What do you do for dentistry?

I commented on this post earlier in the thread. I felt so lucky to have an NHS dentist. Went for check up today only to be told they're going private! My dentist has 1500 patients on her personal list - Denplan scheme will be available to first 600 who sign up, the other 900 will be able to get only private treatment. I've been with this practice for 35 years. Zero point in trying to find another NHS dentist in this area - local social media notice boards are full of comments from people who cannot find NHS provision, and simply cannot afford private treatment. This is a shame and a disgrace for which the Conservative Government are completely responsible. They have made political choices to wreck NHS dental and medical care with no regard as to the consequences for those at the bottom of the heap. I'm disgusted by the Tories, and can't wait for them to be thrown out at the Election! Nothing could be worse for the vast majority of the population than for them to remain in power. I'm a low income medically retired single person, but in the fortunate position I'll be able to pay Denplan monthly if I budget, to cover check ups. I have some savings to dip in to for actual treatment required - fillings, restorations etc are not covered under plan - just get 20 per cent reduction on private charges. I'm truly so sorry and upset for those who are simply having to go without treatment. I'm also angry that Rishi and co don't give a damn!

I went private.
I go to the local BUPA place. There was NOT an nhs dentist to be had in my entire large town.

You cannot see a dentist in Scotland, you need a Scottish or border address as the NHS in Scotland does have registration, however even with this the Scottish situation is as bad as England.
You could probably see a dentist in Wales , but the situation in Wales is worse , if anything , than the situation in England , particularly North and mid Wales.

@Sibs10 oh that's good, they are very helpful

I'm actually leaving them due to distance

I agree with all your points - thank you! I'm just upset that if I didn't have the clots I would be able to get it taken out instantly and no longer be in pain. I know it's hard to believe but I have pages and pages of dentist phone numbers, times dates I last called, whether I'm on the waiting list, how much the private treatment is, when I should call back to be considered for an appointment... I sit down every weekday afternoon while DD1 picks DD2 up from school for me so I can call dentists. I'm now on those up to 50 miles away. All of the ones with a waiting list have said it's between 2 and 4 years long already.

Does anyone know if patients in England can see an NHS dentist in Wales or Scotland in case I reach the border before I find one? 😄

That's really helpful - thank you! They're one of the ones I called yesterday while doing my monthly call round of every dentist in the north-west 😄 Unfortunately can't change DCs' dentist as they're having orthodontic treatment. Their dentist is really good. It's just a PITA to get to as the way buses are, I have to travel away from it to then get a bus in that direction. I've got Bennison my list if I have a sudden recovery and a windfall as they said they would take it out for £90 (plus xrays etc).

Emergency clinics are not set up to do complex treatment like root canals , and they are not set up to do treatment that cannot be completed in one visit . Your treatment requires a couple of visits and liaison with your consultant and emergency clinics which are manned by different people every day have no way of having a person to liaise and chase up information. That's the situation no matter who it is being treated .

treating patients with blood thinners is meat and potatoes to most dentists , many people are on them . It's just the logistics of liasing with consultants , timing and adjustment of medication plus other measures like packs and stitches that complicates things.

It may be that you , like your children, have to travel a long distance. It may well be that , after all this time, root treatment is not an option but you have to have the tooth out. However healthwatch cannot change emergency clinics and their equipment , you are better off spending your energy hitting the phones . Explain your problems and needing a tooth out and you may be lucky and get a surgery with a bit of capacity to see you. Keep on at it , as even an extraction cannot be handled at an emergency appointment , it needs planning and co ordination. Good luck.

@Sibs10 have you tried this one for the children? They're my dentist and they were taking on NHS children only
I'm on denplan with them

www.toothtalk.uk/bolton/about-us/

My dentist discharged our entire family as we didn't have a checkup for a year (during lockdown when they were closed!) Since then we have only been able to find one a 5hr bus journey away for the kids. I need a root canal but I'm on high dose blood thinners and have an embolism at the moment, so I have to plan surgery in advance with the DVT clinic. I can't even have the tooth removed as an emergency when I'm in agony. Every couple of months I call the emergency dentist number and explain my face has swollen up, I'm drooling etc. They make me an appointment. Dentist says they won't do a root canal at an NHS emergency appointment as it's a £900+ treatment. They offer extraction or antibiotics. I tell them I'm on blood thinners and they give me penicillin and tell me to eff off. I've had to do this 3 times now. I've complained to NHS Gtr Manchester that people with blood clots (essentially a disability for me as I have a blood vessel disorder) are being provided with a lesser service than everyone else as we cannot use the emergency dentist. I've written to them twice in the last 6 months, and Healthwatch Bolton, and they have said multiple times they're "looking into it" but never get back to me. I suspect they have no solution because it would mean changing the entire system which they won't do for a handful of seriously ill people. Due to my current illness I'm on a low income. I can't afford treatment and insurance won't take me on in the past due to my disorder. I really don't know what to do. I've had steroids this last time as the infection got into my cheek and fluid build up in my sinus. I was asleep the other day and my pillow was wet through. Water was leaking from my nose after a popping sensation in my head. At least my head doesn't feel swollen any more! Honestly think this abscess will kill me.

I’m in the same boat Op, just had the letter. Is £12 a month really worth it for just check ups? How much is a checkup privately?

I worked in a very deprived area , the youngest child who had all their teeth out was 18 months. In my area half of all 5 year olds have decay.
The terrible thing is a child who has teeth out or alot of treatment young often becomes phobic and ,all too often, the changes in diet and cleaning are not made so that child is doomed to a life of bad oral health . Just like their parents who eat the same diet and also don't clean well as they believe they all have "weak teeth" and don't believe they can make the changes to give them a healthy mouth.

Very frustratingly we had many stable patients who, during COVID, upped their sugar and snacking and came in with so many holes to be filled. It was not unusual to see an 11 year old with 9 teeth to be filled, or an adult with twelve teeth decayed who doesn't change their diet and by the time you finished their fillings yet more decay had started.

Even in the middle class enclaves the constant snacking on "healthy" raisins, yogurts, granola bars,smoothies,fruit juice causes decay all too often.

With gum disease we know it is linked to so many inflammatory processes like heart disease, diabetes,miscarriages . We also know it can be controlled by lifelong increased oral hygiene. But people don't believe that , they want treatment they believe will cure gum disease when , really , the control is almost entirely in their hands.

Changing people's behaviour is the most difficult thing to do , even more so when you are fighting the tropes of "weak teeth" , "baby tooth calcium away from teeth" , I don't need to use floss/interdental brushes because I use mouthwash , having a scale cures gum disease etc etc etc

However I do believe there’s no excuse for children to have lots of decay. That’s parental neglect.

I work in an affluent area so my cohort of patients try and care for their teeth well. I would say that most of my time is spent repairing/ extracting/ replacing teeth that are already heavily restored, most from many years before. Doing new fillings in previously unrestored teeth is relatively rare.
Good oral hygiene etc doesn’t stop these teeth fracturing/ going non vital etc.
Gum disease is multifactorial but one of the main factors is genetics which we can’t do anything about.

There are definitely other cohorts of patients who eat all the sugar and don’t brush. I spend time teaching students to take their teeth out and make plastic dentures in my other job!

But it is true. Most (albeit not all) dental issues can be prevented via reducing, limiting or cutting out the sugary shit, and practicing good oral hygiene at home. I don’t see what is so radical and unbelievable about the notion. It’s what’s been drummed into most of us since childhood; whether or not we choose to follow the advice is a different matter. The invention, especially, of electric toothbrushes and water flossers has really revolutionised at-home dental care. I visit the dental hygienist twice a year, but could easily reduce it to one visit. I supervised my DC’s tooth brushing until he was nearly 10. He never had a cavity or other dental issue. I stopped supervising, and at his last hygienist appointment he had some tartar build-up; so I resumed supervising again until he sorted it out. It’s things like that that can also make a big difference in preventing dental issues from cropping up, especially in children.

Anyway, if you don’t believe me, you can refer to the posts of some of the people on this thread who are dentists. They seem to be saying the same thing—unless you think they are also spreading disinformation and untruths.

An old dentists saying “ only floss the teeth you want to keep”.

Never had a filling since I started flossing morning and night 30 years ago

Im not sure where you are getting your information from but the plaque “thing” is much more complex and affects less than 10% of the population. There is growing evidence that it is genetically linked to diabetes and coronary artery disease and a side effect of an over reaction by the immune system( gene mutation) to inflammatory chemicals.

One side effect is that as dentists when we regularly see patients who suddenly develop periodontal disease, there is a strong chance that they also have type 2 diabetes and/or coronary artery disease. I refer all patients to their GP if they present with early perio disease after years of healthy gums.

Just to add, it is possible to have these diseases in isolation. There may be a trigger, environmental (smoking),disease (viral trigger), hormones ( oestrogen) and genetic predisposition.

Around about 1 in 10 people will develop gum disease whether they go to the dentist or not. Those that have regular checks are likely to be caught early and appropriate advice can be given. Even now, despite the advances in medicine and dentistry treatment is 99% oral hygiene at home.

Decay in teeth is probably similar in that some people develop antibodies to the pathogens that initiate demineralisation of enamel. As a result they suffer less decay. A diet high in refined carbohydrates overwhelms the natural defence mechanism so teeth decay faster than the body can defend them.
We see a lot of decay in previously healthy mouths when they have to take longterm immunosuppressants.

Some people can go months without brushing their teeth with very little damage.

A cl an at the dentist has no direct therauputic value. It is carried out to remove calculus that makes home cleaning less effective.

I go to Budapest. It's fabulous and a quarter of the price

Here's where the 90% oral problems are preventable came from

"It is also important to remember that around 90% of dental problems are preventable with moderate consumption of sugar, sufficient exposure to fluoride, regular brushing, and routine visits to the dentist (Royal College of Surgeons of England, 2014)."

Sorry but around 90% of dental treatment is preventable https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/oral-health#:~:text=Overview,tooth%20loss%20and%20oral%20cancers.

You are right some things make dental problems more frequent eg
decay .... dry mouth caused by disease or medication eg antidepressants, or radiotherapy of saliva glands

gum disease .....smoking, alcohol, diabetes and a genetic component

weak teeth........ very rare conditions like amelogenesis imperfecta and more commonly Hypomineralisation

However even with these problems control of diet, improved oral hygiene and use of fluoride will prevent most problems or stop them getting worse. Treatment of gum disease is 90% patient effort , 10% dentist input.

Cleaning and scaling should not be necessary , tartar only forms when plaque has laid , undisturbed, on the tooth for at least 24 hours , in other words if a brush , interdental brush or floss cleaned away that plaque in that 24 hour (or more) period there would be no tartar.

People living where there is hardly any sugar intake (eg in the past Inuits, and large parts of Africa ) had no decay , but once sugar was introduced they developed problems with decay .

Unfortunately in this country we eat far in excess of the recommended daily sugar intake (children even higher) and the average U.K. child eats 7 times a day with many grazing throughout the day. Eating or drinking anything sugary more than three times a day will cause decay.

Not true. Some people have crowded mouths with lots of irregular teeth doing badly-behaved things. Some people just have metabolisms that make them more vulnerable to plaque buildup and to gum issues, even when they floss scrupulously; they need the extra cleanings and scrapings. Some people are hit with medical conditions or medical treatments that have knock-on effects on their dental health. Obviously things would be better if more people practiced good dental hygiene at home, but please drop the triumphalist virtue-signaling here and thank your lucky stars for your good dental genes!

He just rang up @XenoBitch - he had to travel 30 miles though!

Our private dentist was also able to refer DS1 to an NHS orthodontist (well, actually the local dental hospital as his teeth are very wiggly), so he will be getting braces on the NHS. I know that is a worry for a lot of people, but braces on the NHS are based on need rather than whether you have an NHS dentist or not.

If you generally have good teeth, you don't really need to do the denplan and you can just pay as you go. My dentist suggested I'm fine with yearly appointments and six monthly for my DC. My appointment costs £40 and they are £15 each, you will need to pay extra for any x-rays etc but they aren't too expensive if you can go to a cheaper dentist, I think my little x-ray was £20 and DS had a full x-ray at £40.

We travel to a cheaper area of our city for the dentist as the one we found was much cheaper than all the ones near us.

Also, really looking after your teeth will help to reduce long term costs. I use an interdental brush every night, some really brilliant toothpaste tablets and an Oral B electric toothbrush. My dentist was so excited looking at my gums as apparently they now look like 'textbook healthy gums' when she is a lot more used to seeing quite bad teeth.

I see a private dentist and pay monthly via Denplan Care. It is under £20 for me and my daughter is seen via NHS at same practice. I can have an appointment whenever I want and have Xrays, check ups and hygienist regularly.

I have good teeth though and the cost is partly based on the condition. I have had a private dentist since I was 18 and haven’t had any fillings yet (46) so I pay the lowest premium. DH’s teeth are shit and they want a bloody fortune for his so he doesn’t go often and pays as he goes.