Serious dental problems: All I want for Christmas is a new set of teeth

Thank you! If I hadn't been called Bard of Ely I would just use my real name Steve Andrews!

First of all thank you for your complimentary comments! I can't tell my mother anything because she died many years ago but my father is still alive and 92. I didn't come up with the name Bard of Ely. Big Issue magazine called me it when I was living in an estate called Ely and writing for the mag back in 1998. I hope your tooth comes out soon!

Thank you for the compliments and good luck with your tooth problem!

I take it you don't want to go to the dentist, and I can't say I blame you? It will fall out eventually if it is very loose I would think. Or you may be able to save it. I have had teeth that were loose tighten up in the gums. I have some loose ones too but they function still so I leave them alone.

I am sorry to hear it, Scooby07! I hope you can find an answer to your problems.

Thanks for posting, Xonica! I am fine now although have some loose teeth. The loose ones don't get any worse and are OK to bite with. I had two at the back pulled and have no problems with infection or pain since then.

Thanks for posting, Bob!

As far as I can see there is plenty of fear-mongering online and elsewhere about the consequences of not having teeth and how the face can collapse, you will be unable to speak, eat etc, whilst if you leave decayed teeth in you can die! The dentist wants to take another 13 out. I have had a second molar removed and have a big gap there now. The others she wants to take out are loose or have cavities I am told are too deep for fillings. Two of the bad teeth are crowns and I am told they were not done properly. I am sure if I asked the dentist who did them he would say otherwise!

I cannot see me getting on well with dentures and at present I am battling on with my bad teeth and good ones.

Still looking for that elusive break I need to look good and won't with no teeth so I suppose dentures will be inevitable one day but I know I won't like them!

Thank you, Lou! It appears this is going to be an ongoing problem I am faced with and I may have to accept the hideous prescription of having most of them out and then having to learn to cope with dentures, which knowing my body will be a problem in itself. In the same way I hate glasses and have always hated glasses but cannot see without them. If I have them out then I wonder how I am to eat while the gums heal. The place where I had one removed in July is still sore. It has given me something else to wonder about - how do other people cope with all this common but horrible problem? And as I have asked in another hub on the subject:If there is no conspiracy why are dentists poisoning us? I don't want fluoride in virtually all dental products available and in the tap water. It weakens teeth not the reverse! I don't want poisonous antibiotics with awful side FX, I don't want ones with toxic aspartame in them, I don't want mercury-laden amalgam and finally, I don't want Perioaid mouthwash containing the toxins acesulfame, hydrogenated castor oil, saccharin and propylene glycol in it that the dentist wants me to use!

I will probably have to have a similar horrible experience to your father. It is all my back teeth that are in a bad way. I have had one out so far. If I have them all out I won't be able to chew properly and I really don't think I would get on well with dentures. So I am delaying having them as long as possible.

The dentist doesn't prescribe penicillin with which I am fine. She prescribes 'over-powered "penicillin alternatives"' and one of those had aspartame in it so I refused it. I am not at all surprised that you don't trust modern medicine - neither do I!

I told the dentist I wasn't agreeing to having the recommended extractions, dentures and additional antibiotics but I wanted my teeth scaled. She did this and made a very good job of it but I had to sign a waiver to say I refused recommended treatment.

I am battling onward with my loose teeth and so far it's going OK although I know there is a hole in one of the wisdom teeth and it is sensitive so I will have to go back to get that filled. My argument is if I am not in pain and can eat OK why have a lot of work done that will be painful after plus the possibility that I won't get on well with dentures and pay an awful lot of money for it?

Sorry to hear about your fiance!

Yes, the prices are insane and far out of the reach of countless people!

As for the dangers of other diseases I am not convinced this isn't just another way of scaring us to pay up! I don't trust the medical industry at all!

Thanks for the info about the pre-dental work antibiotics NOT being used everywhere - so why here? And why me? I don't go down with colds and flu etc so my health is good apart from my teeth.

Thanks for sharing that story, Pam!

Thank you, Pam and Lgali!

Pam, I already feel terrible thinking about it! I can't find any good solution to this and think it will take me a long while to getting used to being without 8 of my chewing teeth. I was talking to a friend at Myspace who tells me he had all his out and then had dentures which he couldn't eat with so he took them out when eating but found he is able to cope with most foods with just his gums. The dentures looked good though until he lost them having left them in his car that got impounded by police. And I thought I was having a bad time!

And somehow I have to get through several important things in January including giving a talk to a class of schoolchildren.

Right now I can eat normally and have no pain which makes it all seem even crazier!

Thank you, Dawn, for sharing this story and your advice! I have had problems with the medical people most of my life and I really object to how they treat you as being in the wrong if you don't just accept being told what to do or have something done to you. Whose bodies are they treating? Ours!

I had an argument with a nurse some years ago after I had gone for a blood test and she said "it says here that you are to have your tetanus booster." Well, I am not having it and was not told about this", I replied. "It is what I am supposed to do and what the doctor expects," the nurse said, and I had to say well, I refuse it! She looked annoyed that I had the nerve to act like this!

Like you I have stayed well clear of any of their toxic drugs and now as soon as I see a dentist the first things she wants me to do is take a substance that can cause bleeding in your stools, headache, tiredness, insomnia, depression, vivid dreams, jaundice and other horrible symptoms. This sort of treatment seems typical of the medical industry and in many cases ends up with the reality of we cured the disease but we lost the patient! Many people die because of drug treatments! It always feels like a battle between me and the medical practitioner and that is on top of the battle with whatever is wrong. As it stands at present the experience of going to a dentist has given me a big problem and source of worry before she even does anything and I am not in pain! The mental distress is far worse than the physical and I know the physical could be made bad by the drugs. My gut feeling is don't accept this. Having eight teeth out seems a lot too. Why can't she clean them properly before I go any further? When her assistant gave me the list explaining what they recommend at the top was extracting eight teeth. And before that take a week's course of that horrible antibiotic!

Thanks Cindy! I am pretty sure I did see on a website that doctors and dentists use antibiotics this way as a precaution against infections. I have also read in the press here that Spanish medics tend to over prescribe antibiotics, presumably like the way that farmers and gardeners here think nothing of the overusage of pesticides and herbicides which I am very aware of! It's a case of when in Spain do as the Spanish do and normally I would go along with that but not when it comes to my body.

As for my immune system it is obviously good because I have not gone down with any illnesses apart from flu once since I have been here. I am certain that Augmentine would weaken my immune system that will be attempting to deal with healing the damage caused by the surgery whilst not having the usual amount of food to help it because I will have problems eating until the gums heal. As you know I eat a lot and a diet of soft food and liquids after a week of a horrible drug plus the shock to my body of the extractions I really don't think is a good idea for me at all.

BTW I have just found out that the email address I used was wrong because there was a double letter needed in it and its just bounced back. This has given me the opportunity to mail again to the correct address and I have specified and requested a drug I will take - metranidazole/Flagyl. I have had it before and yes, it leaves a metallic taste and a dry mouth and yes, I can't drink alcohol with it but I can cope with all that.

Thank you, Princessa!

I can't see any easy answer to this and for me the mental pain of worrying is probably a whole lot worse than the physical. In a way I'd rather they just said this will be painful and then its over rather than saying I have to take some scary drugs for a week before then endure the actual surgery and post-extraction recovery! As it is I have some important stuff lined up in January including giving a talk at a school and two famous authors coming to the island to investigate the pyramids with me and give a lecture plus my usual work to keep going throughout so all in all it's a terrible time for this, not that I can think of a good one!

Cindy, thanks for the advice but to have that done is more money again I do not have. I am just going to have to accept that I am going to lose part of what I have had. I understand that the main teeth you need for speaking and singing clearly are the front ones and that's why I was checking out Shane MacGowan who manages to talk and sing with his upper front teeth missing as can be seen in the video. The good news as per the professional opinion by the dentist was that the front teeth were salvageable. Actually that does surprise me and makes me wonder about some of the others she wants to take out because the loosest tooth is in the front. So if that can be saved then why not others?

I am opposed to taking medical drugs and haven't taken any apart from a dental antibiotic in the UK in over 10 years. I don't need them and have found and proved I don't go down with illnesses that others get if I use alternative remedies. I did three years in college with no time off for sickness and there were no other students or lecturers that could say the same. The head of the media department noted that and started buying colloidal silver for himself.  Even now I have managed four years without any dental painful problem I couldn't sort out with colloidal silver, hydrogen peroxide and now using tea tree oil as pointed out in my hub, which was suggested by BrainFire and she is right, it is marvellous stuff that she says saved her own. All those three act as multi-germ-killing antibiotics. But, and this is where I fail, they do not remove tartar on the teeth and they do not fill cavities or repair broken teeth. I need physical work in my mouth that I cannot do. I personally don't see why I have to take any antibiotic other than those I use and it has thrown me that I am expected to take a medical antibiotic for a week before. From what I can gather this is doctors and dentists current trend presumably as Misha points out to cover themselves, and of course because its more money for the drug companies and is part of the system.

There are loads of reports of terrible experiences with Augmentine if you click on the link I left. There are few good reports so I don't think its a biased site. There are plenty more sites about it and the side effects are listed and can include jaundice and hepatitis. I am already prone to depression and anxiety as you know. I cannot afford to risk taking this stuff that could mess up my already messed up life even more. I need to work so cannot take any time off. I cannot afford to risk my mental and physical health for the sake of taking some new drug that I don't believe is necessary and has many reports against it. Plus you have to take another drug with it which also can cause problems. For the last several years I have taken no drugs so why should I now have to take two?

And as Misha points out if he could have five extractions with no weekly course of antibiotics before then why can't I? I suppose I should have asked what the drugs were when I was there - the dentist did say it is very strong.

Misha, thanks for your feedback!

Thanks for sharing, Trish!

Well, I have had my gums all cut so they could deep clean the roots years ago and it was horrible and I had stiches in them after two hour sessions in the dental hospital with several injections each time. That worked for a while but the problem came back and it's not for want of my spending time cleaning my teeth. The back ones are hard to reach properly anyway in my mouth and a dentist I had admitted that.

I am inclined to believe those reports of customer experiences with Augmentine. The majority are very bad and don't recommend it and I can't afford to risk it. Anxiety and depression are among side effects and I used to suffer badly from this years ago and have a tendency to these feelings anyway. I need to work most days too and would not be able to. As someone posted "only take this drug if you can stay in bed throughout the whole course," I cannot!

I have not been on any prescribed medicine from a doctor for over seven years although I have had Flagyl /Metronidazole antibiotics from my dentist in the UK but nothing like what they are wanting me to take here!

If she won't give me anything I can trust to take I will have to look elsewhere.