Dental Health Englands Terrible Teeth

This page is especially for your gang and the health of theirs and your teeth. England has a fiercesom reputation for bad teeth almost world over and I have always wondered why. Well now I know and I am going to share this experience so that you can either go into the system well forewarned or make another choice for your gangs Dental Health.

Fortunately for a lot of us we are not doomed to having to put up with one choice anymore and for those of us who do have to put up with Englands Terrible Teeth, Legacy of Arrogant Dentists, I hope that this will give you the incentive to ask more questions than I did and insist on more choices than I did. Mainly not to depend on the dentist telling you what all the alternatives are, such as root canal and capping instead of the cheap alternative of removing of teeth.

Englands Terrible Teeth have become legendary world over. Mention teeth and England hits the top of the list for most awful teeth. I came from Africa, I saw, I experienced and I now understand why this is so. I have, through no choice of my own seen 7 dentists during my nine year stay in the UK. I have also lost a tooth for nearly every year that I have stayed here, six in all to be exact! Six teeth that I should never have lost. Six teeth that I would still have, had I gone home for treatment in South Africa. But hey, this is a first world country right?? Dental Health Care should be better than a third world country right?? Why should it have made such a difference? These dentists are given first rate teaching and facilities right???

Englands Terrible Teeth is a thing of the past right??? Just have a look around you! Dental Health appears to be the last thing on the agenda of both government and the health department in the UK and yet this is something that cannot be hidden. The removal of teeth is not a scar that fades, it leaves a hole where it once was. The lips fall down due to loss of bone structure as well as the loss of support by the tooth. Often the plate used to replace it is uncomfortable and with the shrinking of the gums it needs replacing. Rubbing of the plate causes infections and ulcers and is possibly one of the main reasons so many people decide to live with unsightly gaps in their teeth. The pulling of a tooth should be the very last resort of any dentist! Dental Health should be saving teeth!

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Dental Health & Englands Terrible Teeth it seems, stems from the inability in some cases to get an appointment with an NHS dentist. Your chances are either better or worse depending on which area of the country you live in. As I live in the South-West of England I was able to find a dentist that would see me on the NHS. I took myself and my teeth in to see the dentist as I was suffering from toothache due to a cracked filling at the back of my mouth, caused by grinding my teeth at night. I was surprised to find that the dentist who had never seen me before was rather uninterested in the whole of my mouth, (even though I was a newly registered patient) and focused only on the tooth in question. I had tried to impress upon him that my teeth were very important to me and that I had spent a lot of money on saving my teeth due to the fact that I had not inherited the best set of teeth in the first place. He was unmoved and unimpressed and informed me that the tooth would have to come out as it was not viable and certainly not worth saving. Unnerved by his blank stare I placed the trust that I had learned from my dental experiences in South-Africa and Zimbabwe in this 'first world' 'Iraninan' dentist & the Dental Health Care system and said goodbye to the first tooth to be lost to the legacy of Arrogant Dentists. After having got over losing one of my precious back teeth I realised that he had not reported on the rest of my teeth (other than to tick them off in their little boxes) as I had asked him to and had not given me any information regarding their Dental Health, or if any of them required some attention. Several months later a cap came off of one of my bottom teeth, a cap that had been inserted some years before. I had to wait several weeks before I could get an appointment and when I did I found that my dentist had left and I was assigned another dentist from yet another european country that did not speak the language terribly well or perhaps had already picked up the less is more attitude of the UK dentists I would still come to know and love!!! I asked that the cap be replaced and was met with great consternation and a definite coolness that was unexpected. I was told that this was not possible the tooth needed to come out! I was horrified and very upset. I asked him to please assess the situation again and still I was told that this was not possible and so I lost tooth number two to poor Dental Health care, Legacy of Arrogant Dentists. I then found that not only could I NOT have a conversation that made any sense with a dentist here, but I could also not find any person who could shed some light on the whole dentist availability thing either, and I mean this from a humane perspective as well as a literal one. I was viewed by most who I spoke to as either slightly barmy or eccentric at the very least for being so particular about keeping my teeth.

My misery did not end there it just kept on coming. Unaware that the chocolate in Europe and England is so much higher in sugar content than it is in Africa I ignorantly indulged my sweet tooth without extra brushing on top of my usual twice a day and my rinses. So it was I found myself back at the dentist some months later, (still never having had a complete mouth and tooth examination or any warnings of what to look out for,) staring at yet another silent dentist who at least attempted to put a buckle around the bottom of the tooth that was giving me grief. His drill slipped when he looked away whilst drilling and cut down into my gum. A week later I had to see him as an emergency patient after finding that I had a huge red area on my chin and neck and a nice red line heading down my chest toward the region of my heart. Many £'s later I lost yet another vital tooth to the UK Dental Health Care Syndrome and Legacy of Arrogant Dentists! I still could not find anyone who would talk to me and explain what was going on, what I was doing wrong, and I how I could stop the seemingly inexorable loss of my precious teeth. Swilling my mouth with strong mouth washes did not seem to help me at all and in fact seemed to make my mouth and gums even more sensitive.

By the time I had developed yet another hole in a back tooth after losing another very old filling that should have been replaced months before during or on another booked visit, (and would have been had I been back home), I just bent to the will of what I knew was coming, the new dentists desire to remove it! About a year later and still no general mouth inspection with any suggestions of how to keep my remaining teeth, another of my old caps worked it's way loose and yes, that tooth too was removed by a sullen and uncommunicative dentist. I was becoming or rather had become a statistic of poor Dental Health Care.

The end came for me when my front teeth (that I had constantly begged all of these dentists to take a look at due to the deteriorating state of the crowns which were by this time over 14yrs old) started to hurt and burn around the gum edge. Of course I was told by yet another foreign dentist in the same practice, that four of my front teeth would have to come out. I was stunned, and absolutely broken hearted. In six years I had watched R15000 go down the drain and all my efforts to keep my teeth dissolve in front of me. I was once again faced with a dentist who had nothing to say and who simply looked at me like a chef would a cockroach in his kitchen. I went home!!!

Unfortunately due to my holiday money running out (the cost by the way was R3036.00 for building and filling both bottom teeth and removing, (fillings are still there 3 years later) taking moulds and replacing the two top teeth with a metal and acrylic tooth plate and cleaning my teeth. They work, all day Fridays and on Saturdays! This was the equivalent of £300.00 I felt as though my Dental Health was of paramount importance to him.

I had to have one of the other front teeth recapped when I got back to England. Feeling slightly better, this time 'I' found myself another dentist and asked to have the cap replaced as my dentist in South-Africa had suggested. This dentist, a young Greek dentist who was very confident went ahead and first of all broke the tooth with the old cap on and then brashly told me that it was still ok and took the moulds and sent them off to a professional to have it made up. All of this I decided to pay for without the help of the NHS as I was told they would not support me having it recapped and that it would be a much nicer tooth. So it was done privately. The tooth came back and he loosely held it in place for me to have a quick look at before he cemented it in. I had a frantic look to see if the colour matched and noticed that it looked a little long but decided in the haste of having it flashed in front of me that it probably looked long because it was no yet cemented in. Once it was fitted I was again shown the tooth rather hurriedly in the mirror and as he was about to take it away, I grabbed it back and noticed that the new tooth was much longer than the teeth next to it. I asked him if he intended leaving it like this and he nervously said that he could probably grind it down a bit, warning me that it might break. I was already back into the UK state of poor Dental Health Care & "I'm done for", and was only too grateful that he managed to grind it down to a slightly less clownish appearance. I was too scared to look at it for a couple of days and then when I finally plucked up the courage I noticed that it was not only too long but that it was the shape of a tombstone. He had not done the mould for the new tooth with the plate in my mouth. So, I sit. Do I take the chance of having what is left of the tooth underneath broken again, or do I live with this £300.00 monstrosity??? I decided to live with it. One really bad tooth that also corrupted the perfect fit of my plate cost me the price of all I had had done in South Africa. I was again victim of the UK Dental Health Care.

About nine months later I once again found myself having to seek out yet another dentist here in Bristol for another cap that was also getting rather old and was shrinking away from the gum becoming inflamed. I found myself another arrogant dentist, ( a genuine British dentist) who was not too shy to tell me the reason that I had had so many teeth removed rather than saved, was because dentists in the UK dont like doing work for the NHS that does not pay the same amount as for services done privately!!! He also told me that I don't brush my teeth! That I needed to buy myself the chalk rinse that children use to see plaque which convinces them to brush their teeth and to buy myself a mouth wash! I own one of the most expensive electric sonic tooth brushes that it is possible to buy. I brush my teeth three times a day and have found that strong rinses make my mouth more inflamed than without them. I have also found out through my own research that the medication that I have been on for many years has a side effect of drying the mouth out, which exacerbates any oral problems. All these UK Dentists had this information on their client profile and yet not one of them suggested that I might need assistance in keeping my mouth moist and thereby minimising the problems I had been experiencing. This same dentist put a filling in my tooth that lasted all of one week, that filling and a buckle cost £92.00 Why did I not go back? Because I don't want it to be pulled out and I don't want to be treated like an ignorant nobody. I now had solid knowledge of why there were books written about Englands Terrible Teeth. And I am truly sad and worried about the UK Dental Health Care system.

My suggestion to anyone of my countrymen and anyone going on holiday, get your teeth done where dentists treat you like people who matter, and with some dignity. UK dentists need to wake up! The days of being arrogant know it all's who have no need to share their knowledge is long gone and over. This is not the the 18th century when it was considered right and proper to keep medical information a mystery to the ordinary man on the street. Englands Terrible Teeth Legacy would be a thing of the past if this arrogant attitude had been binned along with removing teeth for the sake of expediency and lack of better methods!!! The cost of removing teeth maybe a cheap alternative for dentists but it is a high price to pay for the human involved!

To mothers of little gangs, make sure your kids brush their teeth at least twice a day for a minnimum of 3-4 minutes after meals and especially after eating any sweets or chocolates here. Don't accept removal of teeth as an only option and put an end to Terrible Dental Health Care and dont let their teeth become part of the legacy of Arrogant Dentists. Dont just blame foreign dentists, they are after all following in the footsteps of their English counterparts.

If you are taking any drugs that dry your mouth out see your doctor or good dentist for some help. (You may be lucky and know of a good dentist or have a friend who knows one. Older people and smokers may undergo Dental Health changes due to dry mouth and gums shrinking. There are medications for dry mouth. Dental plates need replacing once they no longer fit properly.

Take your young gang to a good dentist as soon as they get teeth so that they do not develop a fear of dentists. Teeth are very important and there is so much help these days that there is no real excuse for letting children walk around with rotten or protruding teeth. Don't let them become a statistic of Englands Terrible Teeth! Make your little gangs Dental Health a priority.

Maybe now that so many stars are having their teeth perfected in Hollywood it will help herald the end of Englands Terrible Teeth and people will start insisting on good Dental Helath Care.

Just for the record, I do work and I do pay my taxes in the UK. I have not asked for anything for nothing. I believe in paying my own way, but I also believe in being treated like a human being.

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