Did You Know Your Teeth Can Save Your Eyesight?

I KNOW THIS SOUNDS PRETTY INSANE, but it’s actually true. It’s a procedure called Osteo Odonto Kerato Prosthesis (OOKP), and it’s just saved the eyesight of a very lucky Irish man called Bob McNichol. 

The story begins a couple of years ago when a freak accident involving hot liquid aluminium exploded into the eye of of Bob McNichol from Mayo. He lost his eyesight as a result and assumed that’s the way things would stay, which I think you will agree is a fair assumption given the circumstances.

After doctors in Ireland said there was nothing more they could do, McNichol heard about a miracle operation called Osteo-Odonto-Keratoprosthesis (OOKP) being performed by Dr Christopher Liu at the Sussex Eye Hospital in Brighton in England, and that’s when the story gets really weird.

You see the principle behind this procedure is pretty wild. It’s a technique which the Italians pioneeredback in the 1960s (I’d love to know what they were smoking when they came up with this one!) which involves creating a support for an artificial cornea from the patient’s own tooth and the surrounding bone.

In this particular instance his son, Robert, donated a live  tooth so that the surgeons in England could perform the procedure on his father. The medical types gave the procedure a 65% chance of partial success, and wouldn’t you know it the crazy thing actually worked.

McNichol’s right eye socket was rebuilt, part of the tooth inserted and a lens inserted in a hole drilled in the tooth. The first operation lasted ten hours and the second five hours; they basically built a new eye socket and foundation based upon a tooth extracted from his son, and now McNichol (senior) has enough eyesight to watch TV and generally get around again.

I guess the thing that pisses me off the most about this amazing story is that the Irish doctors just gave up on him, and weren’t even informed enough to know that there were other potential options out there less than a few hundred miles away over in England.

Still, it’s a happy ending for the McNichols and will provide great hope to others out there who find themselves in a similar – if unfortunate – set of circumatances.

All you need is £40,000 in your pocket, probably access to the Internet, a willingness to do the legwork yourself and a ticket to England it seems.