Many people in the UK are is difficult to access adequate dental care to keep teeth healthy. NHS Dentistry is in decline and poor dental hygiene on the rise
Budget cuts contribute to “dental desserts“Across the country where there is minimal or no NHS dental healthcare provision and private care is unaffordable for many.
Lock during pandemic also prevented many from accessing medical care, including NHS dentistry. It is not surprising, then, that the in recent years have led to reports of people fleeing desperate measures to treat dental problems.
In March 2023 YouGov poll found that one in ten Britons had ‘done dentistry on themselves’, including ‘using cement and superglue to fix crowns and dentures, killing an infection with urine, using ‘heated beads’ to replace a missing tooth and applying chemical metal (an adhesive commonly used for home or exterior repairs) as filler.”
2022 Academics at University of Plymouth Peninsula School of Dentistry stated that One patient had “used an arrow to remove gross calculus” while another attempted to extract 13 teeth using vodka and pliers.
Most of the tools you see at the dentist are scaled-down or refined versions of what you might have in your home toolbox.
These pieces of dental material are designed to make it harder for germs to inhabit their surfaces and sterilized after each use – the pliers used to repair the fitting behind the toilet last month are unlikely to be so hygienic.
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Self-extractions can create an oro-anal fistula, an abnormal tunnel between the mouth and maxillary sinus (the hollow space in the bones around the nose). If it’s less than two millimeters, it will usually heal on its own. However, larger fistulas pose a significant risk of infection.
Oral microbes, fluids and food The contents can be pushed through the open hole into the warm, moist space of the superior sinus where infection can develop and progress – and require invasive surgery.
Also, extracting a tooth may not help if the infection is at the interface between the tooth and the bone. So someone struggling with the pliers can end up in no better situation at best and possibly, at worst, in excruciating pain and with an open wound at risk of secondary infection.
DIY dentists also run the risk of leaving part of the tooth in the gum. Root remnants often remain because the roots reach a thin point, which often breaks during extraction.
This is another risk of infection as teeth have limited or no blood vessels running through them Immune cells cannot fight bacteria.
The average person extracting their own tooth will not be able to determine if part of the root remained and, if it caused problems later, may oral surgery is required to remove it – which can be costly and incredibly painful.
There is also the risk that self-exporters will change theirs bite mechanics permanentlyit makes eating painful and disrupts or destroys other healthy teeth in the jaw soft tissues oral.
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They are not all white
While most people seem to turn to self-dentistry for pain relief, there are social media users who will go to alarming lengths just to make a movie star smile.
There have been cases of people using nail files to smooth out the natural ridges and variations of their teeth. This is extremely dangerous.
It removes the hard protective layer of enamel from the teeth and causes microcracks to open up in the underlying layers which increases the risk of infection, tooth decay and possible death of teeth – all of which will cause future pain and suffering.
Then there’s at-home teeth whitening hydrogen peroxide. Some people have applied hydrogen peroxide solution directly to the teeth, risking long-term damage for (potential) short-term gain.
Legal whitening kits are regulated to contain maximum 0.1% hydrogen peroxidebut users expose their teeth to many times higher than this.
Hydrogen peroxide is a bleaching agent that destroys the tissues it comes in contact with. This means it could cause serious injury to the gums or gums digestive systemin case of ingestion.
All these risks show why seeing a dentist should be a priority if you have an oral emergency or are determined to have cosmetic surgery (and why increasing affordable dental benefits should be a priority for the government).
Quick fixes and hacks usually end up costing more in the long run.
Adam TaylorProfessor and Director of the Clinical Anatomy Learning Center, Lancaster University
This article is republished from The Conversation with a Creative Commons license. Read it original article.
