Advice please! DH needs his wisdom tooth out - can't afford our dentists price :(

[Laiste]

Hes been in pain with it before twice. A year ago he signed up with a private dentist and they made him have x rays,and 2 hygiene appts and charged £300 and never got as far as taking the bloody tooth out! Just ran out of money to spend on it and it had calmed down so he left it.

Now it's flaring up again and he just wants it out. His dentist want to charge £300+ to take it out!

Ringing round but no one seems to be taking on nhs patients at all. Yesterday he tried 111 ( google's advice) and they said they'd refer him to Bupa for emergency treatment but this morn Bupa have said starting price would be £80 for antibiotics and extraction not on nhs. 🧐So confused ...

Any advice? Thanks in advance .

Found this . Can’t link it to my post so it’s a screen short . Call 111 again and ask how to get an appointment?

That’s great news!

I was referred from a £27 NHS check up to have my wisdom tooth extracted at an emergency NHS dentist. The appointment came through about a month later. When I went there was no charge, I was amazed. I think the referral costs are included within the price bracket of the original dentist

It won’t let me load the screen shot. There is an emergency dental centre in Oxford …. East Oxford Health Centre , Manzil Way Oxford . OX4 1XD
no telephone number so I assume you will need to go through 111.

Call a dentist and ask the emergency dentist number, they should beable to help and extract

As a 111 health advisor there aren't many dental services 111 can refer a patient to. Ideally he needs to be referred to a dental emergency helpline. If they said to call bupa I don't think that's an emergency dentist. I would call again and see if the health advisor can refer you to another service. We can't book dental appts but usually the dental emergency line will have a dental nurse who can then book an appt if necessary.

@Laiste
As a temporary fix I would recommend brushing with chlorhexidine mouthwash, then sort of gargling with the stuff - trying to swill it around the problem tooth for a good minute. It's what my dentist recommended years ago when I had problems and I've been able to avoid antibiotics and extraction by doing this twice a day at the first sign of infection.

It does taste disgusting, mind. I think the mint flavour is worse than the unflavoured.

My DD's private practice referred her to a NHS hospital for this type of work.

However, the first dentist she saw, same practice, wanted to charge her £600 all in, she saw a 2nd dentist a few months later and he said he can refer her to the NHS, which he did, was about a 2 week wait.

But its a post code lottery, our trust out sources dental work to a local dental school, not all will have one.

How we got here?

We voted for it, time and time again.

Also we usually get the patient to call nearby dentists if they haven't. However, we don't know whether they can actually see the patient or not. It would be useful if your tried contacting all the dentists and then if 111 say to call these dentists you can say you've already tried them and they can't see you. You want to be referred to a dental emergency helpline or clinical assessment service. Either they will call you or you will have to call the emergency helpline.

That's rubbish. They're supervised and have more tine to spend on you than you'd get in a normal appointment.

I’ve had three of my wisdom teeth out at the dentists. Only need to go to hospital if it’s a complex extraction, such as needing general anesthetic or if they’re too close to your facial nerves

The cost is shocking now isn't it! We have no NHS dentists in the area taking on new people, the one we were at closed the next one was shockingly bad so had to go private. Its just cost me £300 to get 3 kids a check up!

Agree with this DS was referred by his (NHS) dentist to the hospital because of that and the hospital still didn't want to do it, despite him having trouble for years. In the end his regular dentist did do it, but warned about the possibility of nerve damage in his face. He did an excellent job. Unfortunately the empty pocket got an infection but that was treated with antibiotics by an emergency NHS dentist on a weekend, he had to travel 40 miles to get there though.

I can’t remember why but I had my wisdom teeth (two) taken out at the local nhs hospital (under ga).

If you don’t have the money, then you don’t have the money. I sympathise. But I would always prioritise my health over most things. Can you put stuff on a credit card to give you some breathing space?

I've had 4 wisdom teeth removed. Always at the dentist. DD has had two removed - at the Dentist.

They will only refer to hospital if there is a problem such as a small mouth and difficulty accessing the tooth.

My dentist won’t do mine as it’s too close to the nerve
I’m waiting to hear if the oral surgeon will do it or if I have to wait for sedation
i am terrified but hospital GA is 3 year wait

I want to say thanks again to everyone taking time to post with help and info and support 💐 Still reading! Hopefully this thread will
pop up and help others out in the future - so often i'm googling for help with something and a good old Mumsnet thread is thrown up and is always far and away the most helpful link.

Sending out hugs to those suffering right now too. Hope you all get the treatment you need soon.

Its going to be quite the mission getting where he's got to go for 9am tomorrow for various reasons - but it's planned out and i will update!

I feel for all of you who say you're scared 😞 My fear of the dentist is so huge that in my 30s i suffered in pain for about 7 years until the tooth fell out of its own accord rather than go to the dentist 😫 I think it stems from an awful experience with a 'school dentist' back in the 80s ....

Anyway - update tomorrow 👍

Mine did too but it cost me £950 + cost of antibiotics 😭

I didn’t go to the dentist for many years due to an unpleasant experience, but I have found dentists to be so much better now. I barely feel a thing including the injections, which used to terrify me. I still don’t go often as it’s too expensive and no one accepts nhs patients anymore. I had to pay £80 just to register as a private patient (they kindly threw in a check up though).

BunnyLake - oh my god! My ancient cat has just cost us £100 for her UTI - i thought that was bad considering we knew exactly what was wrong and the actual ABs she needed were only £12 ....

And as for the injections in the mouth it makes me feel faint just thinking about it 😫 This school dentist gave me 6 in one sitting when i was 10 or 11 and pulled out all the baby teeth which hadn't come out yet 😞 Needles up in the roof of my mouth i was fighting it in the chair 🥲

Research some other private dentists as their prices vary a lot.

Update :
DH had his assessment and they tried to x ray him but (as i think a poster up thread said might happen) they struggled to get an x ray as tooth is far back - so gave him a handful of paperwork to take straight to the nearest hospital (JR) and be x-ray'd there. Which he did and was within about 30 mins 😊 Then he took the x-ray (on a CD !) back to dentist to be looked at. This was all for the £27.40.

The extraction is happening on Fri. Hooray 😀 A second fee of £27.40 will be payable for that then. Which is fantastic for us and we're v grateful.

The only weird thing is the dentist (DH said was very young)(but that could mean anything up to about 30) kept saying they 'didn't understand' when DH was explaining why he was there 🤔

He'd said in various ways that he was registered with a dentist who wanted to charge £300+ private fee for the extraction and he just couldn't afford it - but was in pain - hence why he was there - having an nhs emergency appt. which he hadn't been able to get any nearer to us. Not sure what bit is hard to understand ? All Dentists surely understand that their private fees are pretty prohibitive to the average person these days? Unless they live under a golden rock! But hey ho.

Thanks again to all who posted 😊

Perfect 👌🏻
Hope all goes well !!
keep us updated