'I was bullied over crumbling teeth and always looked angry before £5k smile'

After enduring a lifetime of bullying over her yellowed and crumbling teeth, Sophie Holland - who suffers from a genetic condidtion - decided to take the plunge and spend thousands on a new smile, something that she has called "life-changing"
Years of bullying would start to take a toll on anyone - and Sophie Holland has endured more than her fair share. Sophie - a dog groomer - suffers from a hereditary condition that affects tooth enamel, leaving her with brittle, yellow teeth.
In the early years of her childhood, her baby teeth were perfectly healthy. However, when her adult teeth came through, she started to have issues with them. The condition is called amelogenesis imperfecta, and it also meant that Sophie, 25, was missing four of her back teeth, which made it hard for her to eat chewy foods like toffee.
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"It was standard kids' stuff," Sophie, from Langwith, Derbyshire, explains about the bullying she endured over her crumbling teeth, "If you ever got into an argument it would be the first thing that's thrown at you, 'you don't brush your teeth' and things like that."
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The insults thrown at her might have been childish - but over time it made a real impact on her, "It 100% knocked my confidence. It ruled my life, it took over my life."
Even listening to a particular hit song by Wiz Khalifa from her school years sends her back to the years of misery and insecurity she felt, she explains: "At school the song Black and Yellow was playing and a boy said, 'that's about your teeth' and to this day I can't listen to that song."
Sophie felt so bad about her smile that it impacted her quality of life, and for many years she wouldn't even crack a smile whilst posing for a photograph with her pals.
"I would avoid looking at them [her teeth] in the mirror, it used to make me fed up," she says, "I wouldn't smile in photos. People thought I had a resting b*tch face all the time. I used to get told I looked quite miserable.
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"If I was out with friends and they took a video of me and I was laughing in it, that would be the only thing I'd fixate on. I'd say, 'delete that! Delete that!'"
The NHS could only help her so far and with specialist funding running out eventually, she looked into having dentistry work done privately, but the costs quoted to her were astronomical at £18,000 - and there was no way she could afford to have the procedure done in the UK.
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Luckily, a friend told her about another option: a clinic in Turkey, where she could have a new smile sorted out for a fraction of the price - £5,000.
Sophie had to spend a week abroad having the dentistry work done - which has given her a new lease of life, and cured her "resting b***h face" for good. First, the clinic had to shave her original teeth down, before doing some work contouring her gums. She had a set of temporary teeth put in first, before at last have 24 porcelain crowns put in - that have given her a beautiful set of pearly whites.
The crowns are set to last for at least 10 years - maybe even up to 15 - and Sophie is considering her options already for after that, and might opt for dentures as a more last solution when the time comes.
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She couldn't be happier with the results of her smile overhaul: "It's been life-changing. It literally is life-changing. Before when I meet new people and they'd make me laugh, I'd be like, 'have they noticed it? Have they seen it?'
"Or when I used to speak to people and they'd look at me and look down at my mouth and look back up at me.
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"I could see their brain ticking and I was like, 'here we go, what are they thinking? What are they going to ask me? What are they going to say?' But now it's such a far thought in the back of my mind."
Now, Sophie gets nothing but compliments on how good her teeth look, which she has admitted makes her chuckle given the irony of the cruel taunting she long had to put up with. "To get complimented on my smile when before it was all I got picked on for, it makes me laugh to this day.
"I've had it before when I've been talking to people and mid-conversation they've gone, 'can I just say, you've got really nice teeth'. I just start laughing and I'm like, 'thank you, they're not mine but thank you'."
Sophie took her story to social media a few years later, where she explains she received nothing but support for her journey and raising awareness about the hereditary condition.
"I got so much love, I got so much positive feedback and people were so happy for me," she says, adding that she hopes anyone going through the same kind of issues as she has doesn't give up hope.
"My advice is if you're dealing with something like myself, a disease, and you feel like you're not getting any help or you've got nowhere to turn to, there are options out there and there are genuine people who want to help."

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