Trip to dentist resulted in hospital visit

ElusiveLucy

Looking for some advice from the dentists on here....


I had a crown done at my private dentist. After the preparation I had problems with my jaw - couldn't open it and was very painful. In summary my dentist referred me to a specialist, for which I used my private health care. It turned out the needle for the injection had hit a blood vessel which led to my jaw problems. I had to have a general anaesthetic and my jaw forced open and was on heavy painkillers for 2 days afterwards. Slow recovery but 2weeks on from the op I am nearly there.


Bearing in mind I had to pay £100 excess on my health insurance and 3 days off work (1d in hospital, 2d on painkillers that basically knocked me out), would my dentists have any insurance that I could reasonably claim on? I'm not out to cause a problem for my dentist as I have been with him for 16 years and he is good, I'm just a bit aggrieved I am out of pocket.

brook2jack

Unfortunately this is a well known hazard of injectng into this site. I'm presuming you had an injection to numb up your lower back teeth.

When you give and id block , which is the name for this injection, you are trying to place the injection very close to the nerve which supplies sensation to this part of the jaw. Also very, very close to this nerve is a blood vessel. Very occasionally , if you are very accurate in placement, you can hit the blood vessel which can cause a bit of a bleed which can make it difficult to open your mouth for a while. Time normally resolves this.

The only way to avoid the risk is not to give an injection. There are some techniques you can use for some teeth but not on all that avoid an id block.

In other words it is nobodies fault this happened it is one of those things.

All dentists have to have indemnity insurance against malpractice. If a patient makes a claim against a dentist and the indemnity company pays out the dentists indemnity will rise (average is around £5200 this year for a general dentist) , the dentist will have to declare for any job they go to that they have had a claim against them , and the case may go onto the General Dental Council for a hearing. They will also have to report to the local health board /commissioning board , which may in turn lead to an investigation.

So in other words in order to get a dentists indemnity to pay out you will launch a very adversarial process which will certainly be stressful to most of the parties involved.

ElusiveLucy

Thanks, that's really useful. I have no desire to go down that route. Like you say, I was unlucky. The consultant told me that a dentist might see this happen once in their career, I'll just have to accept it cost me and put it behind me. Not sure I fancy having an injection next time I need any treatment though! It was incredibly painful and didn't get better on its own at all. I am just thankful I had the private healthcare to cover it as I haven't had any communication relating to the NHS referral the dentists did when I wasn't sure my private health cover would cover it