30 Horrifying Things Dentists Discovered Inside of Patients’ Mouths

One had a tomato plant growing underneath their dentures
30 Horrifying Things Dentists Discovered Inside of Patients’ Mouths

When a dentist sits down with their patients for an extraction, all they’re expecting to remove is a tooth. Unfortunately, though, that isn’t always the case. Dentists have discovered an underworld of disgust inside their patients’ mouths, and spoiler alert: Most of what’s uncovered definitely doesn’t belong in there. At best, it’s a decaying toenail cosplaying as a popcorn kernel. At worst, it’s a tomato plant growing underneath filthy dentures. 

The dentists of Reddit have revealed some of the grossest things they’ve pulled from their patients’ maws, and an alarming number of them would like you to check your teeth for decomposing chicken ahead of your next visit. 

Zeus_X_Abhijeet 4y Cow dung. I am not joking ... 1
KatieOhhh . 9y Not a dentist, but a dentist I worked with saw a patient who was missing some upper front teeth. In a bind, he had superglued plastic vampire teeth in his mouth and cut down the fangs.
C-O-N · 8y Dental nurse here. We once pulled a bit of old rotting chicken out from under somebodies implant denture. It smelt like Satans fart ... 160
flightytoes . 1y Happened pre-pandemic. Pubic hair + bruised palate. The most awkward thing was the mom of the patient (male), also peeked in her son's mouth as she was helping finance the whole treatment (tooth extraction + dentures). ... 18
scoutthespiritOG . 4y Cum stuck in cavaties ... 1
jsaf420 . 2 228d General Dentist Not the absolute worst but it hit hardest because it was first ever live pt in dental school. I went to pull a little leaf of spinach out between the guys teeth with an explorer and pulled a huge bolus of spinach artichoke dip out of a 8-10mm pocket. It came out as one big piece with The cheese pulling like a pizza commercial. ... Reply 10
winterandautumn . 8y Once when I was a kid the dentist was briefly confused by a metal filling he didn't know was there. In actual fact it was a remnant of the foil wrapper from the illicit kit kat I had sneaked from the kitchen earlier. ... 50
Oarussell . 8y My mum said her boss found a tomato plant growing under a patients dentures that they never removed for 3 months.... ... 8
lovelesschristine . 8y After getting his wisdom teeth taken out my husband wondered if he could fit an ice breaker in the hole. Spoiler alert, he could. ... 28
drdrillaz . 2 229d Dental school, April 17, 1997. Patient reported a hole in their tooth. #14 had endo several years prior through existing crown. Temp filling had come out long ago. Had to pull out decomposing chicken and everything else that had been packed in there. The stench was ungodly. I was dry heaving behind the patient. I remember that day like it was yesterday ... Reply 54
FluidWarthog1613 1y Okay obligatory blah blah not a dentist but, one of my sisters is and she recently told us a story about a dental abscess exploding just as a patient opened his mouth. It had an audible pop and puss shot out and wouldn't stop leaking from his mouth. Eventually it drained and as she looked into his mouth there were several more. The man had not been to the dentist in 20+ years and had a mouth of rotted teeth. Не would walk around with little bottles of mouth wash that he would swirl around his mouth and
shyangeldust . 228d A woman that used a piece of bologna instead of poligrip on her top denture. She said it gave her a good suck so she rarely took it out. It was rotten and had mold her breath was so foul I almost puked ... Reply 7
AegonTheConquerer 3y As a dental resident, rotated through a couple hospitals. One hospital was specific to patients with Neurological/ Spinal Issues, basically patients who were not able to take care of themselves i.e brush their teeth for whatever reason. One patient specifically did not brush their teeth for YEARS. Their calculus/plaque literally coated all his teeth completely and engulfed them. The teeth were literally floating in space / held together due to the plaque. ... 40
NotRealDr . 1y A liver clot (google image it if you hate yourself). After an extraction the clot doesn't coagulate properly and a squishy soft bloody sack forms. Often growing up out of the socket and over the top of adjacent teeth or into the vestibule. Looks like liver. Feels like extra soft liver. Typically only happens if a person is on blood thinners ... 3
Isgortio 229d It has to be the guy that needed his bridge recementing as it had come loose on one side. There was a horrible smell when he walked into the room, which got worse when his mouth was open, which then got even worse as the dentist sat scooping out massive chunks of rotten food from underneath the bridge that had been there so long it looked like a wafer biscuit. When the bridge came out it smelled even worse, and I was really struggling to cope with the smell (I was new to assisting, maybe 3 or 4
RedRox 9y I'm a dentist in NZ. Was working in hospital and a Maori woman came into the clinic. She was complaining of pain in her front tooth. She had had multi extractions in the past and also had a lot of carious lesions in her mouth. The front tooth in question looked nothing like a tooth, asking her about it, she said that she'd had the tooth extracted some time ago, but didn't like the gap. One day she had been walking along the beach and found a dead seagull. She basically took it home, cut the beak off
WhatShouldIDoNoSleep. . 8y Not a dentist, but my mum works at the office. Apparently, he was working on a patient who rarely came to the office; as in, they'd probably see her once every few years. I'm not even going to go into the details, but a live bug flew out of a socket in her gum, where a tooth had rotted out. A living bug. Why. ... 3
SpaceCakeCadet . 8y Had someone glue their tooth back in. (It had fallen out because of chronic gum disease) - definitely a weird one! Calculus, rotting teeth, food is all normal though varying degrees of severity. Have had had to remove blocks of black calculus, which I showed the patient - they took on all hygiene advice and have shown excellent improvement since :) Luckily no maggots! ... 20
thetacohoe 9y I'm a dental assistant but the hygienist at our office had a pretty gross experience. She was starting a cleaning on a little girl and noticed that the girl had a bug in her hair. My co-worker thought it was just one of those gnat bugs at first since it was that time of the year that they would be out. Well, upon further inspection she realized there wasn't just one bug but there was hundreds and it was lice. She could visibly see them crawling all over this poor girls head. Her mother was totally aware of
Jamieanonymous 1y I'm not a dentist but I was a dental assistant. Lady came in and opens her mouth. Her breath smelled like a rotting corpse. Seriously, rotting corpse. Overpowering. She says one of her molars has been hurting for over a year. Dentist checks it out, she has a tooth that has an abscess and there is a huge gap between the tooth and the gums. Не sees there is something under it so he starts pulling it out with forceps. It's like a black mushy substance. Не keeps pulling more and more out, irrigating and then repeat. It
kittyboomsta . . 6y My partner used to be a dental therapist and worked in schools. Не remembered this one little girl who opened her mouth and each tooth was surrounded and full of knotty, pieces of her black hair. Just everywhere masses of it with gunk too. Не can't forget the horror from seeing and cleaning it all out. I'd just imagine it to be like cleaning the shower drain lol! ... 68
Anaruman 8y Dentist - 34 years in practice. I always warn patients - No smoking after extractions (any surgery actually), explaining the increased risk of dry socket (osteomyelitis). In fact my standard admonition is If you get dry socket after smoking and return looking for sympathy I'll hand you a dictionary and you can find it between S**t and syphilis. One day a smoker returned with a dry socket, swearing that he had NOT smoked as per directions. His significant other backed him up. After numbing him and during the debridement of the socket, I removed a chunk of vegetable matter which he
chrisimplicity . 229d I think that I have commented about this once before, but it's the only thing that has made me dry heave... a patient with awful hygiene removed her partial before an exam, studied the years of plaque and food caked all over it, licked it off then handed it to me. ... Reply 50
xspartanax 1y Not a dentist but a dental assistant. A broken piece of staple, stuck INTO the open cavity of a freshly extracted tooth. The hole was huge and I saw a glint of metal so I poked it and a bit of broken staple fell out. Dude had a calculus bridge around his lower front teeth, that means he had so much tartar that it had hardened and grown into a thick layer covering multiple teeth. Dentist scaled some of it off to finish off his exam and found black hair under the tartar... Dude was old and had
Zobaarsts 1y I recently had one of the dental hygienists in my office call me in for an exam on an 8 year old girl. Before looking in the mouth the hygienist told me that the patient had a popcorn kernel stuck in her gums on the palate side of one of her upper front teeth. I grabbed my instruments, found the kernel and started to work it out of the gums. The thing was wedged in there pretty well but eventually I worked it out enough to get a good grip on it with some small dental pliers. Turns
Wilsons_Human 4y Maggots in someone's gum line. (They had serious gum disease) no idea how they got there, the maggots ate the dead tissue so probably helped the patient. It was just a bit of a shock. Peas in someone's gum, asked the patient when they last had peas, they said a week before. Needless to say we discussed flossing in detail. Plaque so bad it was literally holding the teeth in place, hygienist removed it and two teeth just came out. We get trained every year to spot signs of sexual abuse bruising patterns inside a child's mouth. A
crkhtlr 9y Not a dentist - but my brother's dentist said this was the weirdest thing ever. My brother had been having serious jaw pain for weeks and he said his back teeth hurt like he'll. Не thought he was getting in his wisdom teeth, because he had never noticed this particular tooth before, and the gums around it were really inflamed. Made sense to him - the tooth was just breaking thru the skin. Then it got infected. His gums swelled up and he said his mouth always tasted like chicken soup. So he goes to the dentist (like a month or more
9y ... When I was a student, my instructors told me some stories First, and lady came in saying her gums were sensitive, they looked in her mouth and her gums were literally peeling away, they had her rinse and actual pale pink pieces of gum were coming out of her mouth. It was the consistently of bubblegum when it gets chewed for too long and it's extra sticky. So they ask what she's been doing and it turns out she's been brushing with Comet (powdery toilet cleaning bleach) because it was cheaper than whitening. Second, my other instructor
Charliesixx 5y 24 year old guy. All of his teeth were decayed to the gums except 2 - his lower canines - that still had the retainer bonded to the back of them. Literally the only pieces of enamel left in his mouth were underneath that bonding. All that time, effort and money straightening those teeth... I asked him what he thought contributed to his rapid decay. Не replied that he had consumed at least a 2L of Coke a day since he moved out on his own. I spent 12 hours (4 - 3 hour appointments) pulling the 32 roots out of his head so
Catty_Mayonnaise 9y General/Cosmetic dentist here. I once had a patient come in complaining about a lost veneer. It turns out what she had done is buy a box of plastic stick-on French manicure nails and superglue the tips to her teeth. She had been re-sticking them for years, but she finally got tired of it and wanted me to use some of my dental glue to get them to stay on more permanently. When I refused and instead tried to get her to let me clean off the layers and layers of crusty glue and food and plaque, she was
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