UK Molar Extraction

[ChrisX]

Hello, I live in the UK. I just had a molar extracted by an NHS dentist.

In my area, these are quite rare these days. Most dentists do not offer much "on the NHS" so the choice is between waiting many months for a cheaper treatment on the NHS or paying far more for "private treatment".

Anyway, I wanted to see if my experience is normal or not. This is my first extraction as an adult (I'm 64). Upper molar, the filling had dropped, somehoe I split the tooth and the filling fell out. One week later they took it out. It cost £73.50.

The first injection was insufficient. When she started work and it was very painful, so she injected a lot more. That second injection also hurt a great deal.
Afterwards my left eye felt strange and twitched and I found later that I could no longer flare my nostrils.
I didn't know that was a thing I did, but when it went away it was very noticeable. These symptoms lasted a day. Is that normal?

I don't know how they extract teeth, but there was a lot of repetitive sideways pressure and after maybe 20 cycles of the, the took came out, or rather broke off.
How do they do it - is it just pliers and brute force?

What I was shown, was the part of the tooth above the gum line - no visible root at all.

She said I would need another appointment to get the root parts out "somewhere that has the right equipment". Is that normal?

It's the next day now, and the pain is beginning to subside. The blood clot is behaving itself.

Now I'm dreading the next appointment. They will presumably have to cut open the guml have just healed, and put me back in pain, and after that experience, I'm really dreading it.

Maybe it would be worth paying 4 times as much for that work privately?

Thanks for any thoughts you can offer.
Chris

 

[Dr M]

It does sound like it was a difficult, but normal extraction. Sometimes it does take more than one injection to numb a tooth, and sometimes the effects can linger for 24 hours. The movements you explained, also sounds correct. Unfortunately, there is always a risk that the tooth can fracture during the extraction procedure. And if the practice doesn't have the right equipment to remove the roots, you unfortunately would have to go back for another visit, which might include surgical removal of the tooth roots

 

[MattKW]

Not unexpected. We rarely get the chance to extract sound teeth, so fracture during extraction is quite common, esp if your tooth has already got a split.
I teach extractions at my university, and getting students to understand it is quite hard - it really takes years of practice to develop the "feel". Having said that, the dentist should be prepared to follow through after a fracture with the appropriate technique. It's really not that hard to section an upper molar.
I'd go somewhere else and spend the $.