When are dentist likely to reopen?

bammypammy

I’ve been suffering toothache for 6 weeks now and on 2nd course antibiotics but struggling with severe pain. Dentist can refer me to a central hub for emergency tooth extraction only. They won’t offer any attempt to save my tooth even if it just needs a filling. I’m trying to wait till dentist reopens but not sure how much longer I can cope with this pain. Any ideas?  If patients needing treatment could be tested and negative then dentist would feel safer and we would get much needed treatment 

sharpe106

The test takes 2 days, so in that 2 days you might have got it. However granted they do need to come up with something. As with everything we will have to wait and see.

brook2jack2

In all honesty it will be a long time before dentistry returns to "normal". 

The problem is that drilling creates an aerosol which takes at least an hour to dissipate after treatment. 

In order to be able to drill dentists need
the proper PPE , this is impossible to source and the little bits there are are very ,very expensive. 

To see very many fewer patients a day , as it takes at least an hour to decontaminate the surgery afterwards 

the go ahead from statutory bodies to allow them to re open . It is not dentists who have decided just to do emergency treatment , they are legally bound not to work beyond very strict limits because of the very high risks to patients, their contacts , dentists and their contacts.  

Yes a test that you could do in the surgery and that would give an immediate result might help , but this is very unlikely . At the moment testing is 70 to 90% accurate in other words up to 7 out of 10 people who test negative actually have covid and it takes 24 hours. 

Realistically I cannot see dentists reopening , even in a limited way , for some time and full service will be a very long time away. 

superbigal

As above just before everything closed it was worked out that Britains Most dangerous jobs were
1. Dental Hygienist
2. Dentist

becky3343

I'm in a similar but less severe situation - a filling has fallen out along with a quarter of a molar. You could try covering the tooth in temporary filling material to protect it and cover any potential filling until you can get to the dentist? I use something called dentec which you can find on amazon. It's fiddly at first and I've had it fall out a few times as I need to use a big chunk to essentially construct part of my tooth but I'm a pro now and my tooth feels completely normal with no pain.  

roddydogs

I had to laugh, my dentist phoned me up to say my routine check up has been cancelled, did they think I was living in Mars?

brook2jack2

You would be surprised , we have had people complaining that their check up and hygiene appointments have been cancelled, we even had someone phoning wanting to start brace treatment as they had a lot of free time at the moment.