Dentist Advice Please

cynical-old-me

My 15 yr old daughter had a checkup at our ( private I think ) Dental Practice which we have attended for over 10 yrs - admittedly it had been 16 months since her last visit and dental work undertaken. Since then we have moved quite a distance from that practice and talked about moving to a practice closer to our new home.

Anyway the outcome of the checkup after xrays and examination was that she needed 6-7 fillings of varying size that the dentist estimated would cost £75 - £85 each as we have always had white fillings used for our kids ( its ok that our mouths are full of zinc LOL but not the kids ). My wife made a new appointment for two weeks time to return and have the work carried out.

On her way home and totally by coincidence a flyer was put on her car window in our local town advertising an NHS dentist. Thinking this might be an opportunity to avail of local services we made another checkup appointment for our daughter with the intention of seeing what the fifference in cost would be.

The outcome of that checkup after xrays and examination - the dentist says there are a few small holes but we will look at them again at next 6 months checkup and see whats happening then.

My wife did not get an opportunity to speak to the dentist which I will make a point of doing this week to see their rationale behind "leave it alone and dont fill it now" regime as opposed to "lets do the work immediately."

This post is not an attempt to bash a dentist for filling every hole to get money - I have utmost respect for our long standing practice and plan to raise the question with them also - to gain a better understanding of the two very different rationales that have emerged here.

The purpose of the post is to see if we could get an educated second opinion from someone with similar experience or indeed a denatal practitioner because apart from the cost difference - which we are yet to ascertain and may turn out to be minimal anyway - the main question for us at this stage is why the difference in opinion.

I will ask this question from both practices but am also seeking the opinion of the many knowledgeable people that subscribe to this forum

Many Thanks

themull1

i had that with my two daughters, apparently their jaws are slightly misaligned. One dentist told me, don't do anything, it would be too much surgery for very little benefit, and another dentist, six months later from the same practice said if we didn't have surgery, the kids wouldn't be able to chew properly when they reached 40. So - who to believe?

joanne_d_3

Dont get me started on dentists !

I have a dental abscess , the pain is awful !

Think i have well exceeded the recommended intake of codeine tablets this past week......telephoned my dentist on Monday , 18th October to explain the situation and they have given me an appoinment for 1st November !!!!

Guess i will just have to keep taking the tablets !

leftieM

A dentist I had told me that current practice is to leave small cavities as they can repair themselves.

jugglebug

leftieM wrote: »

A dentist I had told me that current practice is to leave small cavities as they can repair themselves.

Presumably the cavities are only just present. This only works if the dietary habits that caused the problems in the 1st place are removed. Also advantageous are professional Fluoride application on a regular basis or the use of such products as recaldent.
Just burying your head in the sand doesn't work.

butler_helen

joanne_d wrote: »

Dont get me started on dentists !

I have a dental abscess , the pain is awful !

Think i have well exceeded the recommended intake of codeine tablets this past week......telephoned my dentist on Monday , 18th October to explain the situation and they have given me an appoinment for 1st November !!!!

Guess i will just have to keep taking the tablets !

No don't. It's bad for your liver (or some other organ, they're definitely not good though).

Ring your local patients group (PAL?) and they will find you a dentist who can see you within 24 hours. I had a struggle and a bus journey but I eventually saw someone. Otherwise the infection can spread to your blood and believe me, that's not nice.

Toothsmith

It's not uncommon to get different opinions from different dentists.

There is very rarely a 'right' and a 'wrong' solution to a particular problem.

In your case, a dentist who has seen your daughter regularly, has seen some cavities develop that presumably weren't there 16 months ago. So, although still small, he's probably alarmed that they had appeared in that time, and based on that, he thought it a good idea to place small fillings now rather than larger ones in 6 months.

The 'new' dentist hasn't seen you before.

He saw a mouth with a few tiny cavities, but had no idea if they'd recently appeared, or had been there for ages. So rather than pick up his drill and do some damage to teeth that might not get any worse anyway, he decided to let you know they were there (Hopefully give a bit of diet advice to let you know how you could aid their recovery). Knowing that in 6 months, they probably wouldn't be much worse, and may hopefully be stable.

So - both dentists, based on what they know already, have probably given you their best advice.

Whose do you take? That's the question!

Obviously I haven't seen the cavities, but my feeling is always to try and avoid drilling if you possibly can.

As jugglebug said, diet advice/modification and fluoride applications can have a very positive effect.

Teerah

Also given that it was 16 months since your daughters last treatment, the first dentist may have thought that it would be better to fill the teeth now whilst the cavities were small rather than risk not seeing your daughter again for 16 months during which time some cavities may have gone beyond repair. With such a large number of potential problem areas the chances of things getting out of control if left for another 16 months is large. As toothsmith says, the second dentist does not have the benefit of knowing your daughters history and is probably hoping that the areas have been like that for a while and that there will definitely be another checkup in 6 months at which time the progress of the lesions can be reassessed.

Golden_Anemone

butler_helen wrote: »

No don't. It's bad for your liver (or some other organ, they're definitely not good though).

Ring your local patients group (PAL?) and they will find you a dentist who can see you within 24 hours. I had a struggle and a bus journey but I eventually saw someone. Otherwise the infection can spread to your blood and believe me, that's not nice.

I don't think we have PALs in Northern Ireland Helen.

But Joanne, most dentists do offer some sort of emergency appointment system - don't they have to? Alternatively the relief of pain clinic at City hospital may be an option. I too would be concerned about taking so many painkillers for such a long time.

cynical-old-me

Thank you to each of you for the time you have taken to respond to this. It has been most helpful and I think informative.

Toothsmith or Jugglebug - what are professional Fluoride applications and how often should they be applied. Are they really beneficial. I assume they are applied by the dentist.

Toothsmith

Something like Duraphat varnish whch is applied by the dentist or hygienist two or three times a year can be helpful. This can be coupled with duraphat toothpaste - which is a high fluoride prescription only toothpaste.

Discussing the dietary causes will give your dughter an understanding of what's gone wrong and the (often little) changes that need to be made to give the teeth a better chance of fixing themselves.

My feeling is that you should go back to the first dentist, explain that you'd rather not have fillings if at all possible, and can something be done to reverse the cavities. It's just that the first dentist has more experience of your daughters mouth.

If you've always been happy there, then I see no reason to jump ship just because he recommended fillings. After all, as Teerah said (she's also a dentist) this dentist was also worried that your daughter had become an unreliable patient too! All the evidence that dentist had said he should fill the teeth. I wouldn't damn him for that.