Milton Keynes man awarded £12.5K after dentist fluffs implant, causing agony

The 38-year-old fish & chip shop owner visited Dr Adetoun Soyombo at Dental Specialists MK, Bletchley, between November 2014 and July 2015.

“Dr Soyombo fitted an implant in February 2015,” Mr Pestana said. “The dentist said that everything had gone well and that I should take painkillers for two or three days. I thought that all sounded routine and everything would be fine.

“I was expecting a bit of pain when I stopped taking the painkillers, and it was still there three days after the implant was fitted, but when I was still experiencing pain a week later I began to worry something wasn’t quite right.”

He went back to see Dr Soyombo but his pain continued. He also began to bleed where the implant had been fitted but no treatment was offered.

Mr Pestana continued to suffer in pain and when he visited the dentist in April to complain - and Dr Soyombo took an X-ray, it showed his implant needed to be removed.

“Having the implant extracted was even more painful than having it put in,” Mr Pestana revealed.

“The X-ray showed there was infection around the implant, so the implant had to come out. A few weeks later, I had to have braces fitted to keep the teeth next to the implant stable because they had come loose in the process.”

The braces were fitted by a new dentist as by this point Mr Pestana had stopped trusting Dr Soyombo. He then saw another dentist who told him he would need a bridge to fix the problems caused by the implant.

In desperation, Mr Pestana contacted the Dental Law Partnership. Analysis of his dental records revealed Dr Soyombo had placed Mr Pestana’s implant into insufficient bone and he would have needed a bone graft prior to an implant for the treatment to succeed. The implant was also placed at the wrong angle. As a result, Mr Pestana will lose a tooth and will require a bridge to fill the gap in his teeth..

“I suffered in pain for two months,” Mr Pestana said. “I’m never having another implant so I will have to live with a bridge now. The whole experience was a nightmare and there’s still more to come, I’m going to lose the tooth next to where the implant was placed.”

Georgina France of the Dental Law Partnership said: “The distress and pain our client has experienced was completely avoidable. If the dentist had carried out adequate treatment in the first place, his problems could have been prevented.”

The Dental Law Partnership took on Mr Pestana’s case in 2015. The case was successfully settled in 2020 when the dentist paid £12,500 in an out of court settlement. Dr Soyombo denied liability.