To be angry at the dentist.....

[darkcloudlooming]

So I had An appointment booked today for a root canal. I’m a ‘fee paying’ NHS patient because I can’t afford private care (even though we cut back on everything and have no luxuries or holidays) and I had to really build myself up to go because I don’t like dentists and really am anxious. So I got myself ready and was prepared for the appointment and my husband had to take 3 hours off work ( was supposed to start at 10 but appointment was at 11:50 only one available and then it’s 40 minutes for the root canal) to look after my baby for this but then someone then rang me an hour before my appointment to tell me the dentist is not coming in because he had ‘broke down’ which we all know is a load of crap and the real reason is because they got a private patient in who can pay the £300 fee for the private root canal. They use this excuse every single time ! So now I’m left with an infected tooth and I pain! She then said in the Phone she’s not sure when this can be done now! But then found an appointment for half an hour and that he will have to ‘do wonders on This appointment and rush on the day as we are fully booked and don’t have a lot of 40 minutes appointments) Am I being unreasonable to be angry??
I don’t have the best teeth because of neglect as a child.. my mum didn’t care about oral hygiene, she didn’t teach us anything and didn’t take us to the dentist unless we were crying out In pain and she fed us on processed sugary ready meals and tinned food because she wanted to save as much as she could for her booze. So I’m really depressed right now! I feel like I’m judged every time I go to the dentist but my teeth were long gone by time I was 15 because of what my mum fed us in. There is no more NHS dentists around where I live and I have no disposable income to go private. I’m starting to feel really suicidal and wanted this out of the way.. :-(

OP, sometimes the receptionist will give a fake excuse for a real problem. 'Broken down' can't be argued with. People can and often will argue with personal reasons such as 'her child is unwell and she's been in A&E with him all night', 'his mum passed away last night' and so on.

The dentist that owns the practice doesn't get paid if they're not there doing the procedures. The dentists doing both NHS and private work have to offer a certain number of NHS slots - they can't close one off for private work. I am almost certain that you're wrong when you say that the dentist closed your appointment in favour of a private patient.

Do you have a local dental hospital with students in? That's where I had the first part of my root canal done, the crown on top was done by my dentist later on when he had availability.

I started at my current practice with the junior denist who now owns it I do a mixture of NHS/Private treatment (white fillings after my old practice was one of the fill for cash scandal) I have never seen him bump a NHS for private. Wouldn't it be completely obvious if he was supposed to be on the roadside but working on a private patient. It isn't going to happen.

Heatheryayne I love and hate my wonderful hygienist in equal measures. You make my teeth squeaky clean and I'm sorry when I lie to you that I floss twice a day. You know I'm not telling the truth but I do commit once a day

isOutThere thanks for that.

I hate ok not really my hygienist but love that squeaky clean feeling.

I do get praise and a sticker for using my sonicare airfloss. Has made a huge improvement

I do get praise and a sticker for using my sonicare airfloss. Has made a huge improvement

I use a Waterpik twice a day and that's made a huge difference too.

While flossing can't hurt, there's very little evidence that it provides any long term benefit.

www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2016/08/02/488378699/does-flossing-help-or-not-the-evidence-is-mixed-at-best