team have snacked throughout the day 'and the green team have eaten their snacks only at mealtimes.
' 'By bedtime, we've taken over 60 measurements, and the results are in.
' So, guys, what we've drawn here is the levels of acidity in your mouth over the course of the day.
So, the green team, so we didn't have any snacks, can you see? Immediately after we ate breakfast we had lots of acid but then we had a long period of the day with no acid.
But now look at the red team.
So you guys had lots of snacks and you actually had 60% more of your time was spent with enough acid in your mouth to dissolve your teeth.
Billy Jean, you're the biscuit thief, are you going to keep nicking biscuits? You're a good liar, Billy Jean, it's quite alarming.
So, the message is pretty simple.
Avoid snacking and eat your sweet things at meal times.
But if you can't then afterwards, drink water chew sugar free gum or even eat a piece of cheese.
All these things let your teeth get back into that safe zone.
I'm just looking at the gum at the moment.
Bite together for me.
Back at the clinic, Serpil and her team are working at full pelt.
In the UK, NHS dentistry teams treat more than 15 million patients each year and two thirds of us use an NHS dentist.
But for some people the idea of going to the dentist is truly terrifying.
So much so that it's ranked number one for making people nervous, even more than heights and ten times more than a visit to the doctor's.
I'm going to meet a mum whose fear of the dentist has held her back from doing so many of the things she loves.
Hi! Hello, Samantha.
How lovely to meet you.
And you too.
'Sam and her husband Jimmy got married a few months ago.
' Oh, you look absolutely beautiful! Thank you for saying so.
You do! Doesn't she?! 'But Sam's so ashamed of her teeth, 'she's never let Jimmy see inside her mouth.
' A lot of the photographs, my mouth's closed.
I make this sort of smile, where I keep my lips together.
I feel sorry for her really, you know, cos, you know, because to have to look through all your wedding photos like we're doing and, "Oh, that picture's no good" that's awful.
I'm trying to look see at what the problem is because I can't see.
I've got an obvious missing tooth, and the top teeth, again, are very long, where the gum has shrunk.
And what's this down below? That is what's stopping those two teeth from falling in on each other.
I can't even see any gum there at all.
Uh-uh.
No, they're hanging on by a thread.
'Sam used to be a lead singer in a band 'but hasn't been on stage for years.
' It's one of the reasons I stopped singing, years ago, because it made me feel so self-conscious.
As soon as you put a microphone in front of my face, then all the focus is here.
I'm going to get all tearful now.
You worry that you're going to be judged, you know? I'm going to lose my teeth and that makes me feel helpless.
'Sam knows that if she doesn't get help, things will only get worse.
' Deep breath.
Yeah.
'A fear of the dentist has meant 'she's had no treatment for the last ten years.
' My worst nightmare is that they say, "Oh, actually, there's nothing we can do.
Sorry! "There's nothing we can do.
" You must be Samantha.
Yes.
Nice to meet you! Today, she's finally found the courage Make yourself comfy.
.
.
to come to our clinic.
I'm so fearful that the pressure of the scraping, the cleaning, is going to loosen my teeth further.
And, er, I was so frightened the last time I went, the dental nurse had to hold my shoulders down cos I was shaking so much.
And I had my eyes shut and my headphones in, and I was still terrified.
Yeah, I didn't go back.
Can I just quickly ask, do you smoke at all? I do.
How many cigarettes? I smoke about seven a day, but I have smoked more heavily in the past.
'It's time for the part of the visit that Sam is terrified of.
' OK.
All right? Yeah.
So, swing your legs round.
Take a little seat.
'I think, if I had to think of one incident in my life 'that's given me dentist fears, 'when I had the four teeth out in the chair 'with injections when I was a child.
' You stop me if you need to at any point, OK? I'm starting to shaking little bit.
No, no, no, try and relax, cos all I'm doing is having a look.
'And it's given me the childhood fears again.
' OK? You're doing really well.
Really well.
'Thing is, it's worse being an adult because you know more.
All right? Yeah.
OK.
All right.
I'm OK.
'You're terrified cos you know exactly what's coming! Two mobile.
That's all.
That's all I need to do.
All right? Ah! You all right there? I'm shaking.
It wasn't too bad though, was it? No.
OK.
Try and relax.
That's it, all done.
My bit done anyway.
All right? Yeah.
After the examination it's time for Serpil to decide if she can save any of Sam's teeth.
This is what she was really worried about, the lower front teeth, and she's lost, around this lower left one, virtually all of the bone.
There's virtually no bones holding that tooth in position.
But there is a glimmer of hope.
Depending on how well you improve your cleaning, if you can give up smoking as well, you've got enough bone left around all the other teeth to make it worth trying to save them.
A lot of it is to do with what you can do to help yourself, cos what you do at home on a daily basis is probably the most important thing.
It's now up to Sam.
OK.
Come on then.
If she can makes some changes, she just may be able to save some teeth.
Hello.
What's up? You all right? How you doing? Hello.
It was all a bitscary.
There's nothing like confronting your fears head on, is there? Look at you.
If I don't laugh, I'm going to cry! That is the biggest smile I've seen on your face.
That's a bigger smile than she had in your wedding photos.
Sam was absolutely terrified today, and I think she's been really brave to take that first step.
Now she just needs to muster the courage to come back and have her treatment.
And if she can do that, then she could get her smile back and she could even start singing again, which would be amazing.
I'm just having a look at the X-ray again.
All right.
Thank you.
Bye.
So far, most of our cases have been about appearance.
Fixing bad teeth, creating the perfect smile, and giving people back their confidence.
And those things are important, but it turns out that looking after your teeth and gums could also be the secret to a longer life.
Today is actually a really big day for me because I'm joining the clinical trial that's investigating the science behind these claims.
Unfortunately, in order to join the trial, I have to give myself the early stages of gum disease.
I'll be joining a group of volunteers and we'll all be giving ourselves gum disease to see how it affects not only our mouths, but the rest of our body, too.
Just let your cheeks go really slack, don't try to open too wide.
That's good.
'The man in charge of the experiment is Professor Iain Chapple from Birmingham Dental School.
He's one of the UK's top dentists and a specialist in gum disease.
So, what we're going to do is we're going to measure the amount of inflammation in your gums, all right? This is the side that we're going to be placing the mouth guard on.
'Iain's interested in how my mouth and body changes over the next three weeks.
'He'll be looking at my gums' They look pretty healthy.
OK.
My mother will be delighted.
I'm sure she would.
'.
.
what my plaque looks like' Sorry, Chris, this looks pretty gross.
Oh, no! Yeah.
Pretty gross.
'.
.
and he even wants to analyse my blood.
' What do you expect at the end of three weeks? Are my gums going to be bleeding everywhere, are my teeth going to fall out? Well, we'll see, won't we?! 'And with that vote of confidence, I'm free to leave.
' Iain's given me a mouth guard that covers the teeth I'm not allowed to brush.
It's time to get started.
But within a few days, there's a side effect.
Can you smell it? I can smell it.
Sorry.
Well, it got me a little bit of space on the Tube anyway! 'And after just one week, I'm feeling pretty unloved.
' Let's see how this guy feels about my bedtime breath.
Even my cat doesn't love me.
'There are around 20 billion bacteria living in our mouths 'and every day I don't brush, 'millions of new angry bacteria move in.
'It's got so bad, I've been banished to the allotment' Ergh.
Thing is, I really hope my teeth don't fall out at the end of this experiment.
'.
.
until, thankfully, three weeks are up.
' There's nothing worse than bad breath.
I must say, I am looking forward to this.
I bet you are.
The fur! 'It's time to find out just what's going on 'with all that fur on my teeth.
' OK, let's have a look then? shall we? Yep.
So, this is a sample of three-week-old plaque, and you can see there's a little bit of bleeding there, can't you? Yep.
Which just shows the inflammation.
Yeah, my gums never bleed.
No.
'My inflamed and bleeding gums are the telltale sign 'that I now have gum disease.
' So, what state are my gums in overall? So, after three weeks of the plaque build-up, what you have now is reversible gum disease.
And this is Although this is reversible, this is the early stage of it becoming irreversible.
If I left this for what - months? It would become irreversible.
Yeah.
And to see the effect of gum disease, Iain wants to show me two very different types of plaque.
OK.
So, this is healthy plaque? Yeah.
Quiet, not doing much.
Yeah.
It looks calm, it looks relaxed and there's a picture that we would expect to see from a pretty healthy mouth.
If we look at this You helpfully put a video here, yeah? Yeah.
This is bad.
That's bad, yeah.
This looks like a war zone, doesn't it? It's just chaos.
It is.
There's huge amounts of activity going on.
These bugs are flying around the place.
The whole place is a lot more active.
It's a change from health and it's not good.
And then these bugs, then, with the gum inflammation, these are the bugs leaking the toxins and maybe even getting into the blood themselves? Yes, absolutely.
Ian's research shows that these bugs causing gum disease wage a long war on our immune system and over time, can cause a host of other problems.
This disease tends to go on quietly, silently, without being recognised for many, many years.
The impact on the rest of the body, cumulatively, that sort of added impact year on year on year could be quite significant.
It's enormous.
That would be bad for your heart, it would be bad for your brain, it would be bad for your blood vessels, you know, this will hurt every single organ in you.
Yep.
And, and again, there are lots of big studies showing a relationship between severe gum disease and all of those conditions that you've mentioned.
It's amazing, in just three weeks, I gave myself gum disease.
The good news is, in another two weeks, I'll get it back to normal, once I get to my regular brushing routine.
But I think what's really interesting is, if I let that go on for months and months, not only would it cause permanent and irreversible damage to my teeth and gums, but that inflammation would spread throughout my body and THAT would take years off my life.
So, we've got enough nurses for today.
Just now, yeah.
Brilliant.
OK, let me know if there's a problem though.
I will do.
All right.
Thank you.
Over in Basingstoke, someone's been very busy with her toothbrush.
It's been two weeks since Sam discovered she has to lose her three front teeth and she's now on a mission to save the rest of them.
She's drastically changed her cleaning regime and has quit smoking.
And how have you done this week? Ten days today it is.
Ten days? This is the tenth day.
Ten days without a cigarette, which is amazing.
Quitting smoking will really help.
Studies have shown non-smokers are up to 20 times less likely to suffer from gum disease.
Well done today.
But as treatment day approaches, she's still terrified.
I want to be sedated.
That's how I'm feeling right now.
Because I don't want to be awake.
Even once I'm numb and gone through the injections and everything else, I'm not sure I can actually go through with having them pulling my Oh! I'm worried I will just get up and walk out.
And then I'lleveryall the, you know, hard work of getting in the chair and having the injections in the first place just would've been for nothing.
I'd rather just wake up and they be gone.
Hmm, you're going to be fine, cos I'm going to be there to hold your hand.
THEY LAUGH It's the day Sam's been dreading.
She and Jimmy are on their way to our clinic at King's.
This is where it's all going to happen, where you're going to come out with shiny gnashers and a bag full of confidence.
And a bag full of teeth! SHE LAUGHS Thank you! Cheers, mate.
Sam's made it to the clinic.
But she's still frightened of being conscious during her treatment.
Better than last time.
Pop your stuff on the side.
My biggest fear that I will get to the point where you're about to take them out, and I will flip, and I won't be able to go through with it.
So, I thought sedation is probably the best option for me.
The thing is, though, you'll be aware for all of ten seconds, because that's how long it'll take to take the teeth out.
So, that's what we're talking about.
But I'm so frightened, though.
I'm so frightened at the prospect of that.
Erm, my palms are sweaty just thinking about it.
I think it'd be nice for Sam to have the treatment under local anaesthetic because it'sthe treatment is quick and easy and straightforward.
She'll be able to go home and there's no recovery period.
Erm, with sedation she has to be taken home and erm, not do anything - driving a car or anything like that for the rest of the day.
But some patients are more easily persuaded than others.
If I try and do it and then you freak out and say stop, nothing lost.
No.
With a long day in hospital ahead of him, even Jimmy gets in on the act.
I'm just thinking, six seconds to take your teeth out! No.
No.
Definitely not.
Definitely not.
I've thought about it, I can't do it.
No? No.
OK.
Good try, though.
OK, are you ready? You'll feel a sharp scratch.
The sedation doesn't knock Sam out, but she's now relaxed enough for Serpil to get on with her work.
You're not asleep, are you? No.
I like my patients awake, honey.
Wake up.
I am awake.
Good.
Ready? One, two, three - open as wide as you can, my darling.
Well done.
Sam has such severe bone loss, the teeth come out in seconds.
There we go.
All done! Lovely and clean now without those teeth.
To prevent infection, she now needs a thorough clean.
Perfect, she's all done.
Sam's been at the clinic for hours and hours.
Oh, it's almost healed already.
Look at that.
Her mouth needs to recover before anything permanent is fixed but Serpil doesn't want to send her home with a gap, so she fits a temporary denture.
OK, so I'm hoping they'll be a nice snug fit.
And that it is.
Have a little peek.
Shall I hold the mirror? What do you think? They look, they look like real teeth.
Yeah! I was really worried about this bit! Thank you so much.
I'm going to cry again.
Aw.
At least now you're crying because you're happy, and it's not cos you're worried or upset.
Today's been such a big deal.
It's been traumatic, but it's had a good end result.
Smashing.
Brilliant.
Just open for me.
No mobility.
Can I just have a little feel as well? When we first set up this clinic, we asked Serpil and her team, "What are the main issues with Britain's teeth today?" And they all agreed the biggest problem is with kids' teeth.
A third of kids when they start school in the UK have rotten teeth.
I'm scared, I'm scared, I'm scared.
Mummy's coming.
We know you're scared.
You don't need to be scared.
It's going to be really easy today, OK? One of the main reasons that kids get hospitalised is to have teeth extracted.
Reem Jabry? So, our first patient in clinic today is eight-year-old Reem.
This way, please.
Right, so tell me, are any of your teeth hearting you at all? Hmm, only the like back ones.
Right.
She has the worst case of tooth decay we've seen.
So, some of these, yeah, they are quite decayed.
That one's a wobbly one at the moment so you're going to say goodbye to that soon.
Does she have a sweet tooth? Yeah.
What does she like to eat? Haribos.
Haribos? Oh, no.
What about other things she likes to eat or drink? Basically, when she was young, she used to have her bottle in her mouth.
Right, and what did she used to have in her bottle? Just normal milk.
She would sleep with the bottle.
OK.
So, a lot people know that milk has calcium in it which is of course good for our teeth.
But it also has sugar in it, which isn't.
So, a baby going to sleep at night immediately after drinking milk is a bit like a grown-up going to sleep at night immediately after eating chocolate.
Unfortunately, there's quite a large number of holes in these teeth.
We're looking at nine very, very bad teeth that we have to say goodbye to.
Yeah.
I did feel bad, yeah.
Milk can cause decay.
That's shocking.
We always know milk is a good source of calcium and it's very good for the teeth.
I didn't realise it would cause her so much damage.
Yeah.
Thanks a lot, thank you.
Bye-bye.
Three days later, Reem is back at King's for her treatment.
Big, deep breaths.
All right, Dad, do you want to give her a kiss? You're sleeping now? We'll look after her.
Thank you.
We're actually extracting 12 teeth today.
Three of them, to be fair, are wobbly ones, but the other nine unfortunately are very decayed.
Almost 50,000 kids and teenagers were admitted to hospital last year for dental cavities.
Almost half of these were 5-9 year olds.
Didn't really hurt.
Didn't hurt? You're very, very brave.
Well done.
There's Reem's tooth.
Can you see which ones have got decay on them? All of them.
They're terrible.
So, what are we going to do with the new ones? Look after them.
Yes.
Now, one of the reasons Reem's teeth were in a bad state was because of the hidden sugar in milk.
But there are hidden sugars in food you would never expect.
So, I'm going to take a look at just how much hidden sugar I eat in a day.
So, a breakfast of orange juice and fruit and fibre cereal.
And after a morning at work squeezing pipettes, I've definitely earned my lunch.
Tomato soup.
And by the time I get home for dinner Pizza and chips, because I have had a long day and I'm a rubbish cook.
.
.
It's not exactly cordon bleu.
Does it taste better than it looks? Couldn't taste worse.
So, this is all the food I ate today.
Let's see how much sugar is in it.
So, this was an unsweetened bowl of not traditionally sugary cereal, and it has the equivalent of four cubes of sugar.
The glass of orange juice I had for breakfast has the equivalent of seven cubes of sugar.
The tomato soup I had for lunch has three cubes of sugar in it.
Even the pizza has four cubes of sugar in it, and then I had a big squirt of barbecue sauce - that is another two cubes.
This is how much free sugar I've had today - 31 cubes of sugar.
It's 120 grams, and that is five times more sugar than the World Health Organization recommends that you have in a day.
The point is that there are hidden sugars in foods where you'd never expect them.
But you can reduce the amount of sugar without completely overhauling your diet.
So, let me show you some simple substitutions.
Porridge instead of cereal from a pack.
Instead of orange juice, an orange.
Instead of tomato soup, some soups like leek and potato have much less sugar in them.
Finally the pizza.
A bit like the soup, you've just got to read the pack and look at the amount of sugar.
Some pizzas have a lot less sugar than others.
With these changes, you've got only six sugar cubes' worth of sugar in your day's diet.
The good news is, you can still eat the chips.
Chips are bad for you in lots of ways, but this is programme about teeth so I don't have to tell you about that.
Can I have a little feel, as well, yeah? Are you having trouble eating? The next patient coming to our clinic is Joe, a 22-year-old lad from Uxbridge, who's confident about most things.
Yeah.
Except his smile.
I guess my teeth are the only things that's kind of holding me back.
Like they're so small and different to everyone else.
I learnt to get over it.
I'm 22 years old, I've got more important things to worry about than people's comments, but they still do affect me.
Like when they say, "What's wrong with you," and that's one thing I really don't like, is when people say what's wrong with you.
It's like, well, there's nothing wrong with me.
It's just how I am.
For a long time, his mum didn't realise how much Joe's teeth were affecting his life.
It was actually more to do with eating.
Joe had a very peculiar diet.
Very bland food.
Didn't like meat and it was ages before we realised that it was because of his teeth.
He could bite things off, but couldn't then chew it properly.
Cos it doesn't dig in very far any more because my teeth are so small.
But er Yeah.
And because they're so small, I ended up like pushing my nose back, kind of like That's right.
Breaking the skin and stuff is difficult.
When I used to eat apples, I'd sort of throw my head Do you remember? I don't know if you ever saw like that.
Just to get in there.
Oh, yeah.
Here, look.
Oh, no.
Joe's baby teeth.
Aw! It's one of those things that mothers always keep, is their kids' teeth.
Look at this.
God, they're tiny.
Yeah.
Even when you had baby teeth, they were really tiny.
Well, eventually, especially because they wore away to nothing.
But the sad thing is that now your adult teeth look like most people's baby teeth, I think.
Sort of small and spaced apart.
But you still look gorgeous.
You have to say that! Joe's desperate to fix his teeth.
So he's coming come to our clinic to see if Serpil can help.
For this to be sorted would be a lot of relief for me.
I even try and practise smiling in the mirror, just so I know I'm not looking stupid.
How long have you been aware of the shrinking of your teeth? I've noticed for a couple of years but I've never really thought of getting anything done about it.
OK.
I'm going to lie you back and have a little peep, and we can see what the problems are.
All right? Just have a little peep inside.
Left and right cheek biting.
The volume loss of tooth tissue is about 40-50%.
That's a colossal amount of tooth surface loss and tooth wear for somebody of his age.
We've seen cases like that where nothing has been done and as the patient gets older, the wear continues.
They end up with just having roots in their jawbone just at the level of the gum and they've just got a gummy smile and no teeth, and we've seen that happen.
Serpil is quick to diagnose Joe's problem.
Try and go onto these front teeth for me.
He's grinding his teeth away.
And side to side, all the way over that way.
OK, brilliant.
And over this way, all the way, and get your teeth to meet.
You're getting your mouth into all these positions when you're sleeping, cos when you bite together Bite together? .
.
they don't meet at the front.
Joe's situation is close to my heart because I clench and grind my teeth at night, as well, and I've caused a fair amount of damage to my own teeth as a result of that.
Tooth-grinding affects about 10% of the population.
It's a stress-relief mechanism and some people know that they grind their teeth at night, and other people don't know they grind their teeth.
You're grinding your teeth such that you've got the teeth of, I would say a, maybe a 65, 70-year-old.
Great.
Yeah.
That's not good news, because, I say to everyone, once a grinder, always a grinder.
And so it's going to be a combination of putting back what's been lost but also putting into place prevention, and that is in the way of a mouth guard.
And I think that you're almost going to be committed to wearing a mouth guard for the rest of your life.
OK.
All right.
A mouth guard will help, but Serpil suspects that other factors may explain how Joe's teeth have become so damaged.
What about fizzy drinks, that sort of thing? Yep, I erm What's your intake? So, I would normally drink a fizzy drink once a day, one of the small bottles of Coke, maybe once or twice a week I would drink beer or erm vodka.
With What do you have with your vodka? With a, with a, with a fizzy drink actually, yeah.
All these fizzy drinks may be exacerbating the effect of the night-time tooth-grinding.
You can see that flatness here.
But it's not all bad news.
What can be done is to actually put back what's been lost and the way we do that is by literally building up the teeth using tooth-colour fillings to bond it back on the teeth.
Joe will be back in a week's time for his treatment.
But long-term, if he wants to save his teeth, he's going to have to make some changes.
So, we all know that sugar is the sworn enemy of all teeth, but Joe's teeth are being eroded by another very potent force.
And this force is acid and it turns out there is loads of acid in a lot of what we eat and drink.
But it can get confusing, so I've come to help Joe and his friends understand what to avoid.
OK, so we've got a range of drinks on the table, and they all have more or less acidity, and I want you to put the glasses in order of most acidic to least acidic.
OK.
OK.
And don't drink them all.
OK? I'm going to leave you to it.
I think water would be a safe bet to put down here somewhere.
Yeah.
Fruit.
And then We'll stick it next to apple.
Fruit tea.
Fruit tea.
Actually, it's probably less I think that might be right because that's actually called citric acid, which is lemon juice.
You've got an order! Yeah.
OK, so you think that alcopop is the most acidic and peppermint tea is the least acidic.
OK, well peppermint tea is the least acidic, and that is correct.
Wahay! In fact, peppermint tea is the only one of these drinks that is not acidic enough to damage your teeth.
The next least acidic.
Do you want to change? I'm telling you you're wrong.
Oh.
The next least acidic is Oh, wow.
.
.
is the orange juice.
That surprised me, I was very surprised.
I thought it was really acidic.
I remember being told that it actually damages the paint on your cars.
So, the enamel on in your teeth is as hard as iron.
If it can damage the enamel of your teeth, which it definitely can, it can damage the paint on a car.
OK? Wow! Then, the water.
The lemon juice does affect it.
If you really squeeze the lemon, then you might move that up even further, but we'll just put that over there.
Then apple juice.
Apple juice is more acidic than orange juice.
No, not at all.
Then wine.
And then fruit tea.
Now fruit tea is really acidic, but it's also hot.
Boiling acid, now that feels like a bad thing for our teeth.
Doesn't sound good.
And then finally, lemon alcopops.
So lemon alcopop is about the same acidity as stomach acid.
Woo! So, really, really, really acidic.
I drink several of those on a night out.
Well, who doesn't love lemon alcopop! Oh, goodness! I don't want to be like a party pooper.
Like obviously, no-one wants to stop you enjoying your lemon alcopops, but if you're going to drink it, you can sloosh it down with water afterwards, so just rinse the mouth and dilute the acid so the acid isn't in there for a long time.
I don't need to carry my toothbrush in my back pocket all the time? So the toothbrush is really bad.
If you brush your teeth after an acidic drink, within an hour, you can actually start to brush the enamel off, because it's softened, like your dad's car paint.
You're essentially pouring acid on the car paint and then like scrubbing it .
.
with a, with a Brillo Pad.
Exactly.
And that's what you're doing to your teeth.
Right.
And finally, don't have a little bit throughout the day, that's really bad.
Literally did that yesterday.
Is that what you did? Had a little bowl of orange juice, and was sipping it through the day.
And that with the grinding, you know, you have orange juice or your fruit tea before bed, then you grind your teeth at night I might as well just chew nails.
It's a perfect storm.
Joe plucked up the courage to come to our clinic and have his teeth fixed but for many, it's not that easy.
Dentists top of the list, along with heights, spiders and snakes, as the things that most rattle our nerves.
Oh, justno.
They're just, ugh! The psychology team here at King's have told me that phobias and fears can be tackled at any age, but it's easiest when you're young.
Our next patient is someone very close to my heart.
Now, where's your toothbrush? Today, my 15-month-old daughter Joy is getting her teeth checked for the very first time.
Now's the best time to take her to the dentist, rather than waiting for a problem to develop, because she won't have any bad experiences.
If you've developed a fear of the dentist, here are a few tips to help - try not to arrive early.
The sounds, the smells, and anticipation while you wait will only add to your anxiety.
Oh gosh.
Oh, she wants to fiddle with everything.
Oh, my, don't! It's OK.
However you want to lie down, as long as I can see your teeth.
Whether you're a child or an adult, you can ask for first trip to the dentist to be pain free.
No drills or injections.
Do you want to try sitting up on the chair? Lie back, Joy.
Lie back.
No! They need to get used to kind of these smells, the environment, before they kind of feel a bit more comfortable.
If you're nervous, let your dentist know in advance.
There are even phobic-friendly dentists - you can find them online.
Can you go like this.
Ah! And if you don't like the sounds or bright lights, listen to music or bring along a tablet to distract you.
I'm a little disappointed that Joy didn't let the dentist look at her teeth.
But all the research shows that, if the child has a good experience the first time they go to the dentist, then there's much less likelihood of them developing a phobia in later life.
So, this morning, everyone's got a nurse.
I believe so, yeah.
Yeah? When the Finlay-Strickley family from Birmingham came to see Serpil In you go, then.
Don't touch anything! .
.
she spotted the beginnings of tooth decay in the kids.
Serpil! Hello! We've already helped them cut down on snacking I feel like a rugby player! .
.
and now we're going to uncover the Holy Grail.
All right, it's a little bit tight, but that's comfy.
How to brush your teeth perfectly.
Look at that, guys! Call Mum.
Mum! So, what we're going to do is see how well you brush your teeth.
So imagine you're at home.
Don't look at me, brush your teeth, because I'm going to tell you how well you do it or not later.
So, you've woken up, run into the bathroom, had a wee first and then brush your teeth.
Good boy.
Ready! There should be no red spots.
The red spots are called hot spots and these hot spots are the spots that haven't been cleaned very well! OH! I didn't do it in there.
you don't want any red worms like that on your teeth! To be honest, I didn't know how to brush my teeth until I went to dental school.
I didn't.
It's a behaviour that's learnt from very, very young age.
Ultimately, you watch Mum and you do what they do.
At the end of the test, the magic toothbrush showed we've all missed bits - including me, and that's because we're brushing randomly.
And what you're trying to do is go from one corner of the mouth all the away round slowly to the next, remembering to keep the mouth closed, to get to the very back teeth.
I always say that you should tickle the teeth to get them cleaned! Do you think you'll all brush your teeth a bit better now? Yeah.
So, shall we actually go and brush our teeth? Yeah! Come on.
Billy Jean, this is your sink.
Tommy Lee, this is your sink.
Lily Anna, this is your sink.
Ellie May, this is your sink.
Serpil has some tips on perfect brushing.
Brush for two minutes twice a day.
A tooth-brushing music app can help with timings.
And Go! MUSIC STARTS Tickle every tooth.
Work your way from one corner of the mouth to the other.
What are you doing? Top left, top.
Oh.
OK, change sides.
Only ever use a smear of toothpaste.
A smear has more than enough fluoride in it.
Use too much and you're simply spitting money down the drain.
Next one! Next corner.
Always brush before breakfast, because after you eat, the acid in your mouth softens your enamel.
OK, change sides.
So, if you brush within 40 minutes of eating, you'll brush your enamel away, leaving sensitive teeth.
Good! Well done, well done! And finally, don't rinse, just spit out what's left in your mouth.
That way the fluoride stays on your teeth, keeping them healthy.
In the clinic You OK? Good! Lift your bottom up a little but more, then.
Aw, there you go.
It's another busy day in the paediatric department.
Let's have a quick look.
30% of schoolchildren suffer trauma to their teeth Tell me how did you do it, mister.
.
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and some of the most common causes Head back.
Head back, and relax! .
.
are falls, bike accidents and sporting injuries.
You slipped, and what did you bang it on? Just the concrete.
When a child damages their milk teeth, there's another set to take their place.
But when their adult teeth are knocked out, it can mean false teeth for the rest of their life.
But now a radical new technique is about to change all that.
I'm meeting Professor Monty Duggal, Head of Paediatric Dentistry at Leeds Dental Institute, to find out more.
So, this is a pretty cutting-edge procedure that you're going to perform on Christopher, isn't it? Yes, it is, and it's a part of a multi-disciplinary effort, to make sure these children when they grow up, they have a normal front tooth, after having lost it when they were little.
Christopher knocked out his front tooth when he was seven.
What's going to happen today - this front tooth here, this one, it's gone, so we have to take this one out.
Today, whilst his parents watch nervously, a tooth from the back of his mouth will be transplanted to take the place of his dead front tooth.
And I'm going to take that one there, and I'm going to then move it to there.
That's what we call transplantation.
Are you going to take that pre-molar out? Yes.
And then that's going to go in place of his front tooth? Front tooth, yeah.
Is that not going to look strange? It will for a few days.
But then we will build it to make it almost exactly like a front tooth.
Really? Yes.
Now we're going to hold this dodgy tooth.
Just pushing.
There you go, lovely.
Now, we've just taken out his front tooth.
It was already dead.
It put up a bit of a fight, to be honest.
What's the success rate of this operation? Er, average success rate is about 87%.
Goodness me.
So, why is it better to use one of his own teeth rather than an artificial implant? Because an implant has a definite life cycle.
Five to ten years, you need a new implant.
But if this works, he'll have his own natural tooth - er, forceps, please - at the front of his mouth for ever.
So he's taken out the premolar, which was a healthy tooth that Christopher was going to have to lose anyway, to straighten out his teeth, because his teeth were overcrowded and crooked, and stuck it into the root of where the dead tooth has come out at the front of his mouth.
It is extraordinary.
Hold that for me, please.
And you can see now, that tooth fits beautiful into the new socket there.
So, we're very fortunate in this country that we can perform this treatment on the National Health Service.
We have done some calculations and a transplant with orthodontics and all the related treatments can cost in excess of ã15,000 for the patient.
It is a second chance, isn't it, for young people? It is, absolutely.
It's crucial, it's very, very important for his self-esteem and personality in the long term.
Christopher has been extraordinarily brave.
But, you know the best thing about this is that it's not just Christopher who can benefit from it.
Other young people who've had accidents or have damaged their teeth will also be able to have this on the NHS.
In a few weeks, Christopher will be returning to have his new front teeth reshaped.
But before he goes, we're going to meet another young man whose transplant has just been completed.
So This is Ashem.
Ashem, nice to meet you.
So, what happened to your teeth? I was on a pedal bike and I got knocked over by a car.
Do you mind if we have a closer look to see the final result? Yeah, I don't mind.
Just have a look at these front teeth.
And you can just try and guess which one is the transplanted tooth.
Er, let me see.
Left? No, it's the right one.
It's that tooth which is the transplant.
That's amazing.
I am so impressed.
So your transplanted tooth actually looks - well, you can't tell any difference at all, can you? No, not at all.
I'm amazed.
Not only can you remove a tooth and transplant it, you can make it look completely perfect.
This is new science that's going to change people's lives.
Ah, they really want to come in today, don't they? They do.
Today's a big day for Joe.
He's come back to our clinic at King's College Hospital in London to have his worn-down teeth rebuilt.
I'm going to be walking a bit taller, I think, when I come out.
A little bit more composite, please.
Serpil is adding a tooth-coloured resin to restore Joe's teeth.
OK, let's clear that.
Blue light hardens it, and sets it in place.
Oh, wow! Can you see? That's how much you've ground away of your teeth.
That's amazing.
So what do you think about the length? Yeah, it's a better length than they are now.
And what about the colour match? Yeah.
You can't even see where the join is, so I don't think people will notice that it's been Yeah.
.
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adapted like this.
Going to put it on this one first.
Nothing in life is permanent, but these have been shown to last up to about six years, and yours will chip more than somebody who doesn't grind their teeth but if we make you a mouth guard that's almost like an insurance policy to reduce the risk of that happening.
Building up the teeth isn't as easy as it looks.
I mean it does take, you know, lots of practice to actually get to that level.
It is an artistic skill that most dentists have.
OK, lovely.
And after less than two hours in the chair Are you ready to have a look? I think so.
Yeah? I'm ready.
OK.
Ah, I don't want to look.
SHE LAUGHS OK.
Oh, my God! That's amazing! That is so good.
I never thought they'd look like this.
You're an artist.
I'm going to be smiling all the way home now.
Mum's going to ask me why I'm so happy.
Aw, that's good.
That's good.
It's amazing.
They're, they're the things we all take for granted.
Exactly.
I'm really happy with them.
Great.
It was great, wasn't it? Thank you.
You're welcome.
You're going to get a hug! And there's someone else Joe needs to show.
Are you ready to have a look at my teeth? Yeah, go on.
Let's have a look.
SHE LAUGHS AND CRIES THEY LAUGH Show me! Oh, wow! Oh, they seriously They look good, don't they? No, seriously, they do.
Oh, my God! I was so pleased with Joe's teeth.
I was delighted, but he was delighted as well.
I haven't seen Sam since she finished her dental treatment and she's invited me out tonight, which is really nice.
I'm looking forward to catching up with her and finding out if anything has changed since she had her teeth done.
Hi! Hello! How you doing, you all right? I'm good.
Let me have a real look! 'Her treatment is complete and a new bridge has been 'permanently fixed to the teeth either side.
' You're not.
I know.
And they're straight.
There's no, there's no, none of that closed-mouth smiling.
Have you noticed the change? Marvellous, definitely.
Cos, this was a So much happier.
If you could talk to the old you, and what advice would you give her? Oh, go to the dentist! No, it makes me look back and think, "Why didn't I get this sorted out sooner?" 'She's now so confident with her new smile that she's playing her 'first gig in ten years.
' After a long absence, please welcome back Sam Page, and her band, Blank Page.
CHEERING # Show me, you got to, you got to show me, # Tell me all day that you're lonely # Show me, show me, show me tonight Show me, you got to, you got to show me Seeing Sam up there tonight on stage, just made me realise that there's so much more to it than fixing her teeth.
It's almost like she's got her life back, along with her teeth.
CHEERING You are high priority for us to try and help.
Definitely.
We opened the doors to our clinic six months ago.
Over that time, our patients have had their teeth fixed Oh, let's see Amazing.
What are we going to do with the new ones? Look after them.
Yes! .
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and got their confidence back.
Let me see that smile.
Oh, my goodness.
I know.
Oh, my God.
You're an artist.
Our clinic has uncovered the secret science behind getting great teeth.
Brush your teeth.
Cos I'm going to tell you how well you do it or not.
That would be bad for your heart, it would be bad for your brain, it would be bad for your blood vessels.
This will hurt every single organ in you.
At last, I look like the lady on the box! And keeping great teeth.
So, it's pick it, lick it and then finally stick it back in the gum, in exactly the place it came from.
So, now we're sending everyone home with their teeth fixed and they're feeling good.
Wowzers.
And I've still got me front teeth.
That's amazing!