£12k for dental treatment?!

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Just seen a private dentist at my NHS practice as they have no NHS dentists working so this was my only option.

My teeth are terrible. I have severe bruxism and most of my teeth are so ground down and broken that the dentine is exposed and the enamel gone. They are also very very short.

This dentist basically said I have three options

1. Do nothing and just keep wearing my night guards. Teeth will crumble and break, and I'll have to have them removed and have a bridge or similar when that happens.
2. Crown the front 14 teeth (8 top, 6 bottom) and wait 3-6 months for my rear molars to push up to the same height (crowns will gain me 5-7mm difference she thinks) - £12,000
3. Crown all my teeth (I have several missing molars) - £21,000

That's it. Those are my options. I'm not suitable for any other treatment. The NHS have long refused to do the crowns.

I'm fucked, aren't I? £12k is an absolutely impossible sum of money to find.

Well, I'm not far from Plymouth and they have a big dental school but they are swamped with desperate people because of the dearth of NHS dentists in the SW. I could give them a call I suppose, but they've actually seen me before and only managed one single piece of work in a term (a root canal).

Is there a best way to sell myself to them? 😁

My DH had similar and paid £12k so does sound reasonable. I know dentures sound really scary, but if it eventually does come to that, my DGM had them from about the age of 20. Her face looked completely normal, her teeth looked great and she ate whatever she wanted. I think the only issue was the occasional bout of oral thrush when she was very elderly (but she, like me, was unfortunately pretty prone to thrush anyway).

No, £5k a day for a five-day working week is £25K. Unless your weeks are 12 days long and don't include the weekend off...

If it's Peninsula they have closed the list for students and your case , needing multiple crowns/bridges and occlusal rearrangement is not suitable for a student case anyway.

I know it’s not the same ..
but I had bulimia for most of my life ..there’s no mental health help for eating disorders if you are not under weight
any way you can imagine my teeth .
I had to have 3 removed and I wear a denture
it cost me £250 on nhs ,the cheapest one they do
it’s amazing,I’ve got my smile back ,I only take it out late at night ,no one knows I’ve got one ,not even my husband.
I can’t feel it when it’s it in
because of the bulimia I will loose more teeth as I get older ,but I can have the denture re made .
pits took the worry of my teeth away ,and the worry of the cost is gone to .
I can open my mouth wide and no one can see it .
if you have to go down this route for some of your teeth ,it’s honestly not the end of the world

Just going out on a limb here to post a couple of links
https://fedup.com.au/
https://fedup.com.au/factsheets/symptom-factsheets/headaches-and-migraines
https://fedup.com.au/factsheets/symptom-factsheets/teeth-grinding
https://fedup.com.au/information/support/failsafe-friendly-dietitians-and-other-health-professionals-overseas

I hope you find a result in these.

Dentist here. You have had very good advice from other dentists on this chat.
I would echo the comments that this is extremely complicated and certainly not something that could ever be attempted or justified on the NHS.

If I spotted early signs of this in a patient I would make a mouth guard to help prevent bruxism and probably build up individual teeth as they start to wear. The problem is that fillings just get ground down again.

Crowns help, and there might be justification for the odd one to get done on the NHS but unlikely anyone would attempt a full mouth rehab.

Your estimates are reasonable. It will be a LOT of very complicated treatment that might take a year or longer to sort. The private dentist will likely have post grad training in complicated bruxist cases.

And even then there are no guarantees. If you grind heavily you can also cause teeth to become loose in their sockets.

Sorry it's not more positive. I'd try the Botox and a decent mouth guard.

Just wanted to make a point that this isn't just a "greedy" dentist wanting to make a profit.

I'm a private dentist and I could charge that amount but I wouldn't want to touch it with a barge pole personally

If you want to go for crowns and that is your last option, would you consider having them done abroad?

People don't like getting their teeth done abroad as they shave the tooth down when in most cases, is absolutely not needed. But if thats the last option for you, contrary to the 'turkey teeth' there are some fantastic dental companies abroad if you do the research, you can get the same work done to the same standard for a fraction of the price.

I'm mostly against going abroad, as I mentioned, they're a bit too shave happy out there. But in your position, where you need them shaved anyway, that's the route I'd go down. You'll save so much money.

My mum must have been in her 50s but her dentures never seemed to cause her any problems. She didn't get the sunken mouth look and never let anyone see her without them.

Cost per hour to run one room in a reasonable priced private practice starts around £200 per hour .
Laboratory costs to diagnostically wax up one tooth , provide temporary crown one tooth , provide definitive crown one tooth starts at around £400 and will go up according to complexity and how many temporary crowns are necessary as bite rearranges
Training to be able to carry out this sort of work , which is on top of student loans and basic dental training £50,000 minimum.
Amount of man hours to do a full mouth rehabilitation in surgery is an open book but multiple appointments over a year depending on complexity .
Normal costs in U.K. £12,000 to £25,000 plus for this sort of work .

It's immaterial what previous advice has been given/ignored really isnt it. She's where she is now. There's an undertone of judgement. Teeth grinders often have underlying anxiety and poor MH. There are many reasons.

She's been given 2 alternatives. Third is dentures, now, or when teeth have crumbled more.
As for payment plans, yes it's possible and I'll guess that's what she'll choose, but that's a hell of a lot of money when you haven't got it. It might not actually be down to the practice either. Unless she's gonna say make 4 months payments of £3k then credit will need to be arranged through a finance company....assuming she passes their checks.

I'm a bruxist too, and also have TMJ. I only grind on one side though, but it gets so bad it gives me quite severe earache.

When the cause of the earache was diagnosed by an ENT specialist, he tried to refer to me a dental hospital on the NHS, but the referral was declined. This was approx 20 years ago.

I'm lucky enough to have an NHS dentist. My previous one left, and the new guy took one look in my mouth and said "You need a mouth guard at night". I've been grinding my teeth since childhood, I'm now 67, I've always had regular check-ups and I'm gobsmacked that no-one has ever suggested this before now!

I'm having 2 implants on one side. It's going to cost £6k, and I'm going to cash in a small pension I have to cover it (I'm already getting state pension and a small occupational pension). The pension fund is only £10k, so wouldn't get me much of an income anyway and I was only keeping it going because it's free money from work.

Have you discussed this with an implantologist? It's just that the success rates for implants is much lower and they are prone to break as there is no "feel" when you bite too hard and so unless you successfully keep the bruxing under control with bite guard etc they are often contraindicated.

I would go abroad to somewhere like Poland, Romania or Turkey and get implants
They tend to have had more experience in these countries and are often have greater expertise than British dentists. The prices are much cheaper than in England
My dsis got implants done in Budapest and now has a lovely set of natural looking( not the white piano type) teeth.
Once a year she goes to Budapest for a check up and a mini holiday.

I think that cost is about right. Recently I have been looking at getting mine done and the prices were there or there abouts.

I had implants at an amazing clinic in Budapest. I was quoted £7k here. It cost £3.5k with extra work including a sinus lift/bone graft. That was including flights/hotel and it was done 5 years ago and I've not had a problem.

After the sinus lift I had a problem and they paid for me to fly out and stay and have it checked! Even paid for my airport parking. Turned out to not actually be a problem and they said "enjoy your week in Budapest" and let me stay on their dime until my flight home.

Thank you for that, @Lollygaggle ! I haven't discussed it, but now I know it could be an issue, I'll discuss it with him.

He's already said I might need a bone graft, which is making me feel a tad uncomfortable.

This is extremely complex and demanding work which will need multiple appointments , multiple adjustments and will take the best part of a year or more to complete.
Additional appointments may be needed if eg temporaries break, or need remaking or adjusting as can happen when you are completely rebuilding the occlusion (bite) .
Rebuilding the bite will take many months to get right and ensure the bruxing problems are made no worse.
Every time you crown a tooth there is a 25% chance it may need root treatment , you cannot predict which teeth may start giving problems with such an extensive treatment plan, involving so many teeth.
This work will need lifelong maintainance and adjustment .

It's really not a couple of hours then fit and forget . Even the best treatment spaced over so long will have unexpected things happen, easy to deal with if you live close by, not so easy when a plane ride is necessary and you are in pain.

Try Poland. There is plenty of places in big cities which offer their services in English. Germans have been coming to Poland for medical treatments for years now, almost every major dentist surgery in West has staff that speaks English and German. I find an average quality of dentist surgeries in the UK quite poor tbh, the equipment is outdated or not very advanced and prices are horrendous, so in general I'd rather fly to Poland and do stuff like root canal or implants there. But I am aware it is easier for me since I am Polish.

My opinion on dentures... Which I had temporarily was that they are awful. I would avoid that route at all costs

Look at dentistry in Budapest. Hungary has an excellent reputation unlike Turkey.
My DH had a lot of work done there and even with two return flights it was far cheaper than the UK. Beautiful work with which he is very happy.

This is the clinic I used. They pay for a free consultation and hotel stay. They pick you up from the airport and then from the hotel for the appointment. There is no hard sales or pressure. https://kreativdentalclinic.eu/en/

I'm not on commission, they were just great. Worth checking out at least. You get a free break out of it at worst.

I know it won't fix your dental issues but I also have extreme bruxism. I have Botox on the NHS at the Maxillo-Facial department at our local hospital. I cannot tell you how much it has changed my life.

I'm definitely interested in going abroad to have around £5k-worth (UK pricing) of dental treatment - a holiday and getting my gnashers sorted at the same time!

Would be interested in your Greek dental contact, @StopMindlesslyScrolling !

Sort the cause not the effect - trauma and stress causing the Bruxism…