My gold tooth

Remember my dental horrors last year?

My old dentist retires.

His replacement makes a hash of extracting a decayed and crumbling root and damages the tooth next to it to such an extent that a huge filling falls out, leaving an enormous cavity.

I have to be referred to a specialist clinic on the Isle of Dogs to get the remains of the root extracted.

The new dentist makes two attempts to fill the cavity in the neighboring tooth, but both fillings fall out the same day.

I give up in despair, deciding to just live with the cavity until the tooth decays so badly it has to be extracted.

But earlier this year, as chance would have it, I noticed that a new dental practice had opened 5 minutes walk from my flat. Last week I took the plunge, walked in off the street, ditched my useless dentist and registered with this new lot.

Just over a week later I have a gold inlay where the cavity used to be. I don't have Lily's "certain flash every time she smiled" because the gold inlay's too far back in my mouth but that's OK. The former (useless) dentist hadn't even bothered to explain that such a procedure was possible.

If it stays in- touch wood- it's a real morale-booster. I'm not apparently decaying quite as fast as I'd come to believe.

eddie wrote:Remember my dental horrors last year?

My old dentist retires.

His replacement makes a hash of extracting a decayed and crumbling root and damages the tooth next to it to such an extent that a huge filling falls out, leaving an enormous cavity.

I have to be referred to a specialist clinic on the Isle of Dogs to get the remains of the root extracted.

The new dentist makes two attempts to fill the cavity in the neighboring tooth, but both fillings fall out the same day.

I give up in despair, deciding to just live with the cavity until the tooth decays so badly it has to be extracted.

But earlier this year, as chance would have it, I noticed that a new dental practice had opened 5 minutes walk from my flat. Last week I took the plunge, walked in off the street, ditched my useless dentist and registered with this new lot.

Just over a week later I have a gold inlay where the cavity used to be. I don't have Lily's "certain flash every time she smiled" because the gold inlay's too far back in my mouth but that's OK. The former (useless) dentist hadn't even bothered to explain that such a procedure was possible.

If it stays in- touch wood- it's a real morale-booster. I'm not apparently decaying quite as fast as I'd come to believe.

Good dentists are hard to find . You have done well with your new dentist.

There was an interesting feature article in the Times a few weeks back. Seems that there is an epidemic of toddlers having so many cavities--twelve or more--that pediatric dentists have to put the kids under general anesthesia to fix the teeth. Parents were quoted as saying that they didn't make the kids brush because the children didn't like it and the parents didn't want to pressure the kids. The author also blamed bottled water which does not contain flouride as tap water does.

Constance wrote:There was an interesting feature article in the Times a few weeks back. Seems that there is an epidemic of toddlers having so many cavities--twelve or more--that pediatric dentists have to put the kids under general anesthesia to fix the teeth. Parents were quoted as saying that they didn't make the kids brush because the children didn't like it and the parents didn't want to pressure the kids. The author also blamed bottled water which does not contain flouride as tap water does.

Dentists tell me honey on dummies is also a cause.