...to think my dentist is cutting corners?

[LizziePizzie]

I went for my routeen 6 month check and also a 'clean' and my whole visit took no more than 10 minutes. The clean didn't include by back teeth and i came out feeling ver unsatisfied! (and fury teeth!)

I also asked what age I should state taking my DD (who is now 18 months old) and was told not till she is 3 years old. Is this right? I ignored that and have made an apointment for her in 6 months time to just get him to have a look at her!

PS - its an NHS dentist.

Perhaps I should look into private now... hummm...

Thank you everyone!

I have an appointment for my 14 year old son coming up, for his 6 monthly check up. He has plaque. Should our NHS dentist be removing it, or will he need a private appointment with the hygienist? sorry for hijack OP, just wondered if anyone would know.

If you do- try to get recommendation from friend. Preferably one who has had the same dentist for a long time. It is no good to have someone who doesn't tackle underlying problems and they don't always make themselves known for a long time.

I'm a dentist and I wholly disagree that all teeth need cleaning when you have a scale & polish.

The teeth are given a "score" from 0-4 (I'm paraphrasing slightly). Those that score 0 don't need cleaning, those that score 1 may need polishing, 2 means a scale, 3 and 4 really need proper cleaning by a dentist or hygienist which will take you out of the band 1 NHS charge of £17 and into the band 2 which is £47.

OP, if your teeth were a bit furry then it is likely that you maybe hadn't cleaned them as well as usual that day but were displaying no signs of gingivitis (superficial gum disease) or periodontitis (more severe gum disease).

Usually, people will score 2 on the lower front teeth, that is where the cleaning is needed.

I have seen some outstanding dentistry from South Africa as well as some that would have a dentist in front of the GDC in the UK. Swings and roundabouts.

Funny that you should post this. We were happy with our dentist for years until he retired - and some new ones took over. I always felt that from then on, it was never quite right; checkups seemed to take 5 minutes or less, and he brushed aside worries I had about my teeth.
After about a year, the surgery was suddenly closed down by the NHS or something - hygiene problems etc.

Today I had my first appointment with a new dentist, privately, and he's been fantastic. So much more thorough, and addressed issues which hadn't been addressed before.

If you can, I honestly recommend you trust your instinct on this and go with another.

There are good dentists and there are poor dentists and I'm not sure paying the extra to go privately is always worth it. If you want to go privately, go with a recommendation for a particular dentist rather than the surgery as a whole.

We paid an enormous amount to a private dentist recently - the surgery was recommended by a friend funny enough -but the individual dentist we saw (not the same as my friend's dentist) was dreadful. Not a patch on my old NHS dentist who had sadly retired. She missed a loose filling despite my telling her it felt sensitive and charging literally hundreds of pounds for a single appointment which comprised a check up and an X-ray.

I saw an NHS dentist a month or so later and he spotted the loose filling within seconds of my opening my mouth - I didn't even mention it. Now maybe it was looser, or whatever - but I just felt in safer hands. German dentist FWIW.

To be honest, I don't expect to have my teeth cleaned (much as I used to appreciate my old NHS dentist doing it) - it's the way it is. I'm worried about ds1's teeth especially as he has pretty dreadful enamel problems with his baby teeth (I'm told due to prematurity and IUGR but who knows?) but I'm lucky to have reasonable teeth and I look after them. Other than that, I pay the hygienist for a separate appointment and thank my lucky stars that the old days of filling every tooth (as they did when I was a child) seem to have died out.