A Brit headed to Turkey to get her teeth fixed after the new veneers she had paid for in London started crumbling in her mouth days later.
The 37-year-old, from Stockport, had paid for treatment at a prestigious dental clinic in the capital after spotting an advert for £1,699 veneers on Facebook and couldn’t wait for her new smile.
The mum-of-three was excited and looked forward to showing off her new pearly whites. But her dream quickly turned into a nightmare. She said: “I was scared to eat food. “Every time I heard a crack I instantly knew what it was and would burst into tears.
“I was too embarrassed to leave the house, I even started to avoid my own family because I was scared they would judge me for how bad they’d got.”
As reported by our sister title, Manchester Evening News, she went back and forth with the London clinic for months. And her teeth became so severely broken she showed up at her family dentist begging for help.
They examined her mouth and were reluctant to do any work due to the extent of the damage. The dentist told her she had three fractured teeth and a nerve that was severely damaged required an urgent root canal.
But having already spent months saving up for the initial treatment, single mum Jade was unable to find the cash to get them fixed, leaving her with no choice but to leave them get worse over the next three years.
She said: "I was struggling massively with my mental health because of what had happened. I was severely depressed and prior to this nightmare I already suffered with bipolar, so it massively affected my mental health.
“I didn’t want to leave the house; I wore a mask at work to keep my mouth covered at all times and I even avoided seeing my own mum out of anxiety and embarrassment.”
After years of avoiding looking in the mirror and being too ashamed of her smile, Jade decided enough was enough and filmed an emotional video explaining what had happened to her.
She hoped that sharing her story might aid with her solicitor’s battle for compensation. Her video went viral on TikTok and quickly gained more than 500,000 views, and soon after, Jade was contacted by a clinic based in Turkey.
She spoke back and forth with them over the next two weeks and was reluctant to trust them given horror stories about 'Turkey teeth'.
In a bid to ease her concerns, staff showed her around the clinic on a video chat, introduced her to previous UK-based patients and allowed her to speak to the dentist before committing to the treatment.
Jade flew out to Turkey with her girlfriend and the pair were both shown around the Your Smile Turkey (YST) clinic before being introduced to dentist Dr Bahattin Pekel.
The total cost of Jade’s dental work was £4,100, but having the same treatment in the UK would have set her back around £22,000. A month on from the treatment, Jade says she finally has her confidence back.
But she still finds it hard to smile and has to remind herself not to hide her teeth anymore. She added: "It’s honestly changed my life. The clinic must think I’m not grateful.
"Even now, a few weeks after the treatment I’m still having to train myself to smile again and remind myself that I no longer have horrendous teeth. I speak to people now and feel more confident, but it’s a slow process.
“People used to think my teeth were bad from taking drugs. My daughter said I looked like I’d been chewing rocks. It’s a difficult thing to come to terms with but when I look at my smile now, I’m forever grateful to the clinic for completely changing my life.
“I lost myself for a couple of years. Learning to speak properly again has been hard as the damage to my teeth also affected my speech quite badly.
"I constantly felt judged by everyone that saw me. I’d completely given up on life but I’m finally starting to feel like myself again.” Following her successful treatment in Turkey, Jade shared a second video on TikTok with an update on her dental journey.
The second video also quickly went viral, amassing over 1.2 million views. She said: "I shared another video on TikTok showing my new smile and experience in Turkey and that blew up very quickly."
“I’ve had so much support from people but also thousands of messages and comments saying that I’ll regret going to Turkey and that they’ll be falling out again soon, with a lot of people being very negative about it.
“Having my teeth done in Turkey was the best decision of my life, the clinic have done such a good job. You hear so many horror stories about Turkey teeth, but like any country there’s good and bad dentists.”
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