I won £30k after botched veneers left me in agony and unable to eat or sleep, says Miss England star

A FORMER Miss England contestant has shared her agonising battle with botched veneers.

April Gilmartin, won £30,000 compensation after her veneers left her in so much pain she could not eat or sleep.

The 33-year-old, from Blackpool, Lancashire, had the work done after she banged her tooth and it started to turn black.

She was doing a lot of beauty pageants at the time but felt too embarrassed to smile, so went to the Dental Practice in Lytham St Annes near Blackpool in 2014.

Her dentist told her the best thing to do would be to have root canal surgery and four veneers fitted.

She had the surgery but one of the veneers fell out the following month, leaving her with extremely sensitive teeth.

April had another set of veneers fitted — this time permanently — to appease the problem, but these just made things worse.

She said: “Firstly, the colour was a dull white and didn’t match the rest of my teeth.

“The size and shape of the veneers felt wrong, and they felt loose as well.”

Her dentist fitted brackets and wires to keep the veneers in place, but the ugly and twisted veneers continued to cause her misery.

She said: “I was in so much pain I couldn’t eat a burger or bite into an apple, and I couldn’t sleep properly. My gums were bleeding and started to omit an embarrassing odour. 

“I’m a beautician so I’m always in close proximity to my patients — I ended up wearing a mask on occasions so they couldn’t smell my breath. It was so embarrassing.”

She sought help from the Dental Law Partnership in 2017 — having spent more than £6,000 on successive treatments that left her teeth permanently damaged.

The firm claimed the veneers had not been fitted properly, with the teeth also not adequately prepared and left at different lengths by the dentist.

The dentist had also botched root canal treatment, failing to take sufficient X-rays before undertaking the procedure, it said. 

To make matters worse, she never needed four veneers in the first place. 

Root canal treatment and a crown at her damaged front tooth would have adequately addressed the problem, the firm said.  

The case was successfully settled in 2018 when the dentist paid a total of £30,000 in an out of court settlement. The dentist did not admit liability.

Since April’s settlement, the number of suits being handled by the company have increased drastically, thanks in part to the pressures of shows like Love Island, the lawyers said.

Seeing contestants on TV shows and influencers on social media with “perfect teeth” has led swathes of Brits to seek out dodgy dental work, they said.

April said: “There is no doubt in my mind that reality TV shows and social media are increasing the demand for young people to get treatments such as veneers. 

“Young people today feel the need to become ‘perfect’ — picture filters make everyone on Instagram look like they have the perfect straight, white smile, so people assume they must look like that in real life. 

“And then they’ll go to extreme lengths such as having their teeth replaced in their twenties to get the look themselves.” 

She added: “An accident damaged one of my front teeth which is why I opted for veneers – but given how uncomfortable the procedure was and how terribly wrong it went, I would urge any young person thinking about veneers for purely cosmetic reasons to think again. 

“It’s just not worth it to slightly improve your smile.”

The Dental Law Partnership has seen claims for botched veneers soar 60 per cent in a year.

The number of patients seeking damages for dodgy dental jobs has skyrocketed thanks to the “perfect, straight white teeth” displayed on reality shows, they say.

A third of 18- to 34-year-olds said celebrities influenced them to want to improve their own teeth.

Despite the swathes of failed treatments, four fifths of adults in the age group said they were still considering some kind of cosmetic work on their teeth over the next year.

It comes amid concerns surrounding the number of Brits who have jetted to Turkey to get their teeth done, in a trend that has been dubbed "Turkey teeth".

Chris Dean, director at the firm, said: “There’s a very clear trend — more and more young people are turning to veneers to get the perfect smile. 

“And a key reason many are doing so is due to being constantly bombarded by imagery of perfect, straight white teeth, which makes it seem the norm, even though more people’s teeth do not look like this. 

“This is of course leading to an increase in claims and the awarding of compensation when it goes wrong.”

He added: “We know that many are going to places such as Turkey to get the work done, where standards may be lower than in the UK, and if things do go wrong it is very difficult to obtain redress.”