Morning Science Read: Apparently, You Can See Through Your Teeth π¬
π¦·ποΈ Hold UpβYou Can LITERALLY See Through Your TEETH?! π³
Plot twist nobody saw coming: There's actually a surgery where doctors yank out your tooth, drill it like a tiny construction project, slap a lens in there, and thenβwait for itβstick it in your eyeball. π€―
I'm not making this up. People are walking around seeing the world through their molars π¦· right now.
And honestly? It's working. Ready to brush your eyes reading? π
WTF Is "Tooth-in-Eye" Surgery? π€π
Meet osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis (try saying THAT five times fast after dental surgery! π΅βπ«). People who knows about it call it OOKP, but let's be realβwe're calling it "the most bonkers medical miracle ever." LIKE WHO HOW WHY?! π₯²
Here's the deal: When your corneas are toast π₯ (chemical burns, autoimmune diseases that went rogue, accidents that make you go "oof"), and regular corneal transplants are like bringing a water gun to a house fire π«π§, doctors get creative.
The procedure, developed in the 1960s (gasps in disbelief PIRATES!? π¦), involves removing a patient's tooth, inserting a plastic lens into it, and then stitching (STITCHING A FOOKING TOOOTHHHH) the whole thing into the patient's eye socket. Yeah, you read that right. Your canine tooth literally becomes your way to see πποΈ (There's more blind jokes coming your. I hope you can see them...)
The process goes like this:
- Step 1: Extract a healthy tooth (usually the canine, from guide dogs to guide tooth, the canines got em all covered π€·)
- Step 2: Drill it like you're making the world's tiniest donut π©
- Step 3: Insert a lens (basically turning your tooth into a biological contact lens π€)
- Step 4: Stash it under your cheek skin for months so blood vessels can make friends with it π©Έ(I feel like there's some vampiric-level witchcraft thing happening in the background here)
- Step 5: Transplant the whole tooth-lens combo into your eye socket β¨
It sounds like something a mad scientist would cook up after too much LSD, but it's legit medical magic. π·π
Real People Living This Dental Anomaly π
Brent Chapman: The Guy Who Made Me Do A 5-AM Deep Dive into This Topic
Here's the gist: My kid's teething so maybe that's how the algo got me into this... I opened my news app for the weather and such, and boom got fully woken up by a strange-ass article from People magazine...
Brent was 13 when he took two ibuprofen during a basketball tournament and had a severe allergic reaction called Stevens-Johnson syndrome. He fell into a coma, and when he woke up a month later, he was blind.
Twenty. Freaking. Years. of darkness. π
Fast forward to 2025: This absolute legend becomes one of Canada's first tooth-in-eye patients at Mount Saint Joseph Hospital in Vancouver. Doctors pulled out one of his teeth, flattened it, drilled a hole in it, placed a lens inside and implanted the tooth in one of his eyes.
The results? MIND = BLOWN π€―
"I hadn't really made eye contact in 20 years," he said, bursting into tears immediately after the surgery. When he and his doctor made eye contact for the first time in two decades, there wasn't a dry eye in the room (pun absolutely intended π’ποΈ).
His vision now? About 20/30 to 20/40. From seeing absolutely nothing to reading street signs. Through. His. TOOTH! π¦·π
"It kind of sounded a little science fictiony. I was like, 'Who thought of this? Like, this is so crazy.'" βBrent Chapman (literally all of us right now π€·ββοΈ)
Gail Lane: The Woman Who Saw Her Dog's Tail Wag Again ππ
75-year-old Gail Lane from Victoria, BC, also underwent Canada's first tooth-in-eye surgery (with Brent and a third third patient from outside British Columbia, who declined to be publicly identified) on February 25, 2025. She'd been blind for about 10 years because her corneas got wrecked by an autoimmune disorder that basically went, "You know what? Screw your vision!" π€
Surgeons carved a small hole into her tooth, inserted a focusing lens inside it, then placed the entire tooth-lens piece into Gail's eye socket to function like a new cornea.
The first thing she saw? Her black Labrador Piper's tail wagging. I'M NOT CRYING, YOU'RE CRYING! ππΎ
Then came the flood: light, movement, trees, grass, colors, and finallyβfinallyβ"I can see lots of color and I can see outside now" and the face of her life partner.
Recovery rating: "Uncomfortable but not painful" (honestly, better Yelp review than most dental work π).
What Does It Actually FEEL Like? π€―π’
[Imaginative speculation incoming because nobody's written "My Tooth-Eye Diary" yet...]
Early days: Probably like having the world's weirdest hangover mixed with that feeling when you accidentally bite your tongue, but in your EYE. Swelling, pressure, the general "what fresh hell is this?" vibe. π₯΄
Plot twist: It apparently does NOT feel like having a cavity in your eyeball! π The tooth gets thoroughly cleaned, modified, and basically becomes part of your body's new furniture arrangement.
The comeback tour: Vision returns like the world's slowest movie fade-in:
- First: Light! (Cue angelic choir πΌβ¨)
- Then: Shadows and movement (Is that... is that a thing?? π»)
- Next: Fuzzy shapes (Your brain going "Wait, I remember this game!" π§ )
- Finally: Actual recognizable stuff (HOLY MOLY THAT'S A FACE π€π₯)
Emotional rollercoaster: Imagine seeing your loved one's face after YEARS of only having memories. Your brain probably short-circuits between "IS THIS REAL?!" and ugly-happy crying. ππ
Additionally, I might or most likely would try to poke my eyes gently then just to know what it feels like π₯².
The Eye-then-toothy Crisis π€ͺπ
Let's talk about the WEIRDNESS FACTOR for a hot minute:
- Your "eye tooth" is now literally an EYE TOOTH π¦·ποΈ
- The thing you used to chew pizza with is now how you see pizza ππ
- Mirror moments must be SURREALβlike, "Hi, I'm looking at you through my former molar. How's your Tuesday?" πͺπ΅
- I'd honestly will probably feel like a vampire... π¦
Why Isn't Everyone Doing This? π€·ββοΈπΈ
Reality check time:
πΈ Surgeon requirements: You need doctors who are basically dental-eye hybrid wizards. Not exactly common on LinkedIn π§ββοΈπΌ
πΈ Qualification criteria: You need healthy retina and optic nerve PLUS corneal damage so severe that regular fixes are like using scotch tape on a broken dam ππ
πΈ Two surgeries = double the fun (said no one ever): Long healing, risks, follow-ups, and your insurance company probably doing this face: ππ
πΈ The "Wait, WHAT?" factor: When you tell people "I see through my tooth," they look at you like you just claimed you're part dragon πβ¨. Honestly, if you haven't got the capacity to explain they might just call an exorcist π€·.
πΈ Cost and rarity: This isn't exactly a walk-in clinic situation π°π₯
Final Tooth
This STILL feels like someone mixed up their sci-fi script with a medical journal. But here we are, living in a world where a man can now see again after undergoing tooth-in-eye surgery. (Thank you, Monday for the strange fun read.)
For Brent Chapman and Gail Lane, this bonkers procedure meant the difference between darkness and seeing love, light, colors, faces, and wagging dog tails. Worth every weird moment. π
Anyways, medical science is absolutely unhinged in the most beautiful way possible. Today, teeth in eyes. Tomorrow? Who knowsβmaybe we'll be hearing through our toenails! ππ¦Άπ