£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.

I have only read the original post as I don't have an answer. But this is something that worries me considerably too. It sucks and I am sorry you're left with these options. I grind my teeth and just seem to be following my Mum (My Mum had crap teeth and a fear of the dentist, complete dentures at 50 paid for by a relative. Although she obviously suffered with awful teeth for many years before that).

My friend just got 2 front teeth implants on nhs..... Nothing actually wrong with them just large and stuck out.

Just go abroad

Do your research- it will be half the price and better

my mum has similar issues with her molars and her dentist (NHS) has advised her work to get it done abroad!!

I go to an incredibly high spec dentists in southern Europe as I holiday there each year. if I had any issues, they would sort it. I might need to wait for an easyJet flight and a window to travel, but I refuse to pay private prices here. I had numerous teeth related issues in pregnancy and I couldn’t ever use my maternity exemption as I haven’t been able to get into an NHS dentist’s lists since I moved away for uni

the scaremongering on here about dental work abroad is crazy. It doesn’t always mean discount unregulated turkey teeth crafted in a shack for 30p a tooth.

With very good research, this is your best option.

You have my sympathy, there is no easy choice for you.

To those referencing the US for costs, yes I dare say it costs more in the US for treatment, but they don't have an NHS system.

Those having to go private here are paying for NHS treatment, but not getting NHS treatment. It's not as if you can opt out of the NHS dentistry tax because you don't ever use it. So we're paying twice.

The ability to eat well and see well are key to living well and yet both rely heavily on the private sector.

OP I hope you get this sorted soon.

That's a lot of work and money...i would go for the crowns, the dental hospitals here in london havent been taking on any patients for years, they only deal with emergencies with children now.
I have had dental work abroad, 4 crowns and composites. Turkey is excellent, as is Poland and Colombia.....I had my crowns done in colombia for £40 each and the composites in turkey for £45 each. I find a lot of foreign dentists are more experienced in this type of work and do it more frequently than uk dentists. Friend had excellent work done in Budapest. difficult decision.....I had a lot of unecessary work done by uk nhs dentists when a child so a lot of my work was to repair the damage etc and its all holding up well.....i will go to turkey again this year for some lower crowns, ladies at yoga used a clinic and result is amazing.

I feel your pain OP. In a few weeks I am starting dental treatment (implants) that are going to cost £11k. I have looked at going abroad, implants are £500 in Hungary and the dentists there are world class. However if anything went wrong no dentist over here would touch them. I am doing loads of overtime and we are not having any holidays this year, On the upside, I will be able to eat properly again!

At least once a week nowadays I seem to be seeing patients that have gone abroad for treatment. I won't touch it, as I'm not indemnified, but I do have a duty of care to try and get them out of pain.

I've seen failed sinus lifts, infections that track up to the eye, swollen jaws, necrotic jaws, implants that fall out straight away and teeth that have been filed down to a small point like a pencil that has been sharpened to an inch of its life.

I'm really concerned. I'm not saying some of these issues don't end up getting sorted but the majority are totally shocking.

It's not that easy to just pop on a flight to get them to check something.

IMHO, get a second opinion from a dentist that only does private. I think most remaining NHS dentists are either too bad to cut it in private practice or they're using it to market their private work, and many will mislead you about what the NHS covers. "Crowns were cosmetic and not clinically necessary"? Pull the other one.

The higher figure there of £21k is getting towards the cost of full mouth implants, which might or might not give a better outcome.

Are you in london OP?

My dentist charges from £250 per tooth for veneers and they do really excellent work. I’d honestly get a train/hotel and find somewhere that comes recommended that’s much cheaper!

We’ve had excellent work done in Budapest with smilesavers.tv
youre initial consultation is in London, where they put together the treatment plan.

I had a lot of complex dental treatment in USA - I wouldn't say it's 4X but it would be more than £12k for that amount of work.

I would never get dentures unless they were implant anchored because of bone loss (and even then, they don't look quite natural). Having done a single implant to replace a top incisor I'm a little sceptical about the promises of easy treatment abroad -- with bone graft etc it was multiple appointments and took over a year.

I don't think there's a great and easy alternative here unfortunately.

To those who say get treatment abroad, I don't know op but this is what I guess has happened and a very brief synopsis of what treatment they may need

Both back and front teeth top and lower have worn down over the years
As they have worn two things have happened

1 the bone in both jaws has grown to push the teeth together so they still contact but there is no "room" to build them back up

2 the bite has changed so much the jaw joint is no longer moving into the "right" position which may be making the bruxing worse.

3 there is little tooth left to work with

To correct this several things have to happen

a the "correct position for jaw has to be determined. This may mean wearing a jig for a few weeks.

b the correct shape , size and position for the front teeth must be determined , jaw movements recorded mock up models produced, temporary crowns produced and adjusted . Then fitted and worn for weeks , possibly longer , adjusted until bite right , jaw is in correct position , bone has adjusted and crowns possibly remade until everyone is happy . Also time is necessary for speech to adjust to new position of teeth and again adjustments may need to be made.

c the permanent front crowns are fitted, adjusted and left for a few weeks/months to make sure bite is right. A bite guard is worn to protect them . In this time bone and jaw continues to adjust and space is made for back teeth to be built up.

d back crowns are waxed up , temporaries made and fitted and given time for bite , jaw and bone to adjust . If all well then permanent crowns are made. A new guard will be made

e after a few weeks review and adjust bite as necessary .

all of this is presuming no extra appointments needed to recement temporaries, adjust or carry out root treatment on any teeth which adds a layer of complexity.

f maintain , replace and repair as necessary.

There are some excellent dentists in eg Turkey . They charge around the same as U.K. and would never advise undergoing complex treatment like this , that will take up to a year or more and many appointments , at a distance.

Full mouth implants have a high failure rate in people who brux. As they have no feel they tend to break them.

Enth, do you mean a second opinion from a dentist that only does NHS?

Was going to suggest a dental hospital too. I believe they are free if you don't mind a student dentist (supervised)

Do people not read the full thread. Where several dentists have said that this isn't appropriate for a student, and it has been made clear that the only such hospital anywhere near the OP wouldn't be able to cater for her?

Reading this with interest as I have recently had some basic dental work. Yes you are absolutely fucked. I have always taken immaculate care of my teeth to avoid things like this. That dental bill is going to hurt more than the treatment.

You seem nice.

Oh thank you so much!

I actually happen to know someone who runs a travel dentist business in Turkey, seen very good results with them.

I think the main concern is if dentists in the UK would be willing to touch your teeth afterwards if anything were to go wrong at all, but if your teeth are that bad it may be your only choice given you can't afford the treatment options already given.

@MammaTill2Pojkar thank you, but looking at the reports from others up the thread, I'd struggle with the back and forth of multiple flights, time off work, travel costs, accessing emergency care in the event of something breaking during treatment and yes, the long term care of the work.

I had an assessment at another dentist last week for a second opinion and go back on Friday to discuss a treatment plan and my options. Two of my incisors have root canals which she believes are failing (I frequently feel a heartbeat in one root area and the other tooth is crumbling) but isn't sure whether I would need to see a specialist for that work. She wouldn't want to build up my mouth without sorting them first and I agree so far.

Side note: 3D scan images of your teeth are really fucking depressing when they are so badly damaged - I'm appalled at the gaps, the broken elements, the number of fillings....

Good luck, I hope they can come up with an acceptable plan for you and at an acceptable level of payment/broken up in to easier chunks.

The NHS hasn’t ‘refused’ to do the crowns. A minimum of 14 anterior crowns on the NHS is absolutely not feasible. That is a HUGE amount of work.

If you are wearing your mouth guard every night, your tooth wear will not worsen. There must be another cause if you have managed to expose dentine and they are still ‘crumbling?’. It could be dietary acid (or possible reflux) or you are not wearing the mouth guard every night.

A tooth cannot wear down if it is rubbed against a soft rubber or memosil mouth guard - even for fifty years non-stop. There must be another factor at play and you need to look into this.

Yes, 12K is a huge amount of money, but in terms of what you’re getting, it’s a bargain. Your talking a minimum 14 crowns, so 14 crown preparations (very difficult and time consuming work), 14 chair side, milled or porcelain crowns (very expensive on a machine that costs minimum of 100,000K or hand made by a lab technician) and a minimum of at least ten hours of hands-on clinical work, employing the skills of a dentist, dental nurse, lab technician and practice manager.

Thats at least four highly qualified people, with around ten hours for the dental nurse and dentist each, twenty hours from a dental technician and an hour or two all in from the reception team, plus hugely expensive materials such high strength dentine bonding agents, high strength porcelain or resin composites and expensive, single use and specialised instruments and machines

@18daychallenge the refusal to do crowns has been since the bruxism was "diagnosed" when I was 18. Crowning my dsmaged teeth anytime in the intervening 25yrs since then has been considered purely cosmetic rather than preventative care by every NHS dentist I've seen.

My teeth are badly broken, likely in part due to poor genetics but also the physical wearing I do in my sleep. Night guards don't stop the clenching or the movement!

I fully understand the scale of the £12k work but it doesn't make it any more affordable!

Here's some pics to illustrate.