I’m 32 but now I look 70-years-old after losing my JAW & teeth due to life-changing infection

A MUM who lost her jaw and all her teeth has told how she used to wake up every day looking "70-years-old".

Meighan Maselli, 36, says her life was turned upside following complications from an infected tooth.

The mum-of-two had to have a root canal and two teeth had to be removed after her dentist spotted they were infected during a routine appointment.

But within days she was in agony, and diagnosed with osteomyelitis in her lower jaw - an inflammation caused by an infection somewhere else in the body.

It became so badly infected doctors had to remove nearly all her lower jaw and replace it with a metal rod.

The April 2017 procedure also meant they had to remove all the bottom and top teeth to prevent further infection.

But the worst was yet to come after Meighan was forced to undergo the risky operation twice more due to further complications and infections.

Doctors first attempted to rebuild her mouth using her hip bone, before successfully replacing it with a part of her shin bone.

The mum from Saratoga, New York, even had to have part of her neck reconstructed with muscle from her breast following the life changing ordeal.

Since the horrific procedure, the American has lost 170 pounds and now struggles to eat, and she doesn't even recognise herself.

She said: "The amount of stress on my body, it's like going to bed being 32 and waking up looking 70.

"I barely leave my home any more... If I can avoid looking in the mirror I do.

"I was a beautiful girl with a young son at the time and he is traumatized by this."

Heartbroken Meighan also revealed she "lost half my breast" as part of the surgery and has scars on her hip, leg and face.

Unemployed Meighan is now "stuck at home" and she admits she is struggling financially, while her daughter works full time to help pay the bills.

Recalling the horror, Meighan said she went home after the root canal surgery but woke up with a huge abscess under her chin.

The lower part of my face is numb, from the middle of my lip to the corner of my mouth and my chin down I have no feeling, and this started after that surgery

Meighan Maselli

She was rushed into A&E in Albany Memorial Hospital, New York, and was given a two-week course of antibiotics.

She said: “I didn’t sleep, I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t do anything. I had green pus dripping down the back of my mouth, when you pressed on my jaw green stuff came out the back.

"My jaw, from the back of my mouth to the middle of the chin where the abscess was, was gone."

She said how before she went under emergency surgery a doctor told her "your teeth are sitting in mush" and there was nothing they could do for her.

She was then sent to a specialist who took out half her lower jaw and replaced it with a metal rod during an operation in January 2018.

But by March 2018, during a check up, she was told how the rod had made the infection worse and she must have another eight-hour surgery to rebuild her jaw using bone from her hip.

She said: “I was so scared when they were talking about taking bones from another place in my body - I had never been through anything like this.

"The lower part of my face is numb, from the middle of my lip to the corner of my mouth and my chin down I have no feeling, and this started after that surgery.”

Your teeth are sitting in mush

Doctor speaking to Meighan

Despite all the procedures, her face still felt irritated and she returned to Albany Medical Centre in June 2018.

Another CAT scan showed the bone from her hip had completely died inside her face and horrifyingly was moving up through her lip.

Surgeons removed it and tried to clean the area, and also removed all her teeth to prevent any further infection from spreading.

Since then she has had three more surgical procedures to thin down the thick skin on her neck, that had been added from her breast to protect her jaw during the surgery.

Meighan’s frequent hospitalizations, as well as her disability, has prevented her from working since her original root canal in 2017.

These have affected her family, forcing her 19-year-old daughter Deonna to stay home and care for her mother instead of moving away to attend university.

She lamented: "When I do eat it's always soft foods, I live on eggs, pasta, chicken and hamburgers.

"I can't even go outside in the winter months unless absolutely necessary because shivering is the absolute worst. Because it tenses your jaw so much, for me, it's probably the worst pain of this."