Donate Your Teeth So That They Can See

Published by eGal | Filed under Day To Day, Life

I went for a tooth extraction today. It must have been almost 20 years since my last extraction. I can never forget how my grandmum did it with a string and a door. Alright, let’s not go there. Well, the nurse asked during my extraction today if I wanted to take my tooth back and I said yes. Of course, must have it back as a keepsake! But something interesting happened when the dentist, after extracting my tooth , asked: “WOULD YOU LIKE TO DONATE YOUR TOOTH?”

I was shocked! Donate?! What good does a tooth do? It’s not like a bag of rice or blood or…? Then the dentist proceed to explain further. She said that her friend is on some research work that involves the teeth and allow the blind to see again with the aid of the teeth. Well, right after extraction and 6 spots of Local Anaesthetic, that’s as much as I can register. But of course, I did not reject her.

Very intrigued, I came back and start googling for information and there it is - “TOOTH-IN-EYE (OOKP) Surgery”.

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Extracted from The Sunday Times, 24 August 2004

OOKP is a complex 2-stage operation which aims to restore vision to the most severe cases of corneal and ocular surface patients for whom all previous attempts to restore vision had failed. The procedure involves removing a canine tooth from the patient, shaping and drilling it to allow implantation of an artificial plastic corneal device (optical cylinder), and ultimately implanting it back into one eye a few months later.

The 1st successful case was reported in July 2004. Interesting, very interesting. Here are some links where you can read more of “TOOTH-IN-EYE”.

» Click here to read more of Tooth In Eye from National Dental Centre
» Click here to read more of Tooth In Eye from Channel News Asia

So the next time you go for any teeth extraction, remember - Donate Your Teeth so That They Can See….