Teeth!

November 22nd, 2025| Topic: RaMbLeS | 0

Your “eye teeth” are the canines, one on each side of your upper and lower jaw. “Eye teeth” because they are pretty much directly under your eyes.

But a tooth in your eye?

Brent Chapman, 34, of North Vancouver, lost his vision at the age of 13. He was playing in a high school basketball tournament; he felt a little ill afterwards, and so took some ibuprofen. Chapman tragically developed a rare, life-threatening skin reaction to the medication: Stevens-Johnson syndrome (SJS).

With flu-like symptoms, and a painful and blistering rash, SJS is a medical emergency, and a significant danger to vision if the mucous membranes of the eye are affected.

Chapman’s were. His eyes were forever impacted: he was irreversibly blinded in his left eye, and his right suffered severe damage to the cornea.

The next two decades of his life were spent in trying different procedures to preserve any vision he had in that right eye, including ten cornea transplants. Unfortunately, these transplants worked only for a short period of time.

Chapman:

The damage to the surface of my eye was so severe that trying a cornea transplant was like trying to plant a flower in a desert. It’s just not going to grow. It was very devastating when I would lose that vision again. And we couldn’t keep going down that road.”

But now, with a tooth in his eye, it’s a success story. The doctors pulled out one of his teeth, flattened it, drilled a hole in it, placed a lens inside and implanted the tooth in his right eye.

You see, before that the biggest issue was getting an artificial cornea to stay in place so that the body doesn’t reject it, as was happening with each of Chapman’s transplants.

But a patient’s own tooth? That hard structure is recognized as “self” by the body, allowing it to grow into place as a prosthetic cornea! Thus a clear window to the back of the eye is in place—like a new windshield for the car.

Chapman again:

It kind of sounded a little science fictiony. I was like, ‘Who thought of this? This is so crazy.’”

Said Dr. Greg Moloney, Chapman’s eye surgeon:

Usually, the reaction is shock and surprise and frank disbelief that it even exists. But several hundred people around the world have undergone the procedure: ‘tooth-in-eye.’”

Or, technically, osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis.

After waking up, Chapman could see hand motions right away, and his vision sharpened over the next couple of months.

Chapman:

I was like, wow! Dr. Moloney and I made eye contact, and it was quite emotional. I hadn’t really made eye contact with anyone in years. It felt really euphoric.”

The good man now has about 20/40 or 20/30 vision in that eye. He can read, walk without a cane, and is back to playing basketball.

Teeth, in most cases, especially in the Psalms, aren’t all that useful!

My soul is in the midst of lions; …
their teeth a spear and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword.
Psalm 57:4

Dangerous appendages, those teeth.

The wicked schemes against the righteous, and gnashes at him with his teeth.
The Lord laughs at him, for He sees that his day is coming.
Psalm 37:12–13

And those teeth will be destroyed.

Arise, Yahweh; deliver me, my God.
For You have smitten all my enemies on the jaw;
the teeth of the wicked You have shattered.
Psalm 3:7

Praise the Lord!

Blessed be Yahweh, who has not given us as prey to their teeth.
Psalm 124:6

SOURCE: Today