And...
...don't even get me started on the state of our dental services.
(theSHALROTH is learning Japanese, I really think so, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 20:44, archived)

here in wales
emergency dental work took 7 days (my mums tooth broke last week)
( SkUG .co.uk : is broken in the head, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 20:46, archived)

It's fine in England...
...if you go private, I had an emergency treated about 2 1/2 years ago, but that was £40 for consultation and £45 for the actual emergency treatment. I had to go back a month later and fork out another £250 because it needed a root canal.

I've been fortunate tho, I work at a university that has a dentristy school, so I signed up when I went to the dental hospital for ANOTHER emergency about 18 months ago, and a couple of months later I got a letter saying they'd do all my dental treatment if I didn't mind it being done by supervised students.

My first dental student wasn't great - he tried over 6 visits to get another root canal done, which ultimately failed because there may have been another canal they couldn't spot on the xray - so I had to have it extracted. That didn't go well either, the poor lad on Oral Surgery wasn't strong enough to get the tooth out, and between him and his tutor (and three cartridges of lidocaine) all they managed to do was snap the crown off. I had to go back two days later to get the roots removed as well.

Happy to say though, a different student (Eleanor) took over from Giles, and she was marvellous! She gave me about 10 fillings, and I never felt anything more painful that a slight momentary jangle every now and then. She was able to solve the dark spots I had between my front teeth and she's discharged me as a patient (I just need one wisdom tooth extracting now).

I really hope she goes on to do well in private practise... and she was really, *really* beautiful too. The session after the one where my front teeth were fixed, I brought her a beanie baby as a thank you, and she said she'd never received a gift for doing that work before :)

The best part was though, this was all done for me at no cost because they were students, and each patient helps towards their results so it's in their own interests to do it well.

...sorry for rambling, I've had too many whiskeys and Portal is scrambling my brain.
(theSHALROTH is learning Japanese, I really think so, Fri 4 Apr 2008, 22:06, archived)