edp

I had an emergency appointment with local folktandvard 3 weeks ago (710kr) and the dentist tapped my teeth felt around and told me I was grinding my teeth and that i would have to wait until december to have a mouth guard fitted - or just go private. No x-rays, no probing - just tapping and feeling in the mouth. 3 weeks later, 3 visits to accident and emergency in the night for painkillers and injections, 2 doctors visits, a huge amount of codeine and ibuprofen, a further private dentist visit that included an innocuous cavity filling the exacerbated the problem and finally yesterday another emergency dental appointment where the dentist found through x-rays a large cavity opening onto an infected nerve that was creating pressure along the nerve, into my jaw and sinuses. He drilled into the tooth and relieved the infection and pressure and now I am waking up to the first pain free day in quite along time. Despite my natural relief that I am not suffering from TMJ disorder or neuralgia I am pretty angry that i have suffered - along with my sambo - 3 weeks of at times excruciating pain from what should have been something fairly simple to diagnose with an x-ray. If I was in the UK I think I would be waiting for the shady offices of 'no win no claim' to be open for the first time in my life. I am looking down the barrel at a fairly significant set of dental and medical charges and wondered if anyone could advice me what if anything I can do.

Please no responses like 'you should have done this', or 'what do you expect if you are English living in Sweden', I am really not in the mood. If anyone has any practical or objective advice on the information presented then I would be really grateful to hear it.

Blackladder

Hi edp,

try this link and get your GF to help with the Swedish

http://www.1177.se/Regler-och-rattig...ed-tandvarden/

strange, this is the one area where I think the Swedish service is very good, normally that is.

Good luck
Blackie

edp

thanks blackie, actually the dentist who fixed the problem was excellent and the second dentist was very good but i said i have pain and she took x-rays and said it might be 'this' so she fixed what she thought might be the problem and said i would need further x-rays at another time to look at possible other causes -so i can't say negligent, just not thorough. The cavity was half of tooth and surround quite a bit of the nerve so it shouldn't have taken columbo to find it. The folktandvard dentist who did the original diagnosis im just so p*ssed of with. Well i would be if i wasn't extremely exhausted with nights in pain, hours in Akutmottagning, saturated in pain killers and 3 sets of injections the last 4 days. I understand people make mistakes and Im pretty tolerant but i was ready to go back to England to sort this out. Dental nerve pain is really not very pleasant. My costs were climbing above 4000kr and i just couldn't see the end. With the prestige and salary of being dentist surely there comes a degree of responsibility, with the diagnosis she gave me i was preparing for months of pain, began running 5km a day to try and alleviate what i understood to be a stress related condition - the endorphines helped for an hour or so. Medical people often seem to benefit from a level of inculpability that noone would ever tolerate from a mechanic.

I am going to give myself a couple of days and then see what i can do.

Have a look at Sundsvalls Dagbladet today blackie, we had a 'murder' up here a few weeks ago, now they have decided it was an accident....the rumour going around town is that the polis think its something to do with russian mafia and would really rather not open up that can of worms...'olaf palme syndrome'...? I wish i could understand the story better but it appears that her dogs are now the chief suspects..

Blackladder

Hi edp,
will check out Sundsvalls D today, did you read my thoughts on Swedish health care? You might find some answers there...
Blackie