Teenager had ‘teeth shaved off by mistake' after going to dentist for root canal surgery

A teenager had her 'teeth shaved off by mistake' after what she thought was a routine visit to the dentist.

Caitlyn Weld, from Tennessee, US, was just 18-years-old when she went to get a root canal in Florida as a student.

You wouldn't be able to tell, but in a video posted on TikTok earlier this month, the content creator says that her current teeth are 'not real'.

A fresh faced student in the state of Florida, the then-teenager had the difficult task of finding a new dentist in a new state, which should be straight forward enough.

However, there's a lot of pressure around getting your first root canal, even if the financial weight is taken off your shoulders by family.

Now 22, Caitlyn admits that she was fearful, explaining in an explainer on TikTok: "I was scared, so I asked the lady as we were in the room 'what does a root canal feel like? Is it going to hurt, can you explain to me the procedure?' But she didn’t speak very well English so I never really found out."

The first red flag showed but nonetheless, Caitlyn went on with the procedure.

Things began, but Caitlyn revealed: "I didn’t have a mirror during the whole thing so I couldn’t see what was going on."

However, she realised immediately what had happened when a mirror was held up to her face.

The dentist asked her what shade she wanted for her veneers, while revealing her tiny stubs were the remains of her real teeth.

Naturally, this was all too much for Caitlyn to process, so she asked her friend to pick the shade while she tried to come to terms with what has just happened.

The short, viral video of Caitlyn reacting to her stubby teeth now has over 22 million views at the time of writing.

She began explaining: "They told me that the severity of the hole in one of my teeth, the one I got the root canal done, was so bad that they took precautions to just prevent it from happening in any of my teeth.

"[They said] girls my age normally want all their teeth that show to be the same colour and they didn’t want one colour to be brighter than the rest of them and they also told me for safety of my teeth.

"I was just like 'okay,' I was dumb, I was 18, I had no idea about teeth nothing so I just went along with it. They made it sound necessary, we didn’t know any different."

The big difference though, is the steep price increase.

In the US, a root canal costs around $1,000 (£775) per tooth, while a veneer costs about four times that, meaning a full front set would cost around $40,000 (£31,000).

Even though the cost is eye-watering, there is a bigger issue around the procedure, as the NHS website describes a root canal as 'painless', while the process of getting veneers is known to be excruciating.

Caitlyn shared her experiences going through everyday life with veneers: "I remember when they took off the temporary ones and the air hitting whatever the heck was left was probably the worst pain I’ve ever seen."

She didn't sue the dentist either, as the dentist's reasoning at the time was convincing enough to let it go.

Caitlyn now looking back on it as a funny story to share, and continues to keep the dentist's identity private.

"These are my teeth now, they really don’t look too much different than the previous teeth," she said.

"I feel like they are a little bit longer, I also bite my gums really bad when I’m chewing which I never used to really do."