20 December 2023 , 12:34
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A teacher has been left unable to eat properly for years after a botched dental implant.
Ellen Bonham, 43, first visited Dr Maria Socorro Cobo Yera at Finest Dental, London, in April 2019. She said: "I wanted to have treatment done that would last the rest of my life." After the procedure, she recalled: "My face was so swollen the next day and I thought my eyes would pop out their sockets from the pain and pressure.
"I contacted the practice and was told it would clear up quickly, but I experienced pain for three weeks, which made me wonder if something had gone wrong." She added: "When it came to having the bottom jaw set done, I was so nervous about the pain I had to opt for sedation."
"I was told in an early consultation that the process would be completed and my mouth would be sorted by August that year," Ms Bonham explained. "However, I was still going through the process of having implant-related appointments in October. When I arrived for an appointment in October, I was told that Dr Yera had left the practice. I was due to attend the practice for my final appointments the following February but arrived to find the company had gone bust."
She then visited a different dentist, where she was shocked to learn there were many problems with her implants. "I was horrified when I had the CT scan that showed the extent of how badly the implants had been installed. Just over a year after being installed, some of the implants were failing and I was advised I may require bone grafting or the implants would need to be removed and restored, which would be challenging due to how close to my nerves they've been placed," Ms Bonham continued.
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Ellen had the botched dental work in 2019 (MyLondon)
Ellen eventually received a £26,000 pay out (MyLondon)Feeling frustrated, Ms Bonham contacted the Dental Law Partnership in 2020. Further checks revealed that all of Ms Bonham's issues could have been avoided if she had been given good quality implants from the start, and that she is likely to lose at least four of the implants in the future.
"The corrective work is still ongoing today, and I've had ongoing issues with infections which have caused a lot of pain," Ms Bonham said. "Two of the remaining implants are hanging on by a thread at the moment, which means I've only been able to eat really soft food, and my diet has been affected consistently for the last four years."
Ms Bonham received £26,000 from her old dentist after bad dental work took over four years to fix. Heather Owen from the Dental Law Partnership said: "The distress and pain our client has experienced was completely unnecessary. If the dentist involved had provided more satisfactory treatment, her problems could have been avoided."
The Dental Law Partnership started helping Ms Bonham in 2020, and she got £26,000 in 2023 without going to court. The dentist didn't say it was their fault. If you think your dentist did something wrong, go to dentallaw.co.uk.
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