Do-It-Yourself Dentistry: It’s a Real Thing. We Watched Videos. We Don’t Recommend It.

Perhaps the biggest indication of our crappy healthcare system is the development of the new trend of do-it-yourself dentistry. Dentistry that you perform on yourself.

Here is a guy who will teach you how to make false teeth.

This guy will show you how to repair a chipped tooth using a paperclip, LED light and hairdryer.

“I have seen more than one instance where harm has been done,” said Dr. DeWayne McCamish, a member of the American Association of Orthodontists in an interview with CBS Miami. “I can assure you that with the internet and the availability of information that’s out there for a lot of consumers, that there’s going to be more occurring.”

In an interview with Inside Edition, New York orthodontist Dr. Christina Carter was horrified by the trend: “This is terrible. So many bad things can happen. You can lose your teeth. You can have a gum infection… This is a major medical health risk.”

An alarming, wide-spread quick fix involves something called “gap bands,” which you fasten around two teeth with a gap in the middle.

McCamish explained how dangerous the practice is:

“A tooth is shaped like an ice cream cone. That rubber band, as it goes up the teeth, it pulls that tooth out of the bone,” he said. “We are dealing with a medical procedure. We are dealing with how a person is going to be for a lifetime. This is not today and tomorrow. This is forever.”

Let’s make this a universal rule: friends don’t let friends practice dentistry on themselves.