root canal treatment - NHS and private costs & pros and cons

Browntoa

Zacks post reported for advertising

jugglebug

Browntoa wrote: »

Zacks post reported for advertising

Wouldn't worry.
The site is so up to date It has the details of my old practice.... It closed it's doors 3 months ago :rotfl:

Browntoa

zack also seems to not notice he's already spammed this thread

Greatgimp

Even if it is a plug for a dental service, it may still save us money. Good on you Zack!

Savvy_Sue

Explodingmyth wrote: »

The other option of course is having the tooth pulled. Would you have any information on the pros and cons of this? Would there be a weakening of the other teeth and would I need to look at an implant down the line?

IANAD, but, FWIW I have had one of my lower molars out, 2nd back from the canine.

Only problem it ever causes if if a peanut gets stuck in the gap, but that doesn't often happen and I know it has straight away so can flip it out.

Advice was that it shouldn't cause any problems, and I could have an implant later if I wanted to. (I don't!)

The dentists might now disagree with me, but there you go ...

Toothsmith

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

IANAD, but, FWIW I have had one of my lower molars out, 2nd back from the canine.

Only problem it ever causes if if a peanut gets stuck in the gap, but that doesn't often happen and I know it has straight away so can flip it out.

Advice was that it shouldn't cause any problems, and I could have an implant later if I wanted to. (I don't!)

The dentists might now disagree with me, but there you go ...

Doing nothing is a perfectly reasonable treatment option for the odd gap in an otherwise healthy dentition Sue.

We certainly don't need every single tooth we have, and on the average western diet, we can easily survive on a 'shortened dental arch' of 10 teeth against 10 teeth - premolar to premolar basically.

It probably isn't worth replacing any tooth further back than your first molars providing most of the other teeth are in place.

This - of course - isn't a hard and fast rule though and you should put your own dentist's advice above what I've written here. But I would say that it's worth making sure you have a good explaination that you understand if a dentist IS suggesting that replacement of such a tooth is 'vital'.

(And faces DON'T 'cave in' if you lose one or two back teeth. You'd need to lose an awful lot, plus a lot of bone for that to happen)

Toothsmith

Greatgimp wrote: »

Even if it is a plug for a dental service, it may still save us money. Good on you Zack!

I would have a look at the site first!

It's rubbish!

It would be 100% better if it had a cute creature that said 'simples' a lot!

stattman

Hi All,

I have a dilemma which I hope you can offer some advice.

A few months ago I had a white filling and since then always felt some discomfort. I went back to the dentist yesterday and after an X-Ray advised that a small part of the nerve is dying and recommended Root Canal, replace the white (free of charge) and then in future to Crown it.

(I have had Root canal work before, so this is ok)

The problem is - he said to me that on NHS it would be £45 and has a 70% success rate.

He then offerred private work costing £350 with a 90% success rate.

When I queried the difference he advised that under NHS things are done manually whereas under private they have machine tools to help in the process.

It seems pretty steep from when I remember having this done, and I was thinking to go to another dentist for a second opinion / quote.

It just came across as a given that unless you go private you're doing yourself any favours...

Any advice is greatly appreciated - and if you know of any decent dentists in the clarendon Park area of Leicester - let me know. (apologies if you're not allowed to ask for endoresments)..

Kind Regards
Mark

Gloomendoom

I dare say that there will be some dentists coming along shortly to give advice but, in my experience, I did not notice any difference between how a dentist performed a root canal privately or on the NHS. Certainly no special 'machine tools' were used in either case.

Toothsmith

I have huge problems with the ethics of this.

In effect, your dentist is saying if you pay me £x I will do it, but it will probably be rubbish.

If you pay me £x + y I will do it and it will be good.

Ethically, anyone in the healing professions should do something to the best of their ability regardless of how they're being paid.

I decided 10+ years ago that I could not work to the best of my ability under NHS regulations, so I stopped doing it altogether.

It would have been very easy to still have the 'NHS' brand above my surgery to get people through the door, but then as soon as they were in the chair to imply that NHS stuff was rubbish and sell them private stuff - but that's not how I wanted to operate.

There are absolutely NO RULES on what you can and can't do or what equipment or materials you can or can't use on the NHS. All it says is you must restore oral health. (You can do it in the most 'cost effective way')

Therefore if the dentist feels that the way he does it on the NHS is inferior, that's because he's made the decision to do it in an inferior way on the NHS (Probably because of the way it's paid for, but the finances ARE NOT a valid excuse should a dentist be sued.)

The dentist is in a bit of a 'Catch 22' situation.

If he has an NHS contract, he is obliged to offer the treatment on the NHS to an NHS patient.

But for root fillings, the return compared to the time they take is terrible, and will lose the dentist lots of money. (The dentist would get exactly the same, financially, if he just took it out).

So - he has to persuade the patient to take the private option.

But - he is not allowed to rubbish the NHS option, or imply that he would somehow 'try less hard' with the NHS option.

I think your dentist has broken that last rule.