A WOMAN was so scared of the dentist she used superglue to repair her own teeth.

Mavis Nelson-Chapman’s fear stems back to an ordeal as a seven-year-old when a locum dentist pulled a tooth out but left the root, which needed treatment at a dental hospital.

Then, as a teenager, she badly chipped her two front teeth when she fell over, and had to have them capped.

Over the years her teeth deteriorated to the point they gave her chronic pain.

Things got worse still when her partner Stephen, a retired nurse, was diagnosed with prostate cancer, which had spread to his bones, in February 2015.

Mrs Nelson-Chapman, from Gateshead, a catering worker in Queen Elizabeth Hospital’s psychiatric ward, said: “I don’t know if it was the stress and the worry, but my teeth just seemed to fall to pieces.

“My body just couldn’t cope. My back teeth just crumbled and I was actually scared to eat. I was losing so much weight.

“I couldn’t drink anything cold, I had to chew on one part of my mouth, and I was in constant pain.

“The caps on my two front teeth started to fall out all the time and become cracked, and I was constantly going back to the dentist to get them re-glued.

“But in the end I got so sick of it I started supergluing them back together myself. I was that desperate.

“I remember we’d been on holiday in Lanzarote and my teeth were bad. I went to the supermarket, bought some superglue and patched it up myself.”

Mrs Nelson-Chapman recently splashed out £25,000 on dental work ahead of her wedding to Stephen, who has recently been given the heart-breaking news his cancer is incurable.

Her top and bottom jaw received a custom-made, permanent set of natural looking, replacement teeth - or ‘bridge’ - attached to four dental implants. 

She underwent the pioneering procedure with leading cosmetic dentist Dr Rob Wain at Dovetail Bespoke Dental Solutions’ in Newcastle.

She said: “I was so embarrassed about my teeth I used to put my hand over my mouth every time I talked.

“Opting to undergo expensive surgery to replace them was a big decision - there was a lot of soul searching.

“But in the end Stephen told me, ‘Just go for it - life’s too short.’

“And now my new teeth have completely changed my life. Despite what we’re going through, my family say they’ve never seen me smile as much.

“We went back to Lanzarote on our honeymoon, but I didn’t take the superglue with me this time.”