Cosmetic Surgery & Beauty #72

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WHEN SINGLE MUM BIANCA BANNATYNE LOST HER
FRONT TEETH, HER CONFIDENCE PLUMMETED. WITH
THE HELP AND EXCEPTIONAL SKILLS OF COSMETIC
DENTIST SANDRA SHORT AND COSMETIC PHYSICIAN
DR JOSEPH HKEIK, HER LIFE WAS SOON TO TURN
AROUND. SHONAGH WALKER REPORTS.
For a young,
attractive
woman, having
broken and
missing teeth
was such a blow
to her selfconfidence
At just 39 years of age, Sydney single mum Bianca Bannatyne had
very little confi dence. A long-term abusive relationship had left her selfesteem
at all an all-time low, even though she had managed to end it with
a clean break.
On top of that, a chronic illness meant she lost her upper front teeth, so she
felt far less than attractive and her self-image plummeted even lower.
Despite wearing dentures, they were poorly fi tting, protruded badly and made
her gums and mouth ache, and even bleed at times. They also would fall out
frequently and she had trouble keeping them in her mouth.
‘I’m afraid to smile,’ she told me meekly when we were discussing her teeth
and options for the future. ‘It’s so embarrassing. It even makes it hard to go to
job interviews, or to go shopping!’
An introduction to cosmetic dentist Dr Sandra Short from DentArtistry was
soon to change her life and turn her world around. Dr Short quickly recognised
the need to help Bianca, and began the lengthy process of fi tting her with
implants and a brand new smile.
‘Bianca’s teeth were in terrible shape,’ says Dr Short. ‘She had broken teeth,
missing teeth, decay and the worst thing was she had a very poor-fi tting upper
denture that didn’t stay in her mouth, didn’t look like a decent replica of teeth and
it caused her a lot of pain.’
‘For a young, attractive woman, this was such a blow to her self-confi dence.
The missing upper front teeth meant that she couldn’t smile and she actually
could barely talk without them coming loose or falling out. If she lifted her top lip
too high, it looked unsightly, so she not only stopped smiling, but she refused to
show her teeth at all.’
‘There was one badly broken down tooth on the right of her mouth, near the
missing teeth. I thought it best to extract that, put in an implant and join it as a
bridge to the corresponding tooth on the opposite side.’
‘I had to repair some other teeth at the back too, with various fi llings. Once
I had done that, and performed the extraction, we had to wait four months for
the implants to fuse to the bone. After that, I was able to make a bridge and
complete the work. All in all, it took about six months.’
‘Now, Bianca has a fi xed bridge that looks and functions like her own teeth.
It stays in place and won’t move. It is rigidly in place and fi ts into the gum, so
it looks like teeth are growing out of the gum. She will be able to bite into an
apple and eat like the teeth are her natural ones, something she was unable to
do before.’
Following successful implants of her teeth, the next step was to work on her
skin and face, which had quickly become sunken and sagging, due to the lack
of support from her teeth and jaw.
Dr Joseph Hkeik, from All Saints Skin Clinic in Darlinghurst, Sydney, assessed
Bianca’s face and noted that by strategically placing wrinkle relaxing injections,
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