‘Having bad teeth nearly killed me’
I booked a dentist’s appointment in late 2021 to have a crown replaced on one of my molars. There were reams of health questions to answer beforehand, and – typical bloke in a rush – I didn’t check to see if there were any questions about abnormalities with my heart.
Four years earlier, at the age of 41, I had been diagnosed with an underlying heart condition after a routine health MOT with my GP. I was told I had an abnormal aortic valve and that at some stage during my life, it was likely I would need a valve replacement. At the time I thought, as most blokes do, that’s an inconvenience, but it’s not an issue for right now, so I’ll kick it into the long grass and forget about it until I have to deal with it.
I had the crown replaced, and from the moment I left the dentist, I thought I was good to go. I work long hours as a rural property adviser in Dumfriesshire, Scotland, and had taken absolutely no time off work other than the hour for the procedure. But about a month later, I started to feel extremely unwell.
The symptoms were terrible sweats, feeling freezing cold and a high fever – I was completely bed bound. My wife, who works as an artist, and two teenage boys had Covid at the time, so I just assumed I’d caught it too. I don’t generally take medication so I drank lots of water. But things got progressively worse and worse.
After about 10 days of this fever, having only staggered out of bed for meals, I decided I had to shake it off, so I went for a long walk. But as I walked, I began to feel more and more ill. This was November, and when I got back, my hands wouldn’t work and I couldn’t undo the buttons on my jacket. I was so cold I had to get into the bath fully clothed. My wife found me like this – lying there, soaked through and shivering – and said: “This is ridiculous, we are going to have to see the doctor.”
My GP took a blood test, and when the results came back the following day, he rang me to say I had to go straight to the hospital because I had a rare condition called endocarditis – which I now know means inflammation of the heart chambers caused by an infection. It had attacked the weak point in my heart – the faulty valve – and I had probably got it during my crown replacement. Being a proud Scotsman, I was quite pleased at the time because it was the disease that killed Robert Burns, our national bard. Thank God it hasn’t killed me quite yet.
I was rushed into hospital pronto and put on a very heavy course of antibiotics before undergoing open heart surgery to replace the valve with a metal one. I was 45 at the time and assumed my heart condition would be an issue for much later in life. Never in a million years did I think a trip to the dentist would have this knock-on effect.
I’m lucky I’ve never been unfit – for 16 years I was an amateur jockey and I’ve always enjoyed physical work on the farm – and my doctor said this made it a much easier procedure and meant I would recover much quicker. Even so, I had the operation on Nov 21 and wasn’t discharged until four days before Christmas. I was very weak and lost 2.5 stone just lying in bed. My wife visited daily, but my children only came once. It’s not a nice thing for children to see their father in that kind of state.
Immediately after leaving the hospital, I was still rather anxious about my health, because it’s not like breaking your leg. If the heart breaks, it’s curtains. For most people, the heart is fairly unnoticeable, except in extreme circumstances. With my heart, you can hear it physically clicking – it’s like sleeping next to an alarm clock.
Under the advice of my doctor, I don’t really drink more than a glass of wine these days as any sort of stimulant makes my heart go faster. I’m also on a blood thinner called Warfarin, which I’ll have to take for the rest of my life, and there are certain things I have to avoid such as vitamin K – so brassicas, kale and brussel sprouts are out.
Time is a great healer though, and two years later, it’s started to feel much more normal. I’ve started running again, and I walked up a 2,000 foot hill in the Lake District on Sunday. However, sprinting 150 metres is less easy. I also had a great consultant who told me to throw away all my heart monitors to take my mind off of it. That piece of advice was a breath of fresh air; I’m much less anxious about it now.
In the long term, other than the usual risks of being on blood thinners which can mean you bleed more easily, I don’t suffer any side effects. The replacement valve is made out of metal so it should last the rest of my life.
For those people who haven’t had health issues, the one thing it’s easy to forget is how bloody marvellous it is being well. I didn’t take care of my teeth at all in my youth and had too many fillings. I wish I knew then what I know now about the correlation between the teeth and the heart, and had looked after them better.
One doesn’t want to be too much of a hypochondriac, but health is everything. I changed dentists after my ordeal and my new dentist is very careful with me – unless I’ve had a course of antibiotics before I see them, they simply won’t do anything to my teeth.
I also visit the hygienist regularly, and I absolutely make sure my children brush their teeth properly. I noticed Labour leader Keir Starmer recently announced plans for supervised brushing in schools, as the number one reason for young children being admitted to hospital is to extract rotten teeth.
Having had quite a close shave with ill health, I just try and go to bed every night content with life thus far and hope it will continue.
