Alex has been out of treatment for over 3 years and in that time has lost all his teeth. He originally had 14 removed prior to radiation in July 2010 which left him with 15 or 16. The wires from his dentures put pressure on his "anchoring" teeth and one by one they broke off. By the end of the first year, he had probably lost 4-5 teeth and over the ensuing 2 years, the rest went by the wayside with the last remaining tooth falling out about 6 months ago.

Alex's oral surgeon (part of the head and neck team), is dead against extractions if there is another option, refused point blank to entertain the notion of implants, does not believe in HBO and has suggested that rather than extracting the tooth stubs, the best way forward would be to smooth them down so the dentures fit over the top. As the teeth are quite clearly dead and not causing Alex any grief, this makes some sense to me although I have never seen this approach on the forum. I also know nothing about dentistry or even the anatomy of a tooth, so I wonder if greeblies can get into the dead tooth and cause problems? Should the dead stub of tooth be sealed somehow?

Alex's regular dentist is doing the work but he has little experience with the effects of radiation so is doing the work in consultation with the oral surgeon. This allows us to bypass the waiting lists without paying an absolute fortune just to get Alex some workable teeth. The issues we have are more around lack of support than anything else. It is difficult to get a consult with the oral surgeon let alone have any procedures done and no one else has a clue how to handle things so there is no telling what potential issues we are missing.

If there is some disadvantage or pitfall to the idea of grinding Alex's teeth down so that dentures can sit over the top, we need to know so that we can re-evaluate and/or approach the oral surgeon with issues to be addressed