[{"_1":2,"_31":-5,"_32":-5},"loaderData",{"_3":4},"routes/__layout/tag.$name",{"_5":6,"_7":8},"tagName","nhs","posts",[9],{"_10":11,"_12":13,"_14":15,"_16":17,"_18":19,"_20":21,"_22":23,"_24":25,"_26":-5,"_27":28,"_29":30},"id",174,"title","Grrrr :-(","excerpt","My dentist has now botched two fillings in three weeks, both requiring emergency root canals. The second woke me at 4am on a Sunday, sending me across London for expensive private treatment. I'm filing a formal complaint with the NHS. My teeth and my wallet are both in ruins.","body","\r\n\r\n

Sorry to be boring, but I'm gonna talk about my teeth again, if only because for that much money, I should at least be getting some blog-fodder.\r\n\r\n

Okay, so it's official, my dentist is incompetent. For the second time in 3 weeks he has performed a filling and I've had it go wrong and require a root canal -- last time during his normal working hours, but this time the pain woke me up at 4 in the morning and had me scurrying across London on early Sunday morning buses to get emergency, private, horribly expensive treatment from a different dentist. So the NHS is going to get a letter from me, along roughly these lines:\r\n\r\n

Initial consulatation: 4 fillings required, 2 being replacements for older fillings that seemed to be undermined by decay, plus rebuilding and capping of a tooth that had had a root canal several years previously and had broken.\r\n
First filling: okay\r\n
Second filling, left upper premolar: white filling, very deep. Took much longer than estimated. Became sensitive as soon as anaesthetic wore off. 5 days later, when I returned for a different treatment, the dentist examined the tooth and decided it need to be treated with emergency root canal. Dentist claimed there was \"always\" a \"20% chance of failure\" for \"this type of filling\" -- which I assumed to mean very large fillings. However, this failure rate had not been mentioned at the initial treatment.\r\n
Third filling, right upper molar, furthest back: okay\r\n
Rebuilding and capping, right lower molar: temporary filling applied on first visit was removed, posts inserted, and a new tooth built up. As soon as anaesthetic wore off, noticed a sharp point poking into gum. Over 3 days this gradually became looser during normal chewing, eventually rear portion of new filling broke off.\r\n
Fourth filling, right upper molar, second from back: described as a \"straightforward\", \"minor\" filling, was given \"short-acting\" anaesthetic. Anaesthetic \"wore off\" (dentist's own explanation) after about half an hour, towards the end of the procedure, leaving final stages of procedure extremely painful -- no further anaesthetic was administered despite loud protests. Dentist claimed anaesthetic lasted only a short time and we had \"missed it by just a minute\". Tooth remained very painful, and by 4th day had become extremely sensitive, accompanied by swelling.\r\n
Visited another dentist, emergency root canal was recommended on fourth filling, plus antibiotics for swelling. Second dentist claimed not to know of any \"short acting\" anaesthetic. X-rays looking at this tooth also seem to show that tooth behind it (i.e. third filling mentioned previously) also shows signs of infection.\r\n

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So, just to make it clear: I'm not an idiot. When the second filling went wrong I was worried. However, it had been a very big cavity, so it was quite possible that it would have failed no matter what happened. So I gave my dentist the benefit of the doubt. However, fool me twice, shame on me, so I will not be going back to the first dentist. Nevertheless, I am left with a bunch of very fucked, dead teeth and a huge bill. I am therefore very, very grumpy.\r\n\r\n

And to my teeth I say: I'm sorry! I apologize for not brushing often enough! Just stop already! Haven't I suffered sufficiently yet?","updated",["D",1156660764000],"created",["D",1156660764000],"codename","grrrr_","legacy_id","3506","thumbnailUrl","published",["D",1156660764000],"draft",false,"actionData","errors"]

Posts tagged “nhs”