Let down by dentist?

[Peeza86]

For last 18-24 months I have complained of pain in my front tooth and molar. Dentist put it down to sensitivity and told me to use sensitive toothpaste. My last appointment in pregnancy (October) he gave me a tube of sensodyne to leave on teeth which made no difference. He booked me in for 3 months for scale and polish (January). I told him the pain was getting worse. Could barely eat/drink without pain. I almost hit the roof when he did the scale and polish. Again he told me it was just sensitivity, and that he wouldn’t want to do anything until it was keeping me up at night, which at that point it wasn’t. He prescribed Duraphat toothpaste which again didn’t make any difference.

4 weeks later the pain in the molar became unbearable. Emergency trip to dentist and a few taps later he tells me the tooth is dead and infected. Option is extraction or root canal but only 50% chance of success compared to 90-95% had tooth still been alive. It was alive only 4 weeks ago!!

He prescribed antibiotics for abscess (now on day 4 of 5 day course) and today I have gone for the root canal treatment for the molar. I may or may not have to pay (he said £600) as he’s not sure if I can claim white filling on nhs due to pregnancy. Since the jag has worn off I am in even more pain, and I didn’t think that was possible after the pain from the abscess!

I feel completely let down by the dentist. I feel he’s fobbed me off saying it’s sensitive and now I have a dead tooth. Not to mention unbearable pain for almost a week now with a 4 year old and 12 week old to look after. I dread to think about the state of the front tooth as he’s now booking me in to get a root canal done on that too. Is there any point complaining??

I can completely understand, that's really dire. No real words of advice

Any other dentists in the practice? Are you NHS? Is the emergency dentist the same one?
I've had similar but my dentist left and then the errors were discovered. I have been given free rectifying treatment for free by the owner (private) and advised to make an official complaint (after attempting to contact him and not getting any reply).
If your dentist is the only one in the practice I'm afraid I can't advise. I would start by stating the facts to them anyway ascended that you feel out should have been detected when you initially complained.

And, not ascending.

Did they not do an X-ray in all that time?

Is there a practice manager you can write to? If the tooth was badly infected the root canal might take a wee while to settle down - I had one on a lower molar a couple of years ago which took (sorry) about a month.

Mine showed nothing on x-rays, and was eventually done out of desperation because I had been back and forth so many times with pain. The nerves inside the tooth were so inflamed and angry they were bleeding when the dentist opened the tooth up, so on their way to dying.

Hope you get some relief soon.

He took an x ray of the front tooth a year ago and is using that for basis of root canal saying he didn’t need to do another one. I think he has taken two x rays of the molar in the past 2 years and took another one last week. In the past he had said it was a deep filling in that one which would be why it was sensitive and I foolishly haven’t pushed him. The emergency appointment was with my own dentist. There’s one other dentist at the practice. I’m moving practice soon as moving home but I just can’t believe it’s come to this. I thought they were meant to prevent problems, not wait until the tooth has died to treat it.

Who owns the practice? I would state my disappointment in this not being picked up earlier for sure. And to see it there is any show of the decay in the x-ray taken a year ago that he missed (I'm assuming you had a check up 6 months ago?).
In my situation it was bad work done so easier to prove.
I think if you don't challenge it you will always regret. Def agree to practice manager as first port of call if there is one.
As an aside, my NHS dentist wont do root canal a it takes to long to justify , they will only refer you to a hospital dentist which is so backed up you end up losing the tooth through waiting so long or offer to perform it privately (£1000) .

I don’t understand how a year-old x-ray which showed nothing could we suddenly show you need a root canal? Did the dentist not read it properly before? I would insist that was redone before any treatment. A root canal can’t be undone, and there’s a slim chance the tooth coukd turn grey and need a crown afterwards. I would want to be completely certain it was the right thing before such invasive treatment on a front tooth.

When I was back and forth about my molar I had new x-rays done every two months, the filling out and replaced, then eventually saw a different dentist because mine was on holiday and I was at my wits’ end with pain. He said based on the pain and the big filling, the tooth should either be root treated or extracted - the pain started in June and by this point it was November! He also saw nothing on the x-ray, a new one he took, so I don’t think my own dentist was at fault in any way. (The other dentist was midway through training to specialise in root canals which maybe swung it.) I had started clenching my teeth horribly due to stress, and lost the matching molar on the other side because of that, so I am certain that had a hand in my mix.

As an aside, my dentist - who is amazing - puts the x-ray on a screen then talks me through it. You are also entitled to request a copy of your x-rays and to take them elsewhere for another opinion.