How do ordinary working people afford major dental treatment costs?

[Heereforagoodtime]

My husband has just called, having been to the dentist, and he needs a back tooth to either be worked on and crowned or removed. The cost of the work is going to be over £1k. I don't know about the cost of the removal but, if he had it taken out, it would mean he'd be without two consecutive teeth on one side. I've just had a look at implants and they are so expensive.

I have a feeling this won't be the last of his issues, either. His teeth are terrible.

How do ordinary working people, who don't get any assistance, afford dental care?!

How would they actually know where you had work done? I lt could be another dentist in the UK?

But it seems that it's insinuating that UK dentists are the best and others are just lax.
My sister has had treatment by German and Swiss dentists as she's been living and working in both countries

By your reasoning she will have issues getting a dentist to see her if / when she returns to the uk

I imagine it depends on the type of work completed. I have had dental work completed in Germany, Austria and China and am now back in the uk. However, my treatment in these countries amounted to a couple of fillings over 25 years.

I took out a loan, £12,000 that I’ll be paying off for the next 3 years

But it still doesn't explain how the UK dentist would know where the work was done in the first place goes it? And what about immigrants who had treatment in hone country before moving to the UK.

This " UK dentists won't touch you if you've had work done abroad" simply isn't adding up

Because the results of dental tourism is very different to normal , routine dentistry.

Most dental tourists in Turkey will get variations of 28 crowns , implants, or all on 6 etc where every tooth is treated .

They have treatment plans done by email , or in hotels without proper clinical examination , x rays and history taking.

In many years of practice I have never either in one treatment or cumulatively placed 28 crowns on one patient. I have also never seen anyone treated in another country have 28 crowns placed in one treatment.

In young people this is often done to correct minor problems like misaligned teeth which could be corrected with braces cheaper and without permanent damage.

For those with damage doing a lot of treatment all in one go means the problems of diet, cleaning and care that should have been addressed and stabilised are not and all the work is doomed because their habits and care remain the same.

Finally in order to make it quick and economically viable treatment short cuts like joining crowns into one unit, root filling multiple teeth , making restorations uncleanable, changing the bite etc are commonplace.

You can spot Turkish dental tourism a mile away and because so many teeth are hacked about , it makes it a nightmare to sort out often needing specialist care because the problems created are so complex.

i , like all dentists, have seen and treated people from all around the world with dentistry ranging from Soviet era gold crowns to work done by Indian street dentists to beautiful Swedish work by one of the best dentists in the world. I have no problem with this as this is routine care of teeth , some good , some terrible , but a combination of treated and untouched teeth.

I have seen many patients who have been to Turkey and told them I will not touch their teeth as every tooth has been treated and it would open a hornets nest of problems and make me a target for litigation when the work they have spent thousands on starts to blow up and cause problems as U.K. dentists are far easier to sue. Repair is expensive , often takes years and often results in loss of more teeth.

I can't get my head around how that sort of dental work can be done in just a couple of visits.

I had one single implant last year and it took over 8 months from tooth extraction to finished tooth and involved multiple visits and careful checks at each stage to ensure everything was healed and there was no infection - and I am a very simple case - I have healthy gums and bones and all my other teeth are fine - only one other small filling (this implant was to replace a twice failed root canal that I had done in my late teens when a dentist damaged my tooth nerve trying to pin a very shallow filling).

Me personally I bite the bullet, pun intended, and make do. If necessary we cut down elsewhere. I need my teeth as do my family.

The obvious answer is it can’t , at least not with the planning , precautions and time extensive treatment needs. That’s if extensive treatment is needed and I would argue no one needs 28 crowns.

This is why so many short cuts are taken and inappropriate treatment , like multiple root treatments and joining crowns , is done in dental tourism .

Take out dental insurance. Sadly it won’t cover his current issue but it will cover future inspections and treatment. Simply Health is who I use.

sadly they have to have their teeth pulled out!

Yes @Ginmonkeyagain, my implant treatment took months and several appointments. At the very least, I thought there had to be a gap between the placement of the screws and then attaching the implant, to allow time for the screw to integrate with the bone (or whatever the technical terminology is for that process!)

I don’t. I only started going back to the dentist recently because I couldn’t remove two loose teeth (I have taken out my own teeth before). I won’t be going regularly though.

We save up for it.

We don’t, I don’t even have a dentist atm, am on the waiting list to be seen at the dental school by students.

I have the highest level of dental insurance but i’m still not sure it would cover absolutely everything. It definitely helps though and covers all my check ups, hygienist appointment, deep cleaning and most dental work.

It’s pay monthly towards it or have to put money aside in savings for it I guess.

DH and I are lucky to have a good NHS dentist but pay the private fee for hygienist 2-4 times a year each. We all have electric brushes and we floss. DD2 has recently had dental surgery (NHS) that she had to wait over a year for, braces coming soon.

It costs a bloody fortune, we pay for it and among other costs it’s why we always seem to be treading water and only fixing things in our house unless we absolutely need to. I do think what helps is going every six months from your 20s though - at least it spreads the cost a little as you’re less likely to get 10 big bills at once.

Can he not get it done through the nhs? That would be capped at around 3/400 for all treatment. Ive never went private for myself or family, we use nhs and always been great.

The NHS will only remove the tooth (I think band 2, so under £100). If you can find one!

I had to have a tooth removed after a 20 year old root canal failed. The tooth was damaged as a child due to an accident and if i'd know how much it would cost me in the future I'd have sued the driver who knocked me over for 000s!

It was removed before covid and it was nearly £500 private. I then had a tooth implant. Can't recall the final figure. It seems to keep going up with every stage of the payment. It was well over £2k, is not issue free and is a pain to keep clean. I wouldn't do it again as it has caused gum recession, moved over time and cracked the tooth next it (another £180 for a filling) so I might as well have just had a bridge fitted (which I didn't as they said a bridge can damage the teeth surrounding it so better to have an implant).

I now need a crown on another tooth and that has been quoted as £900 for a ceramic one (£300 for an NHS gold one). We already had a holiday to Malaysia booked for the summer so I'm booked in to have the crown done while I'm there (£350 for a ceramic) - they can do it within 48 hours as they make the crown onsite.

I'd crown the tooth if you can - I assume you are at a private and can't get NHS (if you can, do this) - otherwise the top teeth have nothing to bite against (and I was told) can start to come loose over time.

It is an NHS dentist although I suspect they are pushing some of the work privately.

Id just get the tooth taken out. Had an agonizing root canal filling before and a few years later it failed and had to have tooth removed anyway

Same. My took a year in total to get right!
They drill the screw into the bone. Let it heal (bone grow around it - 3 months minimum). They then cut open the gum to expose the screw. Put a cap on it to flatten it (more waiting). Then you go back and have impressions done (don't let your dentist fit the impression and then take it off and refit...). Then a few weeks later another appointment to have it fitted.

Then, in my case, 4 months of going back because it doesn't sit right . Eventually I fell out with my dentist as he took so long to agree to do a new impression and pay for a replacement tooth (as the original one doesn't fit properly as the impression wasn't clean and had been smudged) he'd never admit that though and tried all manner of gas lighting to convince me it wasn't the tooth, it was me who was the problem, which of course the new tooth showed not to be the case!

There is no way would I go somewhere like Turkey to have a mouth full of implants (I wouldn't actually have another implant as I think they cause more problems than they solve). When I hear of people saying they had it all done in a couple of week I am not surprised when they fall out.

I have Denplan. Pay £16 a month for 2 check ups and 1 hygienist visit a year and then any work is covered. When I needed a crown it was £70 lab fees and that was it. I can afford the monthly payment butni couldn't have afforded the treatment if I'd had to pay all at once. I was forced into private when all the dentists changed but to be honest I've needed some significant work since changing (3 root canals, crown, extraction multiple fillings, pregnancy really screwed over my previously perfect teeth) and I've spent significantly less than I would have done if I wasn't private

Yeah, thats definitely private work as nhs dorsny cost that. There is a cap. Although some treatment isnt available on the nhs and that could be one of them.

Don't even think about Turkey! Budapest is the place to go - Hungarian dentists are excellent and treatment prices are very reasonable even when travel costs are included. Choose a dentist who also has a clinic in the UK, so that you can access an emergency check up if required.