“From bad breath to a numb tongue and tight lips, oral health can be a good indicator of the body’s general state of wellbeing.” The Observer spoke to Prof Hutchison as part of Oral Health Month.
05
Aug
Aug
Barbara Alves was working as a model when a flesh-eating disease ravaged her face. As part of a life saving operation, most of her jaw, teeth, lips and part of her cheek had to be removed.
08
Oct
Oct
Reproduced from The Times, 8th of October 2002.
“De Lotbinière refused to be cast down by his condition and his portrait by Mark Gilbert proved inspirational.” Henry de Lotbinière, who passed away on October 1st 2002, was a great friend of Saving Faces.
07
Mar
Mar
For years, the portrait painter Mark Gilbert had no qualms about disappointing his sitters in the name of art. “They found my paintings unflattering,” the slight, 32-year-old Glaswegian confesses. “I couldn’t give a monkey’s how my models felt and I’d exaggerate any blemish.”
That was before he found himself working with subjects whom he absolutely could not offend, and whose flaws demanded compassion rather than mockery. “I couldn’t go off on any Bacon-esque artistic tangents. Every mark I made had to be as honest as possible. I didn’t want to feel inhibited. But it mattered how they felt.”
24
Jan
Jan
“When Constance was told she had cancer of the mouth she thought she would be terribly disfigured…until a leading surgeon performed his miracle”
TO LOOK at Constance Searle today you would never guess that half her face has been re-built in an astonishing 12-hour operation. Surgeon Iain Hutchison removed a slice of bone five inches long and one inch thick from her shoulder blade and crafted it into a jawbone. He then used it to replace the left hand side of Constance’s cancer-ravaged face from her ear to her chin.”It is absolutely brilliant,” says Constance, 65, from Rainham, Essex.
09
Jan
Jan
“Nearly 4,000 people in Britain are diagnosed with mouth cancer every year, and it kills almost half of them. This is largely because most people ignore these symptoms. Now a new easy-to-use mouthwash has been developed that can detect mouth cancer in its early stages.”
27
Jun
Jun
For more than a year, Antonia Danby draped her hair over her right eye. She was hiding a lumpy cartilage-like growth, which was rapidly expanding from her eyebrow downwards to create a shelf-like overhang. It also threatened the sight in her right eye. When I meet her, she is holding a portrait painted several months before the operation which eventually removed her growth. It was painted by Mark Gilbert, a Glasgow artist, who is the Saving Faces artist-in-residence at St Bartholomew’s and the Royal London facial surgery unit.
27
Jun
Jun
From the breast to the brain, and the lung to the prostate, it’s hard to think of a body part that does not have a charity dedicated to promoting its own medical interests. A surprising exception is the face. Cosmetics companies may seduce us into spending small fortunes on making the best of our features, but this counts for little if your face is disfigured by disease or an accident, damaged by a violent attack, or distorted by unequal growth of bones. The shape of the jaw or nose can be critical to emotional stability, as Sue Elphick, a 33-year-old nurse, discovered as a child. “I always felt I was an ugly duckling. My bones seemed to grow at different rates. My lower jaw and chin lengthened and curled up until I was able to touch my nose with the tip of my chin. My cheek bones flattened, and soon my face looked like a crescent moon.
27
Jun
Jun
We value beauty so highly that living with disfigured features can be unbearable. Angela Neustatter talks to two people about how they cope – and about how a new charity is tackling the prejudice. The left-hand side of Henry de Lotbiniere’s face is a wreck. What was once an angular cheek meeting chiselled jaw, is now concave. There is a protuberant flesh covered lump in the place where his eye used to be. When he lifts the dark forelock of hair which hangs low over his brow you see a crater-like hole where half his forehead has been removed.