Background: Tooth pain first felt on chewing on right side 2 years ago. My original dentist wasn't greatly interested in it each visit, so after about a year I decided to find a new dentist. At that stage I thought he'd fecked up a recent filling in that area and was a bit suspicious about him for various reasons anyway. The next dentist (and reception) I tried appeared dodgy to me straight away and he offered to redo a filling in exchange for a large sum of money, but as his practise left me feeling uneasy I, fortunately as it turned out, tried elsewhere. So 18 months down the road from first pain I'm on to my third dentist, who also doesn't find the cause of my pain on first visit, but she did set up a referral with the local dental hospital for the students to practise on. And this is where the next stage of my NHS adventure begins:
First referral
The waiting time to get seen by the hospital is long, and in the intervening months I discover a lump under my chin, which I guessed was likely to be related to my tooth pain also in the general area, although some of the pain is hard to localise precisely, extending around the ear and down the neck for example, rather than the more easily localisable shooting pain on chewing) but I couldn't be sure, especially given that dentists weren't finding anything. The tooth pain has become constant by this stage rather than just when chewing. I tried a walk-in centre, as my GP seems like a busy and disinterested fellow, and what could it hurt. I saw the nurse there and he diagnosed an enlarged lymph gland, apparently it's a common thing people get. So I sceptically waited another few weeks and with no sign of it disappearing went to see my GP, and true to form he doesn't even get out of his chair and I'm out of there in two minutes, but I do have an appointment with a nurse for a blood test. A week later I return for my results and find that my blood is groovey and this time the doc does feel my lump for a micro-nano-second when I mention it's solid. He says it moves a bit and gives me a prescription for antibiotics.
2nd referral
So I make another appointment with my newish (of 3 weeks) dentist to tell her of the lump that I've discovered since my last visit with her and say I've still heard nothing following her hospital referral and my doc has given me aticbiotics. I've since discovered that the NHS keeps you in the dark until a few days before appointments. My dentist takes another x-ray and this time, by chance, the edge of the x-ray happens to include the edge of a cyst around a wisdom tooth. So with another fuller x-ray the 2 year riddle is solved! She sets up another referral at the hospital including the diagnosis and also gives me a copy of the x-ray, which turns out to be useful. I also get some other kind of antibiotics.
First hospital visit
So 2 months after original referral I get a phone call out of the blue to say an appointment is available next day, which I grab. Once at the hospital I discover that my referral has been made to the wrong dental department, I am seeing restorative dentistry rather than oral medicine, or oral surgery, or something. I whip out my x-ray copy and they see the problem and write a report and put me on the waiting list of another department (of which I will eventually see at least 4). It turns out the next department is only a few cubicles along the isle on the same floor from this one.
So once again I'm waiting in the dark wondering if I've been lost in the system, but a month later I get a phone call saying I can come in next day. When I get there the computer system is down and they have no access to the details given and discovered on my last visit in the cubic a few cubics away, which is where my own x-ray copy comes in handy again. Eventually their systems do come back on-line. They say I will need another appointment to have a CT scan. I tell them that I've already been on a bit of a merry-go-round and the clinician agrees to get a CT scan arranged a couple of hours later that day. She had also said that I would need another separate appointment for a biopsy to be taken, but when I came back for the CT scan she said they've decided I don't need a biopsy after all. A mixed blessing. I had been told by a previous department that once I got to this department I was nearly there! and that surgery is only weeks away. Although I didn't really believe it.
It turns out the department who had just seen me don't handle these types of operations, which are done in the main hospital building. So I am on yet another list and hear nothing for another 5 weeks, at which stage I phone them up and, after navigating various departments, discover the right one. I ask if they know when my op is due. She has no idea but says she will phone me back next day, but that it could be months away because it's soon holiday season. On not hearing back I phone her 2 days later and ask her if she has found out when I am scheduled for surgery. She says she didn't know but will find out. I ask her if there is a maximum waiting time, and she says yes, it's 18 weeks from referral. Well I said, it's been 17 weeks already, could she provide me with the complaints procedure. She says she will phone me back in 10 minutes. An hour later she phones back to ask whether an op in 3 weeks is any good. I say yes! She says I will also need a pre-op appointment! <ffs, yet another appointment, I don't say out loud, how many times and appointments do these people need, what a long drawn out bureaucratic head doesn't know what the tail does nightmare this is>
And here I am, still not confident that the operation will ever happen and a concerned about professionalism if it does. Assuming the appointment isn't cancelled, will they forget to bring the anaesthetic, will they go on holiday instead? I had hoped I would not need a general anaesthetic but I am down for one apparently, and had hoped that I could avoid titanium implants, preferring to allow bone to regrow instead if possible, even if healing takes longer, but I see now that I will get what I am given.
So, my first brush with the NHS, aside from dentists and the odd lazy GP, suggests it's tulip, unless you have an immediate life threatening condition perhaps. I try to convince myself that I should feel grateful for free NHS treatment, but I nevertheless feel the NHS is a mare.
First referral
The waiting time to get seen by the hospital is long, and in the intervening months I discover a lump under my chin, which I guessed was likely to be related to my tooth pain also in the general area, although some of the pain is hard to localise precisely, extending around the ear and down the neck for example, rather than the more easily localisable shooting pain on chewing) but I couldn't be sure, especially given that dentists weren't finding anything. The tooth pain has become constant by this stage rather than just when chewing. I tried a walk-in centre, as my GP seems like a busy and disinterested fellow, and what could it hurt. I saw the nurse there and he diagnosed an enlarged lymph gland, apparently it's a common thing people get. So I sceptically waited another few weeks and with no sign of it disappearing went to see my GP, and true to form he doesn't even get out of his chair and I'm out of there in two minutes, but I do have an appointment with a nurse for a blood test. A week later I return for my results and find that my blood is groovey and this time the doc does feel my lump for a micro-nano-second when I mention it's solid. He says it moves a bit and gives me a prescription for antibiotics.
2nd referral
So I make another appointment with my newish (of 3 weeks) dentist to tell her of the lump that I've discovered since my last visit with her and say I've still heard nothing following her hospital referral and my doc has given me aticbiotics. I've since discovered that the NHS keeps you in the dark until a few days before appointments. My dentist takes another x-ray and this time, by chance, the edge of the x-ray happens to include the edge of a cyst around a wisdom tooth. So with another fuller x-ray the 2 year riddle is solved! She sets up another referral at the hospital including the diagnosis and also gives me a copy of the x-ray, which turns out to be useful. I also get some other kind of antibiotics.
First hospital visit
So 2 months after original referral I get a phone call out of the blue to say an appointment is available next day, which I grab. Once at the hospital I discover that my referral has been made to the wrong dental department, I am seeing restorative dentistry rather than oral medicine, or oral surgery, or something. I whip out my x-ray copy and they see the problem and write a report and put me on the waiting list of another department (of which I will eventually see at least 4). It turns out the next department is only a few cubicles along the isle on the same floor from this one.
So once again I'm waiting in the dark wondering if I've been lost in the system, but a month later I get a phone call saying I can come in next day. When I get there the computer system is down and they have no access to the details given and discovered on my last visit in the cubic a few cubics away, which is where my own x-ray copy comes in handy again. Eventually their systems do come back on-line. They say I will need another appointment to have a CT scan. I tell them that I've already been on a bit of a merry-go-round and the clinician agrees to get a CT scan arranged a couple of hours later that day. She had also said that I would need another separate appointment for a biopsy to be taken, but when I came back for the CT scan she said they've decided I don't need a biopsy after all. A mixed blessing. I had been told by a previous department that once I got to this department I was nearly there! and that surgery is only weeks away. Although I didn't really believe it.
It turns out the department who had just seen me don't handle these types of operations, which are done in the main hospital building. So I am on yet another list and hear nothing for another 5 weeks, at which stage I phone them up and, after navigating various departments, discover the right one. I ask if they know when my op is due. She has no idea but says she will phone me back next day, but that it could be months away because it's soon holiday season. On not hearing back I phone her 2 days later and ask her if she has found out when I am scheduled for surgery. She says she didn't know but will find out. I ask her if there is a maximum waiting time, and she says yes, it's 18 weeks from referral. Well I said, it's been 17 weeks already, could she provide me with the complaints procedure. She says she will phone me back in 10 minutes. An hour later she phones back to ask whether an op in 3 weeks is any good. I say yes! She says I will also need a pre-op appointment! <ffs, yet another appointment, I don't say out loud, how many times and appointments do these people need, what a long drawn out bureaucratic head doesn't know what the tail does nightmare this is>
And here I am, still not confident that the operation will ever happen and a concerned about professionalism if it does. Assuming the appointment isn't cancelled, will they forget to bring the anaesthetic, will they go on holiday instead? I had hoped I would not need a general anaesthetic but I am down for one apparently, and had hoped that I could avoid titanium implants, preferring to allow bone to regrow instead if possible, even if healing takes longer, but I see now that I will get what I am given.
So, my first brush with the NHS, aside from dentists and the odd lazy GP, suggests it's tulip, unless you have an immediate life threatening condition perhaps. I try to convince myself that I should feel grateful for free NHS treatment, but I nevertheless feel the NHS is a mare.
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