The dangers of DIY dental treatment

As is particularly highlighted in the North-East, where there are fewer dentists per patient, many cannot register with an NHS dentist due to practices having exhausted their quota of patients. Most of these patients seek dental treatment on the NHS because paying for private dental care would mean sacrificing food.

It appears that, as a result, there has been a rise in patients carrying out DIY treatment at home [1].

DIY treatment

Surprisingly, there are members of the public using temporary emergency dental kits which are available over-the-counter to provide treatment to their family members and their own teeth, as a permanent fix.

In addition to this, I have read reports that DIY patients have been using materials which are not approved to be used as filling or adhesive materials in their teeth.

There is no way of telling how many people are using home kits for their dental treatment because such monitoring would be carried out at a dentist or GP surgery which the DIY patients are unlikely to visit.

The home kits are designed to assist with loose fillings or caps until an appointment with a dental professional can be obtained. Whilst they may be viable temporary solutions, there have been calls for members of the public to be careful in performing dental treatment when they do not have the necessary qualifications, expertise or experience to accurately identify the dental problem, or to decide the most appropriate treatment option to preserve their teeth and gums.

Dental negligence

Although I have not come across cases of this nature, I am concerned how these patients would be affected when pursuing a dental negligence claim. For example, if we assume that patient ‘A’ has received negligent treatment in the form of a bridge across their front upper teeth. After 4 years, Patient ‘A’ has re-fixed their own bridge on three or four occasions because it continually came loose. The patient then attends a new dental practitioner and is told the loss of the bridge is inevitable due to the bridge being poorly fitted or poorly placed.

Patient ‘A’ is told due to negligent treatment, the bridge was doomed to fail from the start. Patient ‘A’ then seeks legal opinion. Unfortunately, the quandary faced by the legal advisor is whether the DIY patient has caused any or some of the damage by repeatedly replacing the bridge with their own methods of treatment, which may have affected the occlusal relationship of their teeth each time it was replaced. Of course, if the treatment was ‘doomed to fail’ then the DIY treatment may not have made any difference but this would need to be established with expert opinion.

Fortunately, as was reported recently, I have not come across any patients who have filled their teeth with a product designed to repair automobile engines. However, I see every day the results that neglect and poor treatment have on a person’s dentition and I would always advocate seeking dental treatment earlier to avoid the prospect of even higher treatment costs to correct problems in future.

Meanwhile, I will keep my fingers crossed that this media coverage will lead to fundamental changes in the accessibility and affordability of dental treatment.