Dental drama - what can I do?!

This is supremely unhelpful for someone anxious regarding dentists. Root canals are done very routinely. If there is a problem later on it can be removed then, why lose a tooth when it can be fine for decades to come?

Also maternity pay is not bad? It's £187 a week - less than half of what someone would make full time on minimum wage. If you want to try living on £750 a month to cover rent/mortgage, bills, food etc please do!

All the best at getting this sorted. Feel free to pm me if you want any advice in the meantime x

NHS maternity pay is not bad at all.

I'm surprised you are even considering root canal if you have dental phobia. Have you ever had one? They can cause all sorts of problems later on too. I'd rather lose a tooth.

Thank goodness you are now on antibiotics, your pain will go. If you do go ahead with root canal be as sure as you can that you are free of infection and get some more antibiotics to cover you.

Good luck.

I take it you ARE joking? £59 Routine appointment, £99 emergency appointment, £125 access appointment!!!

Dentist here.
I think everything that has been done here is standard good practice.
you saw an emergency dentist at out of hours. They correctly placed a temporary filling. A decent temp can last weeks, if not months, as long as you don’t eat any toffees! They can’t do permanent filings at this clinic so they did the right thing to temporise.
A dental therapist is qualified to do permanent fillings in adult teeth. He/ she did exactly the right thing getting an xray and assessing the tooth. You said you weren’t in pain at this point in time. Only dentists can do root canal. Again the therapist made the right call by referring you to the dentist.

there really is no way of knowing ( in this particular case ) if the tooth required root canal treatment prior to the assessment and radiograph with the therapist.

its pretty standard to wait for 8 weeks to see a dentist for routine treatment in any part of the country. There is a recruitment crisis and generally not enough dentists to go round. It’s not their fault.
root treatment generally can take two appointments both 45 minutes to an hour, so it’s not an easy one to schedule at short notice.

I'm a bit confused by your post as you initially said you weren’t in pain. But then subsequently today developed an abscess? Is that correct? And you were seen today. So all the boxes were ticked. The practiced handled it well I think.

you sound like you were annoyed with the receptionist. However you also admit you’re very anxious. Sometimes it can be tricky for receptionists to deal with anxious and demanding patients. And with the greatest of respect, and I’m sure you were lovely and polite, but sometimes those interactions can be tense. Who knows? None of us were witness to this.

finally, and it’s not aimed at the OP, but receptionists, therapists and dentists are doing their very best. We are treating disease that has generally been self inflicted. With a few exceptions.
patients can complain until they are blue in the face about this, that and the other. But there needs to be spme personal
accountability for dental issues without always trying to find someone else to blame.

You need to ring 111 for an emergency appointment to deal with the fact you're in pain.

I don’t think your dental surgery did anything wrong. They offered you an appt but you aren’t willing to wait 8 weeks. That’s your choice but that means you need to go privately if you want to see a dentist sooner.

You’re not going to lose your tooth, not even if the temporary filling falls out (which is very unlikely). You’ll just have toothache.

Your dental anxiety is behind most of this. Maybe you need to look at getting some help for it as sobbing at the dentist is most definitely not normal. None of us like the dentist but your phobia is turning you into a nightmare client and you risk losing your place at the NHS dentist if you continue like this. If you can afford it, you would be better off going privately so they can spend more time handholding you.

You’re wrong. If they have a degree in Hygiene Therapy then they can extract deciduous teeth and fill both permanent and deciduous teeth either under the prescription of a dentist or under direct access arrangements. They cannot do permanent extractions or root canal. I guess the therapist was concerned that the OP’s filling may actually need a root canal, in which case the right thing is for them to dress the tooth and refer to a dentist.
The therapist seems to have acted entirely correctly and there was no issue with offering a direct access appointment for a lost filling.
The issue seems to be that the receptionist is rude and unhelpful and that they are booking 2 months ahead- although booking 2 months ahead is fairly standard for an NHS practice.
Ask to speak to the practice manager, but your complaint is the attitude of the receptionist and not the clinical care being offered.
HTH

Just book the pre-bookable, It’s not an emergency. If it becomes one then phone them.

did you get an exit letter or anything from the hospital detailing who treated you, or do you remember her name? Or call the hospital to ask?

Improbable that she only does emergency night cover, likely to work elsewhere & work additional shifts - must be possible to track her down.
Or ask for a hospital referral - my extraction under GA was not because I am especially nervous, but I have a huge gag reflex, and trying to do it at the dental surgery was unsuccessful.

The dental therapist can do certain fillings so with the information they had you were allocated the correct person. Once the xray was taken it became apparent that it was something that would need to be done by the dentist. You were offered an appointment for the end of May. This is all just standard.

"temporary" fillings can last for ages.
I had a filling fall out, leaving a steel post sticking out from the remains of the tooth; I got a temporary filling the next day.
Long story, but ended up needing the tooth removed in hospital rather than the dental surgery, which took around ten months for the appointment. the temp filling was fine.

Why not try too make an appointment with the emergency dentist that you liked if you're considering going private?

My “temporary” filling lasted over two years (Covid) with no issues and I wasn’t even that careful. Take the May appointment and if you have issues before then call up, in pain, and get an emergency appointment.

Honestly that's NHS dentistry now. Same story, pregnancy with horrific morning sickness and reflux. Couldn't do dentist while pregnant as if so much as touched my mouth I'd be gagging and retching.

Lost a filling, 5 other teeth need fillings. Had an emergency dentist fill the tooth that lost the filling and it was 4 months before I got an appointment to fix it. 3 of the teeth still haven't been done as can only do one side at a time and only for so long. My next appointment will be 11 months from my filling falling out.

The temporary filling isn't likely to fall out in 8 weeks. You were offered an appointment for the end of May. That is pretty standard for NHS that isn't an emergency. You are no longer an emergency as you had the emergency treatment with the first dentist.
Possibly it was that that the dental associate was the correct person to do the treatment untill the xray was looked at.
If you don't want to wait until the end of May you are probably best booking a private appointment with another dentist.

Also just to add - the dental therapist is qualified to replace lost fillings under direct access (without dentist prescription). It’s best practice for them to encourage you to see the dentist if they feel as if the job is out of their scope of practice. They cannot diagnose you to be in need of a root canal or extraction etc. only the dentist can do that.

Dental nurse here 👋
Your temporary filling should absolutely last a couple of months until you are able to attend the ‘bookable’ appointment.
Some people have them as standard fillings, depending on which surface of the tooth is in question.
Your own dentist won’t be in a hurry to replace a temporary filling done elsewhere if there is nothing wrong with it/you aren’t in pain/you don’t have facial swelling. Hopefully none of these things will develop but at that point you could certainly call the surgery for an emergency appointment and they should provide one.
good luck op!