Hi all
Hope you're all well.
I asking for a bit of advice if possible as I've been in a situation that I never have before and some advice or insight would be helpful right now.
I went in for a filling to my private dentist, on 30th July, was told it was deep and near to the nerve, so may need root canal treatment in the future.No worries I thought. I had the filling first thing in the morning and the anaesthetic wore off by late afternoon, it was a little sore, which i expected as my dentist said it was deep, so took some painkillers, and thought nothing of it.
Now the next morning, my face had started to swell up, the pain was unbearable, so I started taking the maximum allowed dosage of paracetamol and brufen until Tuesday morning, I didn't have very good sleep the whole time due to the pain, I struggled to get to sleep and then kept waking up after I did get to sleep. So on Tuesday morning, I rang up the dental surgery and ask for an emergency appointment, my dentist is off so I see someone else who just says I have an infection, took an x-ray and prescribed me 5 days of amoxicillin antibiotics. The swelling had started to subside, but not by much, and by the end of day 5, my face was still swollen still very painful, and I'd been taking the maximum allowed dosage of painkillers for a week now. I still couldn't sleep, kept waking up after I managed to get to sleep and was really suffering. Now, the day after the antibiotics finished, on the Saturday, the infection / swelling is getting worse, so Monday morning, I'm straight back onto the dentist to get another emergency appointment, this time, I see my dentist, the swelling was worse this time, and without examining me, he said "you just have an infection, I'm going to prescribe you another 5 days of antibiotics, but this time, amoxicillin and metronidazole" and I was told he would be very surprised if they didn't cure the infection, and that the infection needs to be gone before he can do anything, and to come back in a couple of weeks for a review, but on the chance of the antibiotics now helping things, that I'd have to book an emergency appointment at the dental hospital as there was nothing else he could do for me. I mentioned that I thought the tooth was loose, and he just said it would feel like that as there was an infection.
So, I book the review, go get the prescription and start the double course of antibiotics, now my face is seriously swollen, and its getting worse by the day, I thought to myself I'd give it until Wednesday night / Thursday morning and wait for the antibiotics to kick in and start working, still max dose of painkillers, I'm using oralgel, mouthwash with TCP, Corsodyl, salt water rinse, co-codamol, pain not going, still not able to sleep well at all and just getting worse, it was so bad that I could barely open my mouth, I couldn't even brush my teeth, the swelling was down the whole side of my jaw, on the underside of my jaw, my lips had started to swell up and and pain had started to work its way down my neck too.
So Wednesday morning I get up, I was in even more pain, it was the worse day so far, I even broke down in tears on the way to work, I'd had enough, and I had been taking the double dose of anti biotics since Monday, so I rang up the emergency dental hospital in the morning, told them about what's happened, what's going on, describing the symptoms, the swelling, whst ive been taking etc etc, and they were questioning what my dentist was doing about it, and that usually they wouldn't see people this way, but due to the severe swelling I had described to them, they said to get down to the hospital as soon as I could and I will be seen as soon as possible.
So arrive at the dental hospital, was seen fairly quickly, had a brief introduction with the nurse and then when I removed my mask, she was shocked by how bad the swelling was and she knew that it was now very serious. She was concerned the swelling / infection could be spreading up towards my brain or down to my heart, which she said could be fatal, which wasn't nice to hear!
So i had to have a number of tests done, to make sure my vital organs weren't infected, I didn't have a fever or anything to worry about, had to have another x ray, then back to the nurse, then they confirmed it was the tooth that had just been filled, which turned out to be loose, as I suspected, now I didn't think about it until she said, but there was a lot of pressure and pushing from my dentist while he was doing his work, which I just assumed was normal, but obviously had loosened the tooth, and I hadn't had any issues with the tooth before hand.
So, by this point, the nurse says your tooth HAS to come out today, we've booked the appointment with the surgeon and will be this afternoon.
So came back, got called up, after a lot of anesthetic, the dental surgeon removed the tooth, and very luckily was able to see where the infection was, so was able to cut into it and drain some of the infection out, it could have been much worse, as if they couldn't find the infection and drain anything out, I would have had to be admitted to the hospital, put to sleep and put on IV antibiotics to fight the infection, but very fortunate it didn't come to that!
So tooth was taken out, infection drained and washed out with saline, then sent on my way after the clot had formed.
Thankfully I had no pain after the anaesthetic had worn off, probably due to the amount of pain killers I had been taking for nearly 2 weeks! But the swelling had significantly reduced and is slowly getting better, but there is still some swelling im waiting to heal.
So, what would YOU do after this situation?
Ideally I'm looking to speak to the surgery and request a refund for the work I had done which resulted in this mess, but unsure how to go about it.
It was a private dentist and wasn't cheap, so certainly would like to ask for my money back.
Apologies for the long post.
Many thanks in advanced.
Jason
Hope you're all well.
I asking for a bit of advice if possible as I've been in a situation that I never have before and some advice or insight would be helpful right now.
I went in for a filling to my private dentist, on 30th July, was told it was deep and near to the nerve, so may need root canal treatment in the future.No worries I thought. I had the filling first thing in the morning and the anaesthetic wore off by late afternoon, it was a little sore, which i expected as my dentist said it was deep, so took some painkillers, and thought nothing of it.
Now the next morning, my face had started to swell up, the pain was unbearable, so I started taking the maximum allowed dosage of paracetamol and brufen until Tuesday morning, I didn't have very good sleep the whole time due to the pain, I struggled to get to sleep and then kept waking up after I did get to sleep. So on Tuesday morning, I rang up the dental surgery and ask for an emergency appointment, my dentist is off so I see someone else who just says I have an infection, took an x-ray and prescribed me 5 days of amoxicillin antibiotics. The swelling had started to subside, but not by much, and by the end of day 5, my face was still swollen still very painful, and I'd been taking the maximum allowed dosage of painkillers for a week now. I still couldn't sleep, kept waking up after I managed to get to sleep and was really suffering. Now, the day after the antibiotics finished, on the Saturday, the infection / swelling is getting worse, so Monday morning, I'm straight back onto the dentist to get another emergency appointment, this time, I see my dentist, the swelling was worse this time, and without examining me, he said "you just have an infection, I'm going to prescribe you another 5 days of antibiotics, but this time, amoxicillin and metronidazole" and I was told he would be very surprised if they didn't cure the infection, and that the infection needs to be gone before he can do anything, and to come back in a couple of weeks for a review, but on the chance of the antibiotics now helping things, that I'd have to book an emergency appointment at the dental hospital as there was nothing else he could do for me. I mentioned that I thought the tooth was loose, and he just said it would feel like that as there was an infection.
So, I book the review, go get the prescription and start the double course of antibiotics, now my face is seriously swollen, and its getting worse by the day, I thought to myself I'd give it until Wednesday night / Thursday morning and wait for the antibiotics to kick in and start working, still max dose of painkillers, I'm using oralgel, mouthwash with TCP, Corsodyl, salt water rinse, co-codamol, pain not going, still not able to sleep well at all and just getting worse, it was so bad that I could barely open my mouth, I couldn't even brush my teeth, the swelling was down the whole side of my jaw, on the underside of my jaw, my lips had started to swell up and and pain had started to work its way down my neck too.
So Wednesday morning I get up, I was in even more pain, it was the worse day so far, I even broke down in tears on the way to work, I'd had enough, and I had been taking the double dose of anti biotics since Monday, so I rang up the emergency dental hospital in the morning, told them about what's happened, what's going on, describing the symptoms, the swelling, whst ive been taking etc etc, and they were questioning what my dentist was doing about it, and that usually they wouldn't see people this way, but due to the severe swelling I had described to them, they said to get down to the hospital as soon as I could and I will be seen as soon as possible.
So arrive at the dental hospital, was seen fairly quickly, had a brief introduction with the nurse and then when I removed my mask, she was shocked by how bad the swelling was and she knew that it was now very serious. She was concerned the swelling / infection could be spreading up towards my brain or down to my heart, which she said could be fatal, which wasn't nice to hear!
So i had to have a number of tests done, to make sure my vital organs weren't infected, I didn't have a fever or anything to worry about, had to have another x ray, then back to the nurse, then they confirmed it was the tooth that had just been filled, which turned out to be loose, as I suspected, now I didn't think about it until she said, but there was a lot of pressure and pushing from my dentist while he was doing his work, which I just assumed was normal, but obviously had loosened the tooth, and I hadn't had any issues with the tooth before hand.
So, by this point, the nurse says your tooth HAS to come out today, we've booked the appointment with the surgeon and will be this afternoon.
So came back, got called up, after a lot of anesthetic, the dental surgeon removed the tooth, and very luckily was able to see where the infection was, so was able to cut into it and drain some of the infection out, it could have been much worse, as if they couldn't find the infection and drain anything out, I would have had to be admitted to the hospital, put to sleep and put on IV antibiotics to fight the infection, but very fortunate it didn't come to that!
So tooth was taken out, infection drained and washed out with saline, then sent on my way after the clot had formed.
Thankfully I had no pain after the anaesthetic had worn off, probably due to the amount of pain killers I had been taking for nearly 2 weeks! But the swelling had significantly reduced and is slowly getting better, but there is still some swelling im waiting to heal.
So, what would YOU do after this situation?
Ideally I'm looking to speak to the surgery and request a refund for the work I had done which resulted in this mess, but unsure how to go about it.
It was a private dentist and wasn't cheap, so certainly would like to ask for my money back.
Apologies for the long post.
Many thanks in advanced.
Jason
