Tooth crown causing problems?

suburbanwifey

Wish he had gone to you Welshdent, sounds like it would have been a better experience. The private dentist did manage to numb the tooth that needing filling but like you say, not all experiences or teeth procedures are the same.

welshdent

the most important thing is that you have found someone you trust and are happy with I just didnt want you thinking we use shoddy anaesthetics

ANGLICANPAT

I have no idea whether dentists have inferior anaesthetics to choose from, but I know from experience that vets do, and often use a less expensive older style one that is not as controllable as the state of the art ones. Anyway, thats by the by , and I have to say , that I am an NHS patient, and although I preferred my old NHS dentist as he seemed to really take more time and interest in my teeth , both he and his NHS replacement have both been able to numb me for fillings. Its actually a private practice (with an excellent reputation) that has failed to be able to numb me prior to root canal treatment . As there was massive infection beneath the tooth , I believe that thats the reason for the failure. My only beef is why he didnt ensure I had had a course of antibiotics immediately ahead of the RCT attempt if its known that severe infection can change the PH of the gum and interfere with numbing. I reckon suberbanwifey, that there are just good and less good dentists, and both types exist within the NHS and private practice.

brook2jack

Local anaesthetics are standard as Welshdent says and the same used nhs or private.

What you pay for privately is time and better choice of materials where there is a massive difference between what you will pay for nhs standard and private standard in eg things that go to a laboratory to be made where the difference in lab bills can be hundreds of pounds.

The average spend in total including government contribution for a nhs course of treatment is around £30 a year! A cheap nhs practice will cost £150 an hour to run . So the average spend per year on nhs treatment will buy you about 12 minutes of a dentists time.

The cost of local anaesthetic is negligible compared to what it costs just to keep a practice open.

trumpton

Dentists will always vary, whether they are NHS or private. I suspect many of us of a certain age will remember childhood NHS dentists who couldn't wait to fill or remove a tooth. As an adult I have always had pretty good NHS dentists and my current one is excellent. I don't see how I could get better service from a private dentist, though no doubt the premises would be flashier.

I hope you get your tooth sorted out.

welshdent

trumpton I could be pretty certain I would be able to give a better service if I were private. Whilst I do not actively or knowingly cut corners in the treatment I provide, I HAVE to put more in to my day list than I would ideally like in order to keep the practice running. If I did not I would be losing money for my principal on an hourly basis. As a result my patients are usually told to come in at the same time as someone else and I have to effectively "juggle" which I hate. I am not as bad as most other dentists I know because my brain can only cope with so much juggling and I do not see more than 30 in a day ever. Compare that to my friend who works privately in australia who sees 10 on a busy day. A private practitioner colleague of mine sees about 15 a day. The knock on consequence is their patients are afforded more time to make sure everything is ok and also if thet need to be see in a hurry there are more available places to fit them in. In addition to that I guarantee you that most NHS practices will be using the cheapest materials (not local anaesthesia!) that they can get. A crown at NHS level will cost the dentist somewhere between £30 - 50 but the private crown will be 80- ++++ depending on the lab and the characterisation. To some they may not care, Others will. It is a common misconception, deliberately fostered by successive governments, that we "go private" to earn more money. That is not remotely correct. I know of few dentists that earn more by going private. Most earn the same or a little less. It is to escape an ever more imposing NHS and to actually be able to spend time with patients and to be able to treat them as people not be on a production line.

As an aside to suburban - what you MAY get different with a private practice is a different anaesthetic delivery system. The actual solution is the same but some people like a system called the wand which has a very fine needle delivering anaesthetic in a very controlled manner. This has been reported by some as more effective but I am not sure if there is any research on that. It is meant to be painless. But the needles cost more than I am paid to do a filling practically so no NHS practice would be using these routinely./