Sir, I recently saw a 64-year-old male patient who presented with pain from the lower left quadrant and requested an extraction of a retained root in this region.

On intraoral examination, to my amazement there was a bizarre metal splint covering all the teeth in both the upper and lower arches (Figs 1-2). This had been in place for over a year, as confirmed by the patient and judging by the amount of calculus visible.

Figure 1-2
figure 1

An engineer's home-made 'precious splint'

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The splints were constructed by the patient, a 'former engineer who was quite good with his hands'. He claimed the splints had helped to stabilise his mobile teeth, enabling him to chew food much better.

The retained root was not visible in the oral cavity, but an OPG X-ray revealed a retained root in the region of the 36 and the splints firmly secured in place (Fig. 3).

Figure 3
figure 2

The OPG revealed a retained root and the splints firmly secured in place

Full size image

The irony of it all was that the patient wanted the retained root removed, but his 'precious splint' kept intact at all times. The patient also failed to mention if he had attempted an extraction himself leaving a retained root behind.

We agreed that a hospital referral was in the patient's best interest, in case of any other underlying pathology.

Hopefully the hospital may have persuaded the patient to have the splints removed, which may have resulted in the removal of the underlying teeth, as the splints seemed firmly secured with some sort of strong cement.

The end result may be the provision of a denture after the extraction of the mobile teeth, unless the patient decides to construct a DIY implant himself!

Though homemade devices are rare in the UK this is an example of one such rare case.