To be astounded that we have to pay for braces?!

[toothyname]

(regular with name change!)

My step daughter has just gone to the orthodontics and has been told she needs braces but that NHS wont pay as it's cosmetic.. The cost is over £2000! Has anyone got any experience of this or succesfully challenged it..? Surely good teeth can't be the privilage of wealthy children..??

Sounds like it varies on what dentist you go to then? I had braces when I was 13 so 14 years ago and it was free, though I only needed them on the top as two of my teeth had grown too high up so I looked like a vampire. Might be worth trying different dentists.

Wowee, I was lucky then! I only waited 3 months! Am now praying my kids don't end up with my vampire teeth!

I know so someone who went to Budapest for their kids braces, great dentists there by all accounts. There is a web site,all about dentists and reviews etc but I can,t do the Linky think.
Might be worth a look, even with flights and hotel my friend saved ££££.

Oh god. DD has just been referred. I presumed braces were free. Twin sons are younger but looking like they need them too.

Turns grey! Hope they have a good payment plan!!

What age is she? My dd had orthodontic treatment at 16, four years ago. I'm sure I read the cut off age is now 18 (in Scotland). I'm shocked.

I have to say I'm in 2 minds about this - on the one hand, yes, if it is purely cosmetic (and the child wont suffer any issues other than a less than attractive smile) then why should the NHS pay? And why have we, as a society, decided that straight teeth are the most attractive kind of teeth? On the other hand, surely making people pay to have straight teeth is widening the class divide. Bad teeth are an indicator of low class - a very visible one.

My DDs' teeth were so bad that both qualified for free NHS treatment because they needed treatment for health reasons. However I chose to pay out of my own money because the NHS has enough to pay for and I had the savings.

If your stepdaughter only needs braces for cosmetic reasons then it is fair enough to ask you to pay (or she can save up when she is older). If you see it as a priority then you will economise elsewhere (foreign holiday, keep the old car, whatever). Some people have less than perfect noses/ whatever but we do not generally expect the NHS to pay. We are a country in massive debt sadly and if you want services to continue, then they have to be scaled back, sadly. perhaps when we go back to boom times the rules will change again. We can't all have everything we want for free.

In essence, YABU (sorry)

The sooner teeth are straightened the better.

I got mine for free, but I had to start and finish treatment before I was 18.

Mine were purely cosmetic, I had too many teeth and two sets of canines, so fangs basically, but they wouldn't have hurt me to keep.

I assumed all braces were free tbh, all my friends got theirs free, DP was offered free ones but declined as his didn't bother him at all. Maybe her teeth aren't actually that bad? Are they terribly wonky or just misaligned?

Thanks tiggy. I was inspired to phone them today as DD had just been referred. Apparently I need to take some time off work and take DD out of school to go to an appointment. And wait nearly 4 months. I didn't even ask for it, the dentist just said DD needs braces and will refer her.

Sounds like a load of hassle to maybe to find out that we'd have to pay. I certainly can't afford to keep taking time off work for appointments either (I work 45 mins away so no doable in a lunch break).

I was unaware of this but am not at al surprised given that we ended up paying hundred of pounds for DS1 to have a painful tooth extracted.

I spent £10k on the braces for my DDs. The rules have tightened up in the last few years over who can be funded by the NHS. It must have been costing the NHS fortunes giving everyone perfectly straight teeth even where there was no medical need.

littlered OTOH a tooth extraction should def be on the NHS - presumably nobody chooses to lose a tooth so I am guessing it was necessary. That is basic care that should be available to all regardless of wealth.

Pah, I'd much rather NHS money was spent on people in actual medical need than on people who'd like straight teeth - yes, it sucks to have to pay for braces, but it's better than geriatric wards being understaffed and people having to wait years for a simple hip replacement.

And I say this as someone who had to pay for their own othodontics to the tune of several thousand pounds (had to take out a loan) because it wasn't done when I was a child.

Just seen I posted on this thread three years ago when dd had just been referred at 10 years old - and now at 13 has only just been fitted with a functional device which will then lead to fixed device. She is still getting it free and we've moved in that time - but she is grade 5 severity with severe jaw misalignment etc.

i think it's a shame that children with quite severe cases but not severe enough can't get some free treatment. bad teeth can damage self esteem so very much.

I am finding this thread really interesting. We have just been referred to the orthodontist and the dentist told us to visit one and have been told by lots of parents with older children to keep going to different orthodontists until we find one which will do it for free. There are plenty of them round here and I don't know anyone who has had to pay. Am interested to see what the outcome will be.

My DC have had Damon braces, which work a lot faster than other sorts of braces and are more likely to avoid extraction of healthy teeth.

My 2 eldest have braces, 1 was judged to fit NHS criteria, 1 wasn't. I'm paying by direct debit over 2 years for the one that wasn't.
They go to the same place but the difference in attitude is very noticeable, the reception staff fawn over us when I go with the 'private' child but barely look up from the desk when I go with the NHS one. It makes us laugh. The actual dentistry hasn't been different though.

I'm an American. Dentistry is very expensive here as well. Braces are about $ 5000- here. I had my 12 year molars pulled to have enough room to bring the other teeth back. It's known as a Boston correction here, as it is so common among old Yankees. Twelve or thirteen generations here isn't enough to change the genes from Ye Old East Anglia, alas.
For the record, I was the only child in my family to use a pacifier, as it was considered more modern. I have the worse out mouthed teeth in my family. My sister sucked her thumb until she started smoking cigarettes, and her teeth weren't as bucked as mine. When I had my teeth done at thirteen, my parents offered to have hers done as well.

A colleauge had a breast reduction on the NHS a few years back. I was amazed she got it , honestly there was absolutely nothing abnormal about them.

well we have just been refered no one told us it would not be free im really worried now my daughter has a tooth growing in the roof of her mouth and too many teeth the look quite straight at the front but its a nightmare inside! im actually getting cross they didnt slip me a leaflet of something explaining things

Dd 2 has a brace nothing was ever mentioned about paying, she has a missing tooth so they're pulling her teeth together so you can't see a gap, she has an overbite too, but nothing that would have affected her health I don't think.
Dd 1 has lovely straight teeth, she has a slight gap in the front ones but the dentist said she wouldn't be eligible for nhs treatment as there's nothing actually wrong with her teeth, but I'm almost sure he said they'd cost £400, not thousands (but maybe I wasn't listening) she's still got one tooth to come down and he said to wait to see what that one was like, which I took to mean if it came down crooked she's get a brace on the nhs.

my daughter had braces a few years ago now, got them in the feb/march and I was told that she was really lucky, if the treatment had been started after april, that same year, new rules had come into force and she would no longer have been eligible on the NhS as the problem wouldn't have been considered severe enough.

she had braces for nearly two years and treatment included a small operation to remove a part of gum that was preventing her teeth from straightening and aligning correctly. Shocking to think that couldn't have been done now.

its dreadful what is being done to the health service in this country.

If you are going to pay for your own or your child's braces rather than get orthodontics "for free" on the NHS, you do at least get to choose your practitioner and the type of treatment he/she will do. All orthodontics are not equal. I went to several orthodontists and talked to several friends whose DC had had braces before choosing DD's orthodontist.

I wouldn't rush to get braces for my kids even if their teeth are a bit wonky. I had braces as a teenager, they hurt and are a massive annoyance plus they make you look awful (considering the reason you are having them is because you think your teeth look awful...) Anyway, I had nice straight teeth for a few years.

In my 20s, my wisdom teeth started coming through and pushed my teeth wonky again. Now I have several which overlap and are a at a funny angle. So, personally I think the braces were a waste of time, money and pain in my case.