Canadian woman with four teeth in a single socket claims record for supersized smile

Sylvia Boctor (Canada) is one of the rare souls that always looked forward to their dentist appointments… primarily because she loved seeing their reactions when she appeared with her textbook teeth.

With three supernumerary teeth crowded into a single socket – resulting in a shocking total of four sharing the space – most dentists were taken aback when they witnessed something they’d only heard about in their lessons. 

“One dentist told me I needed orthodontic treatment, because he initially thought that these were my normal teeth and just needed to be put back in place,” said Sylvia to GWR. “Then he looked a bit closer and realized these were supernumerary teeth, and said he had never seen anything like it!”

Surprisingly, Sylvia wasn’t born with her supernumerary teeth – saying that they first showed up in a panoramic X-ray when she was 20 years old. Throughout the years, various dentists encouraged her to remove them, but she took special care of her extra teeth (flossing constantly) and accepted their existence since they never caused her any pain. 

And this January, her efforts were rewarded with the Guinness World Records title for the most teeth in a single socket (female) – a category in which there are no known competitors. 

“All these reactions made me want to keep them and care for them all the more,” she said.

Sylvia's panoramic X-ray

Hyperdontia, the medical term for supernumerary (extra) teeth, is an uncommon yet recognizable diagnosis for healthcare specialists. Dentists estimate that it represents 1-3% of dental abnormalities, causing one or several extra teeth to develop in the mouth. 

Most children have 20 teeth, while adults have 32 – so Sylvia having three extra teeth is certainly unique, particularly as they all developed in the same socket. 

That said, she is still a few teeth shy of having the most teeth in a person’s mouth of all time, titles which are currently held by Kalpana Balan (India) for the women and Prathab Muniandy (Malaysia) for the men. Kalpana has 38 teeth in her mouth, while Prathab has a record-breaking 42. 

Read more stories about rare medical cases in our dedicated Human Body section!

Luckily, Sylvia said that her extra teeth never impacted her health, nor did they cause any discomfort with chewing or speaking. As she moved across Egypt, Australia, Yemen, and now Canada, some dentists encouraged her to put her quality of life first, saying that if she didn’t mind them there was no harm in keeping them. 

“When I pointed them out [to another dentist] he said he intentionally acted like they weren't there, because if they weren't bothering me he was fine for me not to do anything about them,” she said.

Yet she did admit that most medical professionals encouraged her to remove the teeth, saying that she might run into problems later down the line.

“Most other dentists, though, after expressing their initial surprise and saying that this was something they only heard about in textbooks, recommended extracting them, some more vehemently than others,” she explained.

“One dentist told me they would cause tongue ulcers if I kept them; another told me I should remove them right away because the longer I waited the harder it would become to extract them, which I would have to do at some point anyways.”

And unfortunately, those predictions ended up coming true a few months ago. 

Perhaps due to their packed position, Sylvia developed a cavity on her premolar within the socket. A dentist advised her that it would be “extremely hard” to complete the filling around the extra teeth, so grudgingly, she said goodbye to her three additional pearly-whites and preserved the health of her main tooth.

“Very reluctantly, I had to get them extracted to get that filling in the premolar,” she said.

Nevertheless, we’re sure that with – or without – some extra teeth in her smile, her future still looks incredibly bright.

Besides shocking dentists, Sylvia also enjoys working on her Master of Arts in Linguistics, a subject that she thoroughly adores. Since 2019, she’s called Canada her home alongside her husband and two sons (now 16 and almost 14), and enjoys sharing her passions with them for reading, hiking and swimming at warm beaches.

And fortunately, these are all hobbies that she can do without needing to spend time in a dentist’s office waiting room.

So congratulations Sylvia – you are Officially Amazing!