How I solved my dental disaster

The impact produced a dramatic sound, it seems. The day I passed out. Falling slap on my face on medical equipment in dad’s hospital room. Fade. KAPOW! Muffled screams. My face was hot, palpably throbbing from the blow. I blinked. Mom panted, dad lay still. Squinting, I saw my sister crawl towards me. “Yes, OK?” she whispered, grabbing the front tooth that broke the fall, saving me from a severe head injury. Vortex of the tongue. Blood. I felt the gap. And then the jagged edges of the chipped fangs and molars disappeared like a razor-sharp mountain range.

I had just been on my honeymoon in Tanzania, returning to London, when I got the dreaded call that Dad had had a stroke. I had jumped on a plane to California. A few minutes after my arrival, in the hustle and bustle, I passed out.

Dental problems have beset me since the first start of adulthood. I chipped my two front fangs while snowboarding in college. For my graduation from UC Berkeley I gave myself two front teeth. I called a hotline, 1-800-DENTIST, about my situation. They recommended the “limit”: simple, permanent, very beautifull, advertising a high-end cosmetic referral. Slightly terrified, sitting in the dentist’s chair, I wondered why he was sawing my teeth. I remember raising the mirror, anxious to inspect my chiseled temporary restraints: two oblong, bright yellow rabbit teeth protruded. Panic sucked me out of my body. He had shaved my teeth to the bumps, gracing me with metal crowns that emitted a gray haze across my graduation gumline. Weeks to hide my smile have turned into years. A new dentist suggested porcelain crowns. My gums were happily pink, but now my teeth were pewter in low light. I’ve saved up once again to make up for this mess. And then the unfortunate accident happened in a hospital room.

I got on a flight to Dubai, a crazed woman traveling to see a dentist I found on Instagram

“We want to give you a smile to Julia Roberts!” proclaimed the New York dentist. After amateur work, I felt comfortable in the polished Upper East Side digs. I succumbed to the inevitable: “preparing” the rest of my bites for mine Pretty Woman makeover. A grueling year saw me don a temporary bridge to fit an implant. But a new nightmare opened up: the facets of the piano keys, too big for my face, shone on me this time. And not just two. One bite. Alarmingly, I couldn’t close my lips. Then my jaw started. By clicking. In pain. When dentists sound God in the mouth, instead of following your existing bite, they can affect function. The ivory chiclets were so colossal, my occlusion so disharmonious, that my teeth began to shift. When the dentist recommended Invisalign to me, I fell into despair.

I often wonder why the most common nightmares are about teeth. I can only attest that trauma to the teeth is a cruelty that goes far beyond vanity. I bonded with others who were similarly mistreated. Quietly determined to find the master of revision dentistry, I booked consultations from London to Los Angeles. I remembered that Hilary Duff was crucified in the press for getting horse veneers, which she made smaller, and I clung to a crazy hope of finding the guy who fixed her teeth. I went through paparazzi photos of “Duff Visiting a Dentist in Burbank, California”, desperately trying to recognize the mall, to no avail. My best friend and dental confidant Chloë Sevigny (who also blew her teeth) had Duff contact her representatives. They never answered.

Then the unthinkable happened: my system got infected. Saved with laser surgery, it unleashed further disfigurement: a severe gum recession. I needed a miracle.

I’m not a social media enthusiast, but I’m eternally grateful for Instagram and its creepy algorithm. Because that’s how I found Dr. Duval, the dentist who appeared in my feed and the man who I believe is the best cosmetic dentist in the world. At first my eyes didn’t believe it. His photos were magical. The translucency, the shapes, the outlines, the angles, the symmetry. Unmatched. There was a giant problem: it was in Dubai.

With nearly 370,000 followers, Dr. Duval uses Instagram as the main gateway to the world. The region’s brilliants are loyal customers, but there’s an air of mystery surrounding the inscrutable dentist and his limited digital profile. Duval is his first name. Prior to dentistry, he studied architecture in his native Syria. When the civil war broke out, he moved his office from Damascus to an elegant clinic on Jumeirah Beach in Dubai.

However, my faith in him surprised me. I emailed x-rays and photos to Dr. Duval’s office manager. Many emoji-filled WhatsApps later, with my negative Covid test, I boarded a flight to Dubai, a crazed woman traveling alone in a country I had never been to before, with white knuckles to get treatment from a amazing dentist I had found on Instagram. My friends thought I was crazy.

But this time it was different. I got up every morning, did yoga, took a dip in the warm sea, ate breakfast at the wonderful Mandarin Oriental, my home and refuge for two weeks, and walked 10 minutes to the clinic. I felt listened to every day. I gave up. Years of trauma melted away during the spa-like dental experience.

Dr Duval is warm and free from the ego typical of some hifalutin dentists. He wears a distinctive white NY Yankees cap, Moncler shirts, Gucci pants and designer sneakers, which rotates, sometimes every hour. As a sculptor, he said he could see the smile I should have had. Surrounded by an exceptional team who work tirelessly six days a week, his process is the pursuit of perfection. Other dentists prepare teeth, take impressions, and send them to a laboratory, internal or external; you come back for assembly and are stuck with the results. Duval is different. With needle-like focus, one day he worked on me for 10 hours until midnight. Another day, he and his on-site potter discussed a 0.00001mm gum-tooth margin for an entire afternoon. Sometimes you nail it with the first set, sometimes it takes four, but it’s relentless until both the artist / dentist and the patient are fully satisfied with the results.

It still feels like a dream. The person who left Dubai, on the contrary, felt revitalized, indeed, a beautiful woman. Walking around the hotel to catch my flight to New York, smiling from ear to ear.

Maryam L’Ange paid for her Smile Makeover, from $ 2,000 to $ 2,500 per tooth. Dr Duval Aloush, Villa 252, Jumeirah Road, Dubai (+ 9714-222 0222; [email protected]; @doctorduval)