Well this is my 4th abscess in about 8 months. One denti...

If it is the wrong tooth, then it sounds like you have more than one problem on the go. Do you go for regular checkups? If you are neglecting your mouth, you can expect more problems at once.

So who is going to pay for the dentist's costs and equipment then, and his/her staff, rent, materials, drugs etc? I heard that the chair alone can cost up to 50 000 UkP, and that is just the chair!

I believe in paying for my treatment, at least then I will take better care of myself than if everything was for free. What you are saying is that the government should be responsible for your mouth and the bad habits and neglect that you expose it to. Any they must then pay for your wrong doings. Poor goverment! Sorry, just my opinion...

[i:01cf779d37]This message was automatically imported from the original Patient Experience[/i:01cf779d37]

I don't know where you come from but in the UK we have already paid for our NHS dentist treatment through national insurance contributions paid all your working life, so it really angers me to be told I have to pay for my treatment again because there are no NHS dentist's where I live.

I have always really looked after my teeth and have never needed much done to them but 2 years ago I started with mild toothache that has only now resulted in the most horrendous pain I've ever felt an abscess, at the end of these 2 years I've paid £1,000 on one tooth, which I have already paid for in my national insurance contributions

well i work in NHS & Private dentistry, & it angers me that patients think that they should have dental treatment FREE!!! Dentists work for themselves they are a business & self employed, they choose to offer patients NHS treatments the nhs do not own them. Quite frankly what the NHS pays them for some complex treatmemts that they have trained 7 years for, if i were a dentist i would have a private practice. So the best thing to do is brush twice a day correctly, floss once a day correctly & watch what you eat no fizzy drinks no toffees or chocolates, keep regular dental checks, don't smoke or drink (can cause oral cancer) & you won't go far wrong so no more expensive dental bills. So give the Dentists a break!!!

I sympthise with DM, I have an abcess that no one can get to the bottom of despite two teeth being extracted, its agony, expensive and dentists are often too busy to keep up a continuance of treatment, so we patients needlessly suffer inbetween, needing far more attention than if they sorted it fully in the first place

I used to work in the NHS, and I Know its full of very good people, but if it really costs 50k for a chair, then dentisits are also being had

How can it cost 5 times more than a brand new family car???

I pay my national insurance, and lets not forget that NHS dental treatment is not free either, I dont get help from anyone to pay my bills, and they can be crippling

And lets be clear on this, my abcess is from a botched root canal, I could've sued but I didnt, because after that experience I was too afraid to go back and tried to manage it on my own, with perfect habits and care

That doesnt work forever, and when you get older problems occur, its nature, so many dentists blame us for being neglectful as children when its not our fault we didnt take ourselves off as 5 year olds to the local dentist, where some scraey bloke would say \"lump it or pull it\" ( I am not kidding, he was known locally as \"the butcher\"

I recently visited an NHS emergency dentist who tried 4 injections in my cheek to numb the tooth, and it didnt work, and I couldnt have any work done, by then I was too upset to ask her to inject my gum directly, and why should I, doesnt she know her job??? And yes I still had to pay for the injections!!!!!

I dont know how dentists became separate when so many specialist treatments are directly part of NHS, some many more expensive than dental treatment, how did dentists manage to go it alone?

I'd rather pay a bit more national insurance and have access to good dental treatment, the government should consider this , decent dentists do deserve a good pay for their profession, just as other healthcare specialists do, but perhaps dentists believe they should get more?

Many of the dentists who have worked for the NHS and are now completely private, trained at the taxpayers expense, under the old system of nil university fees - unlike today. So the argument that why should they treat people who have negelected their teeth is not a valid one. I went regularly to the dentist as a child, and inspite of hardly ever having sweets or fizzy drinks, have as a result a mouthful of fillings although I never remember having any symptoms. I understand that dentists were (are?] paid according to treatment given, by the NHS (before privatisation] - would this be a temptation to over-treat and earn more? - one will never know, a second opinion is seldom sought especially with regard to a humble filling. I only know that a friend who never went to the dentist and wasnt looking after their teeth as well as me by the age of 20 had no fillings and no symptoms - and even now after some dentist visits has far less fillings than me, after a lifetime of \"neglect\". I by contrast am searching for a dentist were I now live abroad (and there has been no NHS dentistry] to treat what sounds like one of those horrendous abscesses described here (pain which makes you want to climb the walls or end it all] - its a lottery because all treatment here is private - therefore probably no govenment regulatory body to answer to. For this reason I would prefer to be treated back in the UK - at least there, there is more control over who practises - and Im sure my old dentist practise (which is now private] wouldnt mind treating, for a fee, 40 years later what may have been pre-empted by over treating there in the first place with possible un-necessary fillings as a child. Some people still have a conscience and the old adage \"what goes around, comes around\" I believe certainly with regard to how one treats others. What a pity that the NHS dentistry worker seems to believe this for the patients they treat who have \"neglected themselves and therefore deserve their problems\" - one could apply this to most illnesses especially with the passage of time - and anyone with this attitude might find a few years down the line that they are on the receiving end of this attitude for quite a different medical condition. So stop blaming your patients who according to you are already paying for their \"sins\" - it may return to haunt you in quite a different way medically or otherwise one day.[/code]