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x_losReally annoying dental visit today. Basically summer before last, a rogue piece of toast took out my front tooth. They had to extract the root, which took ages to arrange and heal, and fit a temporary replacement, and when I was supposed to have a consultation for the implant replacement (expensive and off NHS because they don’t do implants), my dad died in the US and I had to go home to help close down his law practice. So I tried to arrange a new first session, but they’d only do it in late January. My short term prosthetic broke, I had a new job starting January 4th that was, at the time, in person—I just couldn’t continue to wait for the UK option. Poland could do it faster and cheaper, so I flew there early last December. And like—you would be shocked, or at least I was, by how anxious it makes you and depressing it is to have a big glaring hole in your face. The entire time I was waaaaaaaiting around for my UK dentists—months and months—was acutely awful.
So the implant is some two part affair, and the Polish clinic charges £200 more than we agreed to for stage 1, and I think—okay so not only is this a giant faff to go and do out here, I can’t rely on you for cost estimates? So I decide to do part 2 in the UK, but they’re being vast wenuses about it, actually salty at me for going abroad. I didn’t deign to explain my valid reasons—my healthcare choices re my own body are frankly none of their business, and if they’d had a good standard of care to start with, we wouldn’t have come to this point: I’m not ‘sorry mommy!’ing some random over my frankly reasonable decisions REGARDING MY OWN HEALTH during a period of crisis. There ALREADY was no NHS option for this simple, common procedure? What loyalty was I supposed to have left after that?
There’s been a lot, a LOT of whinging from them as well re the brand of the implant, can I tell them the brand—why would I possess that information? What patient does? I can ask but they might not be forthcoming. I already asked for my full file and got one x-ray. Also how different ARE these implants, actually? And what do you do when a patient moves countries between treatment stages or something happens to an exterior crown necessitating replacement work or the record is obscure? That has to happen A LOT. Also why are they acting like they’ve never heard of Poland/their common industry practices, it’s London, 15% of this fucking city is Polish and you’re trying to tell me you’ve never treated ANY of these people? I just don’t believe that. This clinic was for international patients in Warsaw, it’s not like they dragged the fucking root out with a mule in the shtetl. It simply cannot be this much of a technical mystery.
Anyway, now they want like £2000 for just the abutment and crown alone, and for the process to take four sessions and additional months. And can I be upsold on colour matching and a professional hygienist and and and—and as always with these guys, Private Dentist was hopefully going, oh you so have some other—Buddy it’s not gonna be you who does ‘some other’ work, so why do you care? It’s gonna be the low-cost NHS dentist until they fall out or the Tories finally wrest dental from us, thanks so much. Even then, it’d be the practice closer to my house. You represent a fail condition, sir.
It’s the time and the unnecessary appointments more than anything. I’m not pleased about five total visits for stage 2. Even today cost like £104 for the privilege of being hmmmm’d at and having my mouth prised open for X-rays and a dentist attempting to convince me I might want advanced colour match technology. Who other than him is going to be staring at my teeth? Jesus Christ.
Anyway I was also like sick with anxiety about going because of the terrible panic attack I had in Warsaw right before the root implant. I still made myself go to that, but it was hell. So I was drugged up with ‘do NOT throw up’ drugs, and there was a train strike on, and it was cold, so in general it’s been a very meh day.
So the implant is some two part affair, and the Polish clinic charges £200 more than we agreed to for stage 1, and I think—okay so not only is this a giant faff to go and do out here, I can’t rely on you for cost estimates? So I decide to do part 2 in the UK, but they’re being vast wenuses about it, actually salty at me for going abroad. I didn’t deign to explain my valid reasons—my healthcare choices re my own body are frankly none of their business, and if they’d had a good standard of care to start with, we wouldn’t have come to this point: I’m not ‘sorry mommy!’ing some random over my frankly reasonable decisions REGARDING MY OWN HEALTH during a period of crisis. There ALREADY was no NHS option for this simple, common procedure? What loyalty was I supposed to have left after that?
There’s been a lot, a LOT of whinging from them as well re the brand of the implant, can I tell them the brand—why would I possess that information? What patient does? I can ask but they might not be forthcoming. I already asked for my full file and got one x-ray. Also how different ARE these implants, actually? And what do you do when a patient moves countries between treatment stages or something happens to an exterior crown necessitating replacement work or the record is obscure? That has to happen A LOT. Also why are they acting like they’ve never heard of Poland/their common industry practices, it’s London, 15% of this fucking city is Polish and you’re trying to tell me you’ve never treated ANY of these people? I just don’t believe that. This clinic was for international patients in Warsaw, it’s not like they dragged the fucking root out with a mule in the shtetl. It simply cannot be this much of a technical mystery.
Anyway, now they want like £2000 for just the abutment and crown alone, and for the process to take four sessions and additional months. And can I be upsold on colour matching and a professional hygienist and and and—and as always with these guys, Private Dentist was hopefully going, oh you so have some other—Buddy it’s not gonna be you who does ‘some other’ work, so why do you care? It’s gonna be the low-cost NHS dentist until they fall out or the Tories finally wrest dental from us, thanks so much. Even then, it’d be the practice closer to my house. You represent a fail condition, sir.
It’s the time and the unnecessary appointments more than anything. I’m not pleased about five total visits for stage 2. Even today cost like £104 for the privilege of being hmmmm’d at and having my mouth prised open for X-rays and a dentist attempting to convince me I might want advanced colour match technology. Who other than him is going to be staring at my teeth? Jesus Christ.
Anyway I was also like sick with anxiety about going because of the terrible panic attack I had in Warsaw right before the root implant. I still made myself go to that, but it was hell. So I was drugged up with ‘do NOT throw up’ drugs, and there was a train strike on, and it was cold, so in general it’s been a very meh day.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-04 03:09 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-03-22 10:24 pm (UTC)I now have: the second to last replacement tooth. Only two months now— x_x
no subject
Date: 2023-01-04 10:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-03-22 10:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-01-06 06:21 pm (UTC)My mother’s been going through what feels like a thousand rounds at the dentist’s because her teeth are shit and she all kinds of things. Because of all that drama, I’ve gotten additional insurance for almost everything dental, implants, crowns, fillings etc. Because I know shit is in my future, with all those root canal treatments I’ve already gone through…
I hope you’ll can finally move forward with all this and not sit around being heemed and hawed at again all the time. Really, the whining they’re doing about the implant from Poland as if they’ve never heard that there are dentists in *gasp* other countries! I used to have a colleague who flew to Russia for any bigger procedure because it’s much cheaper there and she was born there…
no subject
Date: 2023-03-22 10:26 pm (UTC)Right, the ‘not POLAND!!’ is striking me as borderline xenophobic, esp as I have a very East Euro last name with two diacritics in it, come on I could easily just be from there.
no subject
Date: 2023-01-07 10:48 pm (UTC)Bizarrely, despite American healthcare payment structure being objectively worse than basically everywhere else, my dental insurance covered it because (??) the missing tooth was congenital. And once my oral surgeon either messed it up or my jaw did (as a healthy 19y woman I kinda doubt it was the latter), all the reoperations were gratis. Though eventually, after a few bone grafts and continued failures, I fired that guy and went to a second one--and was finished in one go. So I'm pretty sure it was the first guy's fault. I've never heard of anyone else having the same troubles.
Anyway--the good news is I've had the thing in now for 18 years and had no problems and even though my fake tooth is def a different color than my other teeth I don't care. I hope your process is swifter and easier but gets to the same result.
no subject
Date: 2023-03-22 10:28 pm (UTC)God those bone grafts sound way worse than what I’m having to do, what a nightmare.
That’s really good to hear re, it’s just lasted without issues. All I dream of at this point is not having to THINK about it all the fucking time.
no subject
Date: 2023-03-24 05:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-01-08 05:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2023-03-22 10:25 pm (UTC)