Down in the mouth (edited)

My toothache started up again on about 10 February, and was so maddeningly painful that I made an emergency appointment with my local dentist on 14 February. This proved to be my first mistake because, although Welcare Clinic Mirdif is ‘in the network’, it turns out that dental cover is through reimbursement only. So much for the all-singing and all-dancing new and improved medical insurance.

The dentist looked, x-rayed, and agreed that the tooth was cracked and the gum underneath was infected and inflamed, hence the excruciating agony. She prescribed mild painkillers and comedy antibiotics, and told me to come back in a few days. She could do nothing until the inflammation had gone down.

I helped out the painkillers with overdoses of what I could find in the medicine cabinet to dull the pain, and at last got some sleep.

Having got rid of me for a few days, the dentist took more x-rays on 19 Feb and ground the top off the tooth so I didn’t press on it when chewing. It would have to come out.

Glory Hallelujah! I have been saying this every few years since about 1979. Long-term readers of this blog who have elephantine memories may remember this polemic.

She made me an appointment with an Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeon. He couldn’t be arsed to look on the Welcare Clinic Mirdif computer system for the x-rays and insisted on taking more, including a gloriously-named orthopantomogram for some unfathomable reason. All at my expense, of course. And then made an appointment for me to come in and have the offending Lower Right Seven and its impacted neighbour dug out.

So when I turned up at the clinic on 8 March expecting surgery, I was less than impressed to learn that no such appointment was recorded on Welcare’s system and Dr Vinod was in fact on holiday for three weeks. The receptionist assured me that the absence of an appointment was my fault, and came within a gnat’s todger of suggesting that the dentist had not made the appointment as I alleged he’d told me, and that I was lying. No, Welcare couldn’t suggest an alternative dental surgeon. Perhaps I would like to make an appointment for after Dr Vinod’s return in about three weeks.

I don’t think so. Goodbye Welcare, for ever. I am currently making enquiries pertaining to an alternative means of having those troublesome things removed from my head. If I’d known this was going to happen, I’d have accompanied Keefieboy on his recent inexpensive and successful dental experience.

Would I recommend Welcare? Based on my experience of booking appointments when doctors aren't going to be there; not letting me see a doctor until over an hour after my appointment was due (because the previous customer was an hour late); telling me my condition wasn’t covered by insurance and refusing to check (it was covered, actually); booking an appointment and then sodding off on holiday; probably not. In fact, I'd recommend a policy of total avoidance.

Edited 16 March to add...

After emailing my letter of complaint to Dr Vinod and the management of Welcare Clinic, I received apologetic phone call, voice mail, SMS and email. Essentially, the Doctor had been called away on emergency leave for a couple of days. He was unable to explain why my appointment had been lost, neither could he figure where the estimate of three weeks vacation had come from.

So I went back and had the offending teeth pulled out as various pieces of shrapnel.

I also had the chance to voice my concerns about Welcare’s management face to face with the said management. Most of the problem appears to be with the front desk; I have little or no issues with the actual medical part of the medical process.

But as I was at pains to point out, the front desk is the first point of contact for a customer. It is also the last point of contact, and will provide the lasting impression when someone leaves. So it is imperative that this front desk is not populated by folk who don’t know what they’re doing.

Does Welcare have a resident proctologist who could perhaps take a rocket and do the needful?

]}:-{>

A nice little earner

I do not enjoy visiting the dentist. It's something to do with being utterly helpless while my mouth is filled with half the contents of an ironmonger's shop and intense pain is inflicted. Samurai Sam doesn't enjoy it either, but was kind enough to coin the term Tooth Pirate.

When I was a kid, I went for a dental checkup every four months. And all used to go well. The dentist invariably congratulated me on my straight, clean teeth. He generally did the usual scale and polish, but this was probably more related to finding something to do while I was in the chair.

And then the old man retired. The new dentist, fresh out of Tooth Piracy School, went beserk in my mouth. "Seven fillings? Are you serious?"

My parents took the attitude that I must have given up on toothbrushes and started a seaside rock habit over the preceding four months. Either that, or the old guy had been half blind and not noticed cavities, or was it conceivable that the new dentist regarded my mouth as thirty-two potential gold mines? Thanks to the National Health Service, I (or rather my parents) would not have to pay for the treatment because I was in full-time education. Therefore the more work the dentist did, the more income she would receive from the NHS.

Shortly after this rather lucrative trip to the dentist I got toothache for the first time in my life. Lower right seven had developed an abscess, and it hurt like hell. Several trips to the dentist followed, involving root canal work, temporary fillings and a catering pack of pain killers. I can safely report that root canal work is nowhere near as much fun as a good solid kick in the head.

So now I had two metal legs in one of my teeth supporting a lump of amalgam alloy. Over the next few years, various bits of tooth fell off the sides, ultimately leaving a metal lump protruding out of my gum. Then one summer holiday the filling fell off, leaving a pair of metal posts poking up into my mouth.

Off to the dentist again. By this time I was at university, so I engaged the services of a new practicioner. "Full time education? Free treatment then."

Suddenly, on hearing this new piece of good news this new dentist decided that, far from just dealing with my collapsing Lower Right Seven by inserting a third metal rod (ah, more root canal work. Oh joy), all of my fillings were now loose and leaking and would have to be replaced. Does the term 'k-ching!' spring to mind? I bet it did then too. I should also add that at this point the dentist decreed that my mouth was too small for my wisdom teeth. The top two would have to come out "immediately, and the lower two probably within the next six months."

"Why can't I have Lower Right Seven out? Because it's such a nice little earner, perhaps?"

Maybe I was less than safe actually pointing out to the man with the drills and sharp implements that I had seen through his nefarious scheme. More agony over several rather brutal sessions ensued. I am advised that I shouldn't really have been spitting bits of bone from the empty sockets for the next few weeks.

Six months later and I'd moved job, town and residence again. My latest dentist took one look in my mouth:

Tooth Pirate:"I see you've had two wisdom teeth out."

Grumpy Goat:"Indeed I have. There's no fooling you, is there? According to my previous dentist the lower two will have to be extracted really soon."

Tooth Pirate:"I don't see why. There's plenty of room for them."

Grumpy Goat:"Hmmm. Would you care to put that in writing?"

Needless to say, the Pirate Code decreed that all tooth-pirates should close ranks. I was unable to get a professional statement to the effect that a dentist had done unnecessary work. As Lower Right Seven was giving trouble again, I asked that it be extracted, thereby allowing the wisdom tooth to grow up and forwards into the gap. "Don't be silly. We don't pull teeth any more."

And this now seems to be the prevailing attitude. Instead of one dentist pulling a troublesome tooth for a single fee, the tooth is repeatedly repaired, collecting a fee each time. For anyone who's counting, good old Lower Right Seven has been tampered with at least four times, and I'm not finished yet.

The same tooth was fiddled with twice more while I lived in Doha. By then I was being told that an amalgam filling was temporary and I'd ultimately need a gold crown. Clearly the dentistry industry is getting more ambitious in its quest for money. According a different kind of pirate, 'obsessed with treasure' is a symptom of being of the buccaneer persuasion. I asked about an extraction, and was told that "if it had been done twenty years ago than the wisdom tooth would have grown forward and into the gap. Now the wisdom tooth is fully erupted it can't ever fill the gap. So no extraction. Except of money from your wallet, of course."

I am relieved to report that this evening's trip to yet another tooth pirate has so far not proved as lucrative as I feared. My old fiend [sic] Lower Right Seven is giving me hell yet again (for about the seventh time), but I'm advised that on this occasion it's a minor gum infection that can be treated with pills and potions. Let's hope the painkillers kick in so I actually get some sleep tonight.