Healthy living
Body matters
My gum disease treatment: report 1
One step forward…dispatches from the frontline of NHS dental treatment from Ian Cotton
Ian Cotton wrote in November Saga Magazine of his eight-month battle to get treatment for gum disease on the NHS.
Once King's College Hospital finally accepted him as a patient in May, he was told he might have to wait 18 months before his treatment could actually begin. Then, suddenly, it was all change and treatment was due to begin in November. Here's how it happened - then nearly didn't.
Rarely does the NHS lack the capacity to surprise, yet still I was shocked when I got a card from the Periodontal department of London's King's College Hospital asking me to ' attend here', as it put it, on Friday 22nd September at 2.30. What for? It didn't say, but the customary slow-burn odyssey through King's switchboard finally established that this was indeed treatment, rather than assessment - a gasper indeed. What had happened to the 18-month wait?
Another surprise was that the appointment offered was only two days away - there had presumably been a cancellation - but I was hardly about to complain about that. Why, if we started treatment on the date offered, it would mean that free NHS treatment had begun a mere one year after my dentist's first diagnosis - by NHS standards, a result indeed.
But there was a catch. Coincidentally, three weeks earlier, I'd had a tooth extraction. This was routine except that three hours afterwards it started bleeding again - and went on bleeding for a cool 16 hours. I tried everything - the pads, the wads, the pressure bandages, the local cottage hospital, then eventually, in despair, the 30-mile trans-county dash to the nearest emergency dentist. My wife was drove as I scooped up blood and finally, with some difficulty, the dentist stabilised it. (The wound finally stopped bleeding the following morning.)
I was dehydrated, in mild shock, and lost six pounds in weight in three days; but the worst of it was that this emergency dentist (and, later, expert opinion, as I pursued the point) seemed convinced my problem had been caused by aspirin. I'd been taking quite high doses, as much as 900 mg a day (yet still within the recommended dose on the packet); and aspirin, it emerged, can indeed undermine the clotting process. This, of course, is precisely why potential heart attack patients are encouraged to take, typically, 75 mg of aspirin a day, one twelfth of the dose I'd given myself.
So I thought I'd better warn King's College hospital, just in case. My problems surely were aspirin-induced, but supposing they weren't? And, indeed, commendably cautious, King's said I should indeed have a blood test before they treated me - just in case - and meanwhile, yes, my hard-won appointment should be…cancelled.
Omygod! Not back to square one, surely! This could mean years - but fortunately, no. The kindly nurse said I would not, in fact, have to start again, but, subject to a successful blood test, could rejoin my place in the queue. And a fortnight and one blood test (fine) later they gave me a new appointment, upcoming any day now.
Yet the pay-off was still to come. Intrigued by that 16-hour-bleed I researched further- and though most experts agreed aspirin caused it, others had doubts. Above all, Lester Ellman of the British Dental Association thought a contributory factor could also have been …well, what a surprise…gum disease. It can, apparently, affect the healing capacity of the gums.
So the tooth extraction that prevented the gum disease treatment was caused, potentially, by the gum disease that exacerbated the tooth extraction: a circularity worthy of an NHS switchboard.
Watch this space. This one, clearly, could run and run.
Reader comments
Hi Gwen, Have you tried the Dental Academy in Daresbury of even the Malt House in Manchester for perio. I know there are others though. Good luck, Paul
Posted by: Paul | 28/02/2008 23:15:40
Re treatment for gum disease. My dentist and private orthodontist say that I have gum disease, as a result my front teeth are "drifting". As a 69 year old I want to retain my teeth and have the drifting corrected. - BUT I am told this cannot be done until the disease is treated. My dentist referred e to a consultant in May, but to date I have not had an appointment. NO one can help me find a periodontist in North Wales, or the north West of England who is in private practice. Has anyone any advice to offer me, I cannot bear the thought of loosing my teeth. If I had a disease in another part of my body, ssurely I could get some help reasonably quickly. Help please.
Posted by: Gwen Gray | 10/01/2008 18:08:41
Information on this site is for interest only and is not a substitute for professional medical advice. You should consult your own doctor about any specific health concerns.