17-Year-Old Boy Had Way Too Many Teeth. How Many, You Ask? 232 To Be Precise
We all have teeth, (at least most of us do). But this kid, he had 232 teeth, which we can all agree is way too many teeth.
By Sadho Ram — 24 Jul 2014, 03:50 PM — Updated about 10 years ago
Most of us dread going to the dentist for our six-month dental checkups (the curator of this story has not been to one since 2011). So imagine the horrors of a boy with swelling in his right jaw who found out that he had 232 tiny teeth growing in his jaw?
In a seven-hour-long operation in the Indian city of Bombay, dentists were able to take out the excess teeth that had been growing in 17-year-old Ashik Gavai's gums
Ashik Gavai was brought in with a swelling in his right jaw, Dr Sunanda Dhiware, head of Mumbai's JJ Hospital's dental department, told the BBC. The teenager had been suffering for 18 months and travelled to the city from his village after local doctors failed to identify the cause of the problem. Doctors have described his condition as "very rare" and "a world record".
During the surgery, they also found a rock-like formation inside the affected tooth, which had to be removed with a drill
The teenager had to endure seven hours of medics pulling teeth from his mouth
Image via bbcimg.co.uk"It is a developmental anomaly that had affected the molar tooth at its formation stage or rather when he was a child." Gavai had eating difficulties, which was getting worse.
indiatimes.com"Ashik's malaise was diagnosed as a complex composite odontoma where a single gum forms lots of teeth. It's a sort of benign tumour," Dr Dhiware said to reporters
"At first, we couldn't cut it out so we had to use the basic chisel and hammer to take it out.
theguardian.com
"Once we opened it, little pearl-like teeth started coming out, one-by-one. Initially, we were collecting them, they were really like small white pearls. But then we started to get tired. We counted 232 teeth," she added.
"We operated on Monday and it took us almost seven hours," she said. After removing those they found a larger "marble-like" structure that they struggled to shift and eventually had to "chisel out" and remove in fragments.
theguardian.com
The surgery, conducted on Monday, 21 July 2014, involved two surgeons and two assistants. Ashik now has 28 teeth.
Describing Ashik's case as "very rare", Dr Dhiware said she had "not seen anything like this before in my 30-year career", but said she was "thrilled to get such an exciting case".
indiatimes.com"According to medical literature available on the condition, it is known to affect the upper jaw and a maximum of 37 teeth have been extracted from the tumour in the past. But in Ashik's case, the tumour was found deep in the lower jaw and it had hundreds of teeth."
Thankfully Gavai's jawbone structure was maintained during the operation so it should heal without deformities
Ashik Gavai is seen here after the operation, with the teeth that were removed
Image via therakyatpost.com