Do I need fillings on my teeth?

Sweetsugarr

This has now been deleted.

brook2jack2

No one can comment on what you do or don't need on the basis of x rays alone , let alone ones posted on a site without the specialist software that dentists use to look at x rays. 

It is is not uncommon for dentists to disagree about what fillings need doing as it is not an exact science and the judgement is based on x rays and the clinical appearence of the teeth themselves. If you want another opinion you will have to see a dentist in person.

Undervalued

Sweetsugarr said:

I visited my NHS dentist to seek her opinion and she said she doesn’t believe any of these need doing other than upper right 6. I would have to get them done with the dentist that said I need them, but it comes to almost £1000.00 so I just want to make sure I get a second opinion. Any opinions please? 

That is almost exactly what happened to me when I explored the possibility of changing to a private dental practice and moving on to Denplan about seven years ago. "brook2jack2" and I discussed it on here!

I was, rightly or wrongly, sceptical and in the end went back to my NHS practice which had just been taken over and upgraded. Just like you the new NHS dentist felt that only one needed doing. Seven years on none of the others have shown any problem.

So, a valid difference in professional opinion or dishonesty for the private dentist's financial gain? I will never know for certain! 

Toothsmith

A dentist who has been seeing you for a long time may well have historical X-Rays of you showing that although small cavities are present - they have not worsened over a certain time span. In that scenario, it is perfectly acceptable to keep monitoring them. 
If a new dentist sees you, they do not have historical knowledge of you - and would, perfectly correctly, probably be more inclined to treat the decay. 

What would be ideal, would be for the 2 dentists involved to communicate directly with each other to find some consensus between them.
Starting orthodontics does change conditions in your mouth - it makes the teeth harder to clean, so it is a legitimate worry for the orthodontist that cavities that may have been stable could easily take a turn for the worse, and filling them now would be sensible. Your dentist might be confident in your ability to hold things stable, and so be less pessimistic.
So you see - there is no right/wrong, Black/white answer to this - which is why communicating well with the dentists actually treating you is far more important than getting random opinions from the internet.

Undervalued

Toothsmith said:

A dentist who has been seeing you for a long time may well have historical X-Rays of you showing that although small cavities are present - they have not worsened over a certain time span. In that scenario, it is perfectly acceptable to keep monitoring them. 
If a new dentist sees you, they do not have historical knowledge of you - and would, perfectly correctly, probably be more inclined to treat the decay. 

What would be ideal, would be for the 2 dentists involved to communicate directly with each other to find some consensus between them.
Starting orthodontics does change conditions in your mouth - it makes the teeth harder to clean, so it is a legitimate worry for the orthodontist that cavities that may have been stable could easily take a turn for the worse, and filling them now would be sensible. Your dentist might be confident in your ability to hold things stable, and so be less pessimistic.
So you see - there is no right/wrong, Black/white answer to this - which is why communicating well with the dentists actually treating you is far more important than getting random opinions from the internet.

Does this not lead to a bit of a "catch 22" for the OP?

Even assuming the orthodontist is being entirely honourable and only recommending what he genuinely considers necessary, he presumably won't be willing to do the orthodontic work unless these fillings are done first? 

Unless, as you say, maybe some other professional can convince him, based on the OP's history, that some of the work in not necessary. However even that requires a degree of backing down and then still taking on a patient who has already questioned his professional judgement.

All of the fillings could presumably be done on the NHS for one Band 2 charge of sixty quid for the lot? However the NHS will only do them if their dentist thinks they are necessary. Maybe the orthodontist could convince the NHS dentist that they are necessary for reasons X, Y and Z?

Even then he ends up with a sceptical patient but he may be a bit happier to proceed as at least another professional has gone along with his point of view?

Toothsmith

That's all very true UV, and like I said - ideally some communication between the 2 dentists will be the way round this.

What isn't very clear from the OP though is the circumstances that led them to this dentist who's going to do the orthodontics.
A specialist orthodontist would not usually 'lower' themselves to pick up a drill and do fillings, which makes me think this may well be a general dentist who 'does a bit' of orthodontics as well. If that's being done by one who has 'done a bit' of orthodontics throughout their career and so has done quite a bit of extra study and offers a range of different treatments - then all is OK. If it is just someone who has done a course in one particular system like Invisalign, or similar - then I would be recommending a bit of caution from that point of view as well (As you would be aware of from mine & Brooks other posts). I would usually recommend seeing a specialist orthodontist rather that a 'one trick pony' dentist.

It would be good if we knew whether the OP told each dentist that they had seen the other. The two of them can't discuss things and come to a consensus if they don't know of each other's existance.

Sweetsugarr

Hi all, thanks for your responses! I decided to just allow the dentist who said I need the fillings to go ahead and do them. The dentist that recommended them operates from the same practice as the orthodontist, their policy is you have to be deemed as dentally fit by their own dentist before you can begin treatment. 

It will just be too much headache to try and get the NHS dentist to do the fillings so I will just suck it up and pay for the private dentist to do them.

Thanks!

said:

That's all very true UV, and like I said - ideally some communication between the 2 dentists will be the way round this.

What isn't very clear from the OP though is the circumstances that led them to this dentist who's going to do the orthodontics.
A specialist orthodontist would not usually 'lower' themselves to pick up a drill and do fillings, which makes me think this may well be a general dentist who 'does a bit' of orthodontics as well. If that's being done by one who has 'done a bit' of orthodontics throughout their career and so has done quite a bit of extra study and offers a range of different treatments - then all is OK. If it is just someone who has done a course in one particular system like Invisalign, or similar - then I would be recommending a bit of caution from that point of view as well (As you would be aware of from mine & Brooks other posts). I would usually recommend seeing a specialist orthodontist rather that a 'one trick pony' dentist.

It would be good if we knew whether the OP told each dentist that they had seen the other. The two of them can't discuss things and come to a consensus if they don't know of each other's existance.

Undervalued said:

Sweetsugarr said:

I visited my NHS dentist to seek her opinion and she said she doesn’t believe any of these need doing other than upper right 6. I would have to get them done with the dentist that said I need them, but it comes to almost £1000.00 so I just want to make sure I get a second opinion. Any opinions please? 

That is almost exactly what happened to me when I explored the possibility of changing to a private dental practice and moving on to Denplan about seven years ago. "brook2jack2" and I discussed it on here!

I was, rightly or wrongly, sceptical and in the end went back to my NHS practice which had just been taken over and upgraded. Just like you the new NHS dentist felt that only one needed doing. Seven years on none of the others have shown any problem.

So, a valid difference in professional opinion or dishonesty for the private dentist's financial gain? I will never know for certain!