If you suffer from odontophobia, you'll want to turn back now.
For those without odontophobia, that's a fear of teeth.
Or dental surgery.
And if you didn't have it before, you may soon.
Ever experience a sore jaw?
Seven year-old Ravindranath of Chennai India did. So his parents took him to the hospital.
His swollen right cheek looked like symptoms of a decayed tooth to his parents. No big deal.
But tucked inside his right lower jaw was what appeared to be a tumor. After a five hour surgery, doctors discovered otherwise.
Instead there were 526 teeth that dentists had to remove surgically. The abnormal teeth were embedded in the jaw bone, but not visible from outside the mouth.
Dentists surgically removed all of the extra teeth leaving Ravindranath with the normal number of teeth for a seven year-old: 21.
Extra teeth is not overly uncommon, but generally it's only one or two.
526 extra teeth was a shock for even the dental surgeons.
One thing was on many people's minds:
how much of a haul is that going to be from the tooth fairy?
According to doctors, this is the first recorded case in the world that an individual had so many minute extra teeth.
The tumor is called an odontoma made up of the same materials that produce normal healthy teeth.
A speedy recovery to young Ravindranath.
Although being able to do this to a future dentist might have been cool...
@WhiteHouse/X
