I first became interested in this field when I was treating patients who were suffering from what is known as TMD syndrome. This is a group of symptoms including sore facial muscles, tense neck and shoulders, or head pains, often caused by jaw relationship problems. It occurred to me that the technique I was using to treat these patients could also benefit denture patients. This led to the Added Dimension Denture™ technique, which involved increasing vertical dimension (lower facial height) by amounts far in excess of what was being taught in dental schools. It had been thought that if vertical dimension was increased by these amounts, the patient would experience jaw pain and that the gums underneath the dentures would become very sore. In fact, the opposite happened. I can remember the first patient I treated…the patient was delighted and said that these were the best dentures he had ever had. Not only were the patients accepting the increase in vertical dimension, they were also commenting on how good they looked and felt.
I was determined to publish my findings and put the technique on a scientific basis, not an easy task for a general practitioner. I submitted my paper to the then editor of the British Dental Journal, who advised me that I needed the expertise of an academic to be able to write a paper which would be accepted. He put me in touch with Dr. David Davies, a prosthetics consultant at King’s College Dental School. We worked together and the paper was finally published in 1996: https://goo.gl/GCPr6Z
“ Very few people actually do the hard work to really prove their ideas are right…Nick Mohindra’s story, to me, is the perfect example of how scientific publishing should work to the benefit of all concerned.”
Dr. Mike Grace, Editor of the British Dental Journal.
I was encouraged to move to central London to be able to treat more patients from the UK and beyond and set up Added Dimension Dentistry clinic in Wimpole Street, the heart of London’s health area. I started treating dentate patients with the same technique but this time it involved crowning all the patient’s teeth. Sometimes instead of crowning, we could use onlays and veneers. This is a very invasive and costly technique. I published my next paper in 2002 which showed that people could look between 5 and 20 years younger with this technique. This time Dr. John Bullman, a statistician from Eastman’s Dental Hospital helped me to write this paper. Again, this received considerable publicity…it was covered by the BBC news. https://goo.gl/QCbtzT
“It is frequently stated that it takes an average of 17 years for research medicine to reach clinical practice.”
Journal of Royal Society of Medicine.
Although the paper was published in 2002 it is only recently that this technique is becoming popular. In the USA, it is called Face Lift Dentistry and Facelift Dentures which are now registered trademarks of Dr Sam Muslin.
