BristolUK

How much did the tooth fairy pay?

MarkG

No, because the office was dark, dirty, smelly and required a lot of waiting. I'm guessing there was about fifty years of nicotine on the walls from the 'good old days' when everyone was smoking in there.

Novocastrian

But it was free. I think you are mining my memories of the 1950's but things have moved on since then, although mice teeth are still unavailable.

JamesM

December.

I go every 6 months. never had a filling.

Some years back I had 4 wisdom teeth removed. It was expensive but the laughing gas made the operation itself a genuine pleasure.

Some years before that I had 4 teeth removed as a 14 year old and it was the most painful experience in my life. They gave me 10 injections to name the mouth that hurt more than the teeth yanking with the pliers.

A lot of orthodontics in my early teens.

I preferred the NHS as you actually see a dentist who does the cleaning.

Here it's a hygienist, a lengthy sales pitch, a milking of your benefits with x-rays all the time and about 5 minutes with a dentist at the end.

bats

I get my teeth cleaned every 4 or 5 months and see the dentist once a year for a check up. I usually refuse the xrays unless they can give me a good reason for doing them.
The dentist wants me to have a couple more crowns but he doesn't push the idea.

Back in the old country I had to use a private dentist as there weren't any local NHS ones that were taking new patients. He was fine but the hygenist was scary. Fortunately I only had to go once a year.

Shard

I thought dental x-rays were low dosage and fairly safe in normal frequencies?

bats

Define normal frequencies? No diagnostic radiography should be undertaken as a routine. It's bas practice and there should be a clinical reason to X-ray. If they give me one then I'm happy to go ahead.

The general thought on xrays is that no dose is safe and that the effects of radiation exposure are cumulative. That said we get more radiation exposure everyday from background sources than we would from many low dose xrays.

christmasoompa

Most dentists do both private and NHS though don't they? I'm NHS and am in the same rooms, with the same equipment, and the same dentist, as those paying for private treatment.

caretaker

Sask Polytechnic Dental Division where I go has digital x-rays now that I've had 25 years of the bad ones. Between them and the surgeons I've had a lot of x-rays.

Shard

That's what I've heard. I would define a normal frequency as once every year or two, unless there is a problematic tooth which the dentist is considering treating, in which case 2-3 in a year?

Given that there are concerns about cumulative X-rays, it's surprising that individuals (within the NHS at least) do not have some kind permanent life time record of how much radiation they receive. Such data would also be useful in analyzing the impact of radiography on patients in general.

bats

Digital X-rays aren't necessarily lower dose and can even lead to higher dose if correct technique isn't used.

Germany has a Roentgencarte which is completed after each X-ray and the dose noted. In the UK the dose from each examination is noted in the medical record. Every time a doctor prescribes an X-ray he or she should weigh up the relative advantage of the examination of dose verses information gained. Then once the request comes through to X-ray we determine if the correct examination for the condition described has been ordered. If it has we do the exam using ALARP As Low As is Reasonably Practicable practicable.

Im not trying to put anyone off having xrays because of dose. We get more from background radiation than we would from a dental X-ray it's just as a radiographer these things are inbuilt. We question why. Also I don't like paying.

BristolUK

I don't know if this is just where I am but my "ordinary" dentist referred me for two out of three needed root canals, as if they needed something he couldn't do or the specialist could do better.

My bridge came off - or rather came off taking most of the two anchor teeth with it. He referred me to a third specialist (they all have different words describing their expertise) who might be able to insert posts into what was left of the teeth and reattach the bridge.

All three dentists did x-rays, admittedly the two specialists slightly differently but I had an impression they only wanted to work from their own.

But my original, long term dentist, in the UK seemed capable of doing what "had" to be split between the three here.

Anyway, my head is probably glowing inside now.

Yes, they do. The issue that an awful lot of people experience is finding a new dentist prepared to do NHS work for new patients unless they are those who don't have to pay. Plus a lot wouldn't continue with existing NHS patients unless they were exempt.

When my dentist went private (only treating exempt NHS patients) and wanted monthly Denplan premiums that were more than I had been paying annually for five years, I found a dentist still taking NHS patients. But then he went private and would also only keep/take patients who were exempt.
So I changed again to a practice who accepted new NHS patients whether or not they had to pay. The saving between NHS rates and private is so great that finding an NHS dentist willing to take you should be grabbed even if their location isn't terribly convenient.

It's a lucky patient who can stick with NHS treatment at NHS fees or find a dentist who takes one on at NHS rates.

If they can do the same work for you and get more privately than if you were NHS, one can see why they prefer a private patient.

https://conversation.which.co.uk/hea...d-nhs-dentist/
https://www.dentalnegligenceteam.co....d-nhs-dentist/
http://www.itv.com/news/story/2014-0...-hard-to-find/

dave_j

Oooooowwwww... It must be a little worrying being 'numero uno' on the 'let's track nuclear waste' list on the satellite that's buzzing around up there and operated by 'a friendly country'.

Can I suggest that you don't move too quickly and if you do happen to catch sight of an unusual drone following you around then head for a deep hole somewhere.

BristolUK

I think I can manage that.

scrubbedexpat091

I had a lot of chest x-rays when I was younger, I used to get pneumonia often and I suppose back then x-rays were used to diagnose the illness?

As an adult, I have had a couple chest x-rays when doctors wanted to see the heart.

One thing I learned once from one of the tests where they inject some sort of dye into you, don't cross the border the same day without a doctors note...