{"id":187120,"date":"2023-09-19T16:43:01","date_gmt":"2023-09-19T16:43:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsneednews.com\/?p=187120"},"modified":"2023-09-19T16:43:01","modified_gmt":"2023-09-19T16:43:01","slug":"woman-forced-to-wear-dentures-after-losing-teeth-gets-permanent-smile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsneednews.com\/lifestyle\/woman-forced-to-wear-dentures-after-losing-teeth-gets-permanent-smile\/","title":{"rendered":"Woman forced to wear dentures after losing teeth gets permanent smile"},"content":{"rendered":"
A 24-year-old woman who was forced to wear dentures after she lost her teeth has finally gotten a permanent set of teeth.<\/p>\n
Natalie Lacasse, from Vancouver, has been wearing dentures since the age of 19\u00a0– after a months-long vomiting condition sparked by pain medication caused her teeth to slowly rot and fall out.\u00a0<\/p>\n
After struggling with shame and embarrassment over her teeth – which she hid with dentures for years – Natalie has now finally had her smile restored after raising close to $10,000 online to fund a new permanent set of teeth.\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘I still have a long road ahead but after two very long years stuck without teeth, now finally having teeth again\u2026 is surreal,’ said the content creator.\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Natalie Lacasse, 24, lived without teeth for two years and wore dentures instead. She has finally gotten a permanent set of teeth that have her smiling confidently\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Despite the mental toll that having no teeth had on her, the Vancouver native was determined to normalize wearing it and posted her journey on TikTok\u00a0<\/p>\n
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‘I still have a long road ahead but after two very long years stuck without teeth, now finally having teeth again\u2026 is surreal,’ said the content creator<\/p>\n
‘It is so weird! I didn’t realize how big this was truly going to be for me.<\/p>\n
‘The moment the mirror was handed to me [to look at the results], I saw myself with actual teeth.<\/p>\n
‘As I sat in the chair and saw my new smile, the way they fit so well, it felt so crazy, I feel so confident.<\/p>\n
‘I suppressed a lot of my situation over the years, after spending the first year with a denture depressed, crying every day.<\/p>\n
‘I started to suppress and shrug it off, I didn’t realize the gravity of the last few years until I saw my smile again.’<\/p>\n
Natalie’s struggles with her teeth began when she was just 18 years old and found herself involved in a minor car accident that required a prescription for pain relief medication.\u00a0<\/p>\n
However, the medication gave her stomach ulcers and caused her to vomit for months – which ultimately made her teeth turn brittle and rot.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Natalie first found out she had stomach ulcers a few months after the crash, which happened in February 2017, and was immediately told to stop taking the medication she had been prescribed.<\/p>\n
‘They said to stop as it can have the side effect of stomach ulcers based on usage and dosage,’ she said.<\/p>\n
However, that didn’t stop the vomiting.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
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Without her dentures (L) Natalie didn’t have any top teeth. Now with her permanent teeth (R) she can’t help but show off her huge smile and new-found confidence\u00a0<\/p>\n
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‘I started to suppress and shrug it off, I didn’t realize the gravity of the last few years until I saw my smile again,’ said Natalie when recalling her teeth journey<\/p>\n
‘By June the vomiting was so frequent, I had travel-sized toothbrushes and toothpaste in my car and at work so I could brush after being sick,’ she recalled.<\/p>\n
Natalie then started vomiting up blood.<\/p>\n
‘That was when I realized I could no longer hide from doctors, and we found out the severity of my stomach ulcers was much worse than we thought,’ she said.<\/p>\n
‘They found a tear in my esophagus from getting sick so much, and ulcers lining my stomach, my digestive health was a wreck.<\/p>\n
‘To cure it I was put on 18 medications a day to heal and fix my stomach.’<\/p>\n
By October, she realized there was also something wrong with her teeth.<\/p>\n
‘My teeth were becoming almost transparent \u2013 they were very thin and brittle,’ Natalie said.<\/p>\n
‘Then one day I went to take a sip out of my coffee mug but bumped it into my upper lip, which caused my front tooth to break and fall out of my mouth.<\/p>\n
‘This is when I realized the state of my teeth wasn’t just transparently thin, they lost all the enamel.<\/p>\n
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‘I suppressed a lot of my situation over the years, after spending the first year with a denture depressed, crying every day,’ she recalled<\/p>\n
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Natalie openly shared her teeth journey online and grew a following of 19,500 followers on TikTok, and was able to raise $9,909 for a set of permanent teeth thanks to her GoFundMe<\/p>\n
‘I rushed to the dentist and found out the effects of brushing my teeth after being sick.<\/p>\n
‘It turns out it isn’t the right thing to do, and I was brushing stomach acid and vomit into my teeth.<\/p>\n
‘I completely obliterated all the enamel from brushing after being sick.’<\/p>\n
Aged just 19, the only option was for the teen to have them taken out.<\/p>\n
Due to the price of the procedure, Natalie could only remove a few teeth at a time.<\/p>\n
By 23, half her teeth were missing, including the entire front row.<\/p>\n
‘I wanted to act like nothing was going on, and nothing happened, it was embarrassing for me and something I was ashamed of,’ she said.<\/p>\n
‘It made my confidence go out the window so I tried to hide away, thinking no one needs to know.<\/p>\n
‘It was as if I had an empty mouth.’<\/p>\n
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Natalie and her now-fianc\u00e9 are all smiles while cuddling with their fuzzy cat<\/p>\n
Natalie tried getting dentures in 2021, but because of her financial situation, she couldn’t afford a good-quality pair.<\/p>\n
‘My denture was so poorly made, it was unwearable,’ she said.<\/p>\n
‘I was stuck with no upper teeth and 11 broken ones.<\/p>\n
‘I also had decayed lower teeth and nerve damage.’<\/p>\n
Besides dealing with the struggles of having no teeth, Natalie was simultaneously learning to speak again by watching hundreds of videos on speech impediments.<\/p>\n
Her biggest obstacle was her tongue and she practiced reading books out loud in her kitchen until she eventually got the hang of it.<\/p>\n
In January 2023, she looked into specialist dentures, which are considered permanent artificial teeth, and was told it would cost $10,000, so she set up a GoFundMe to finance her new chompers.<\/p>\n
After getting dentures, Natalie began documenting her struggles in a candid series of videos on TikTok, where she ultimately amassed close to 20,000 followers – who then helped her to raise $9,909 for a set of permanent teeth via a GoFundMe page.\u00a0<\/p>\n
By August, the funds were in, and she had both upper and lower dentures put in.<\/p>\n
Now, Natalie is an advocate and content creator, and shares her journey online in hopes of helping others.<\/p>\n
One recent TikTok post gathered more than 65,800 views, and was captioned: ‘YALLLL I was told to let the dentist open it tomorrow for sterilization purposes.’<\/p>\n
The video revealed her zooming in on the bag containing her old dentures.<\/p>\n
The clip received thousands of likes, as well as plenty of comments from baffled users.<\/p>\n
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Natalie added: ‘If I could give any advice when it comes to dental health and especially saving your smile, don’t hesitate or be scared to get multiple opinions’<\/p>\n
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One recent TikTok post gathered more than 65,800 views, lots of feedback and was captioned: ‘YALLLL I was told to let the dentist open it tomorrow for sterilization purposes’<\/p>\n
One person said: ‘Omg omg omg I’m so excited omg.’\u00a0<\/p>\n
‘Oh I can’t wait to see,’ another added.<\/p>\n
‘Ahhh tomorrow is the big day!’ a third person wrote, while someone else said: ‘I would’ve done it.’<\/p>\n
‘Sorry, my dog must of opened it,’ one user joked.<\/p>\n
Natalie added: ‘If I could give any advice when it comes to dental health and especially saving your smile, don’t hesitate or be scared to get multiple opinions!<\/p>\n
‘The dentistry industry unfortunately can be a cash grab, and although they may give you everything you want to hear \u2013 not all dental specialists are in the industry for the right reasons.<\/p>\n
‘Also remember that no matter what the circumstances, finding humor and positivity in any situation can make difficult times a whole lot easier to deal with and process.<\/p>\n
‘Life is too short to be getting upset over things we can’t control.’<\/p>\n