'Britain's Worst Teeth' on TV (BBC3)

[glitter_wench]

Miles and Issy,

Please dont let that crap ass programme put you off dentistry. It was totally sensationalised (is that even a word??!!) to get people to sit down and watch TV. IMO, the dentists the hypnotherapist were all given a brief to follow by the BBC. I got 3 teeth pulled last Thursday under sedation. Leading up to he appointment i kept thinking of the guy who needed all (or nearly all i'm not sure) of his teeth out,and how even with the sedation he was moaning and moving his head but really and truly and i cant emphasise this enough it was totally painless and discomfort free. The poor dentist had to tell me to stop talking so he could get the teeth out and i refused to believe him when he told me that he had two of them out because i was like there is no way that it could have been that easy. You know what though it was. Thinking back to the programme, i find it odd that a sepearate anestheist (sp?) was bought in to administer the IV and then during the treatment was no where to be seen. It looks like he just bunged in what he thought nescessary and then wandered off. Which is nuts because the guy could obviously looked like he needed more and could have gotten it but the other bloke had gone home. It looks like the bbc looked around for dentists who would do the work either for free or at a reduced rate in exchange for a bit of publicity and this guy didn't offer sedation so they probably had to look around in hospitals for an anesthesiest. The one they found could probably only stay for and hour or something. What a crock of the brown stuff.
As for the jags at the front, i had 2 front teeth filled about 11 years ago and even then, waaay back then, with a dentist who was a prat and about as gentle as a rock, i remember that front jags were always easier and less sore than back ones.

 

[glitter_wench]

The makeover programmes in contrast show very little of actual dental treatment....but use lots of unnecessarily scary preparatory scenesetting comments....thereby promulgating the myth (honestly...it is a myth) that absolutely everyone would rather be anywhere else at all...rather than go to see a dentist for a routine check up.

Yeah like that William Dorfman tit on extreme makeover the American one. Favourite comments that he has come out with:
*Cackles* "Wow dude you're a MESS"
*Stares at the patient in the fashion of a stalker* "There is nothing in the power of modern denistry to save your teeth" (READ: "it would probably need around 3 visits but i don't have that time because of the plastic surgery he/she is getting done so it easy option time"

*patient is crying in the chair* : "Whats wrong?" "I'm terrified" "Oh hey i'll just put a needle in your arm and knock you riiight out". er what happened to working with the patient to ensure her long term health bill you money hungry....grrrrr........

 

[brit]

Well, I watched the programme and was not at all impressed with the specialist phobic dentist that treated the brother and sister. He knew how bad they were, so why not offer an oral sedative before the appointment? (Or advise them to ask their GP for it.) I didnt get the impression that these two had "control issues"? ( maybe I missed that bit?) So why not make it easier for them to get through their first appt for treatment?
I too, had to hide my eyes and put fingers in my ears while the brother had his treatment. I was soooooo annoyed when the dentist told him......."you will feel a bit of tugging and pulling, but if it gets too much...put your hand up and we'll stop" How on earth can he stop midway through extracting a tooth??? Why wasnt the poor guy given a deeper level of sedation??
I cringed when the girl had some of the tartar scraped off her bottom front teeth.... again, why not do this under sedation?
For those of you who are contemplating the Iv sedation route................ please dont let this put you off. IT DOESNT HAVE TO BE LIKE THAT (pars or Gordon will agree with that I'm sure, and I look forward to their input on this)
I have had 3 Iv sedation appointments so far which included extractions, fillings, scaling, immediates fitted. I dont remember ANYTHING about my treatment.........not the local injections at the top front, no tugging/pulling, no drilling. NOTHING..........ZILCH. I asked my dentist for a deep level of sedation, and I got it. So please dont let that so called specialist ( my opinion only) put you off.
Hdf (happy)

I have now watched the programme and it was interesting television but alas not apparently made with the intention of helping phobics overcome their fears....a bit too sensational.

The first two dentists were a credit to their profession but already well-known tv dentists - the two female patients they treated who had very bad teeth did not appear to be at all nervous and no mention was made of either of them receiving sedation.....the clinical environments in these two cases were more of the 'distractionary type' rather than 'modern clinical type'. Both patients seemed to receive totally painless treatment, yet the voiceover couldn't resist the usual comments....'judgement day'....trepidation in voice 'this is known as a root canal treatment' , 'survived x hours in the chair'.

The first dentist was Andrea Uhbi (York) - she successfully treated Sarah a self-confessed 20 sth sugar addict (£15,000 of treatment).....she talked about eating one whole bag of sugar a week on her cereal/cups of tea etc One earlier poster commented that it was unfair for her to try to impose dietary restrictions before agreeing to treat the patient but I think this was just a responsible health message - no one should be consuming that much sugar...it's a wonder she doesn't have diabetes as a result. Dr Uhbi accepted her saying she'd halved her intake for one week as acceptable progress so hardly an earthshattering demand.

Dr Uhbi as ever came across as nice but in a coolish (not the warmest person) sort of way but she may be inhibited by the camera a bit. Her theme (the only bit of humour she demonstrated) was 'sugar is bad' to camera not when the patient was there...she didn't seem to make the patient feel bad about her diet at all.

The second one Rahul Doshi of The Perfect Smile (Hertford & Hornchurch) seemed warmer whilst still maintaining professional distance. His patient Gemma had suffered from eating disorders and the constant vomiting had ravaged her teeth such that she had lost 80% tooth material...the result he achieved (£20,000 treatment) seemed really excellent. His theme to camera was 'shame and embarrassment' and said he was probably 'unshockable'.

Then we come to the third dentist...who seemed like a nice enough well-intentioned bloke: Neil Taylor of Roger Moore Dental Practice, Gloucester (tel 01452-521440). Alas his brother and sister phobic patients had to travel 50 miles to get there (doesn't facilitate lots of short visits). His theme was that dentists are invading your personal space and 'giving the patient back control' was the answer.

The girl's (Jenna's) issue was indeed a control one since as a 5 year old her mother had been told to leave the room and a dentist had then used 'hand over mouth' (a discredited technique in pediatric dentistry where you get a child to calm down by making it difficult for them to breathe) and seemingly forced her to undergo the treatment.....she was undoubtedly justified in attributing her phobia to that experience.

The brother's phobia was less clearly explained but he mentioned panic attacks at the thought of dental treatment and a bad multiple extraction experience at age 6 or 16 (not sure) with lots of blood in the mouth afterwards (been there done that!)

This dentist was very nice to her, and apparently spent an hour on the first visit of which only approx 5 minutes was shown on air...he was able to determine that her smile was savable from just a quick look outside the chair with a mirror.

The points made by Glitterwench and hdf2 are very salient. It did all seem very strange...he was quite defeatist from the outset....she probably needs GA..you can't get that these days.

On the second visit he seemed to catch her with the probe accidentally and she said 'ow' when he was removing a tartar ledge from behind her bottom front teeth.

However I was truly flabbergasted on the third visit when he suddenly said 'let's just have a chat' ....she sat on chair and was shedding a few tears (nothing outrageous at all really)....I don't know if they edited it or cut it badly, but the next phrase seemed to be 'I'd love to help you but I can't. I don't have the skills/expertise' or something similar.

I can't for the life of me see why she was a hopeless case....seconds before she'd walked into the surgery to see the result of her brother's treatment and had seemed very relaxed and happy for him. It was almost as if this was the 'programme script' one succeeds and one fails...this was such a negative message because her teeth were savable whereas her brother's weren't - he lost 9 and needed a partial denture (£2000).

The brother's treatment under i/v sedation did seem to involve very light sedation indeed ....he grimaced a couple of times but I can't be sure that he suffered any pain and he certainly didn't complain on camera at all...he was very pleased to get his 'social life' back. A decent programme would have asked him on camera what the sedation experience had felt like....because to all the viewers it looked like he was in a bit of pain on a couple of occasions, he may not have been though.

Very mixed feelings but it was indeed interesting to watch.

 

[vicki]

The points made by Glitterwench and hdf2 are very salient. It did all seem very strange...he was quite defeatist from the outset....she probably needs GA..you can't get that these days.

---

However I was truly flabbergasted on the third visit when he suddenly said 'let's just have a chat' ....she sat on chair and was shedding a few tears (nothing outrageous at all really)....I don't know if they edited it or cut it badly, but the next phrase seemed to be 'I'd love to help you but I can't. I don't have the skills/expertise' or something similar.

I think it was this part of the programme that bothered me the most. What a load of nonsense.... none of it made sense at all really. It seems that there are about three possibilities...

1) This was a very "scripted" piece of filming where the participants were intended to have set outcomes (which were not necessarily realistic - but the BBC didn't care as long as it made good viewing).

2) As Brit says, it could have been the result of poor editing and maybe there was more to it than what was shown on TV.

3) The dentist featured perhaps didn't have the right personality or experience to deal with the girl despite what the programme said... Her brother was quite readily offered sedation and yet she wasn't . Not only that, but no other options (such as oral sedation, referral to a psychologist and/or other dentist, desensitisation etc) were explored either. He also seemed quick to decide that she needed a GA or sedation - which was a bit odd if his belief was that patients feel better if they have control .

The only thing I can say is that if he felt he couldn't treat her because of her level of fear, then god help him if he ever comes across a patient like myself ! So far at every appointment with my current dentist, I have been in floods of tears, shaking and at the last appointment I even fainted . Throughout all of which, my dentist is completely calm, unflappable, has a sense of humour, doesn't make me feel bad about it and in a nutshell is an absolute star - and most importantly, I am making progress. Having been on the receiving end of 'hand over mouth' plus a few other definitely non-approved techniques myself years ago as a child, I can totally understand her level of fear and total lack of trust .

The other thing that bothered me was the hypnotherapist they were sent to see. Allthough she was pleasant enough, why she saw them both together is completely beyond me... They were both scared of going to the dentist, but I'm willing to bet that they both had very different fears and so therefore, a different approach would probably have been required in each case anyway. The coping technique that she taught them was either EFT or TFT (both are essentially the same - but didn't see enough to decide which one it was) and either technique can be useful for helping people to deal with anxiety reactions, but usually in conjunction with other things such as desensitisation, direct suggestion, NLP and sometimes regression to look at the original cause of the fear.

All in all, a very strange programme indeed. Not necessarily a good example of how people with dental fear/phobia can be helped though, so for anyone reading this who saw it, please don't let it put you off .

 

[brit]

The dentist featured perhaps didn't have the right personality or experience to deal with the girl despite what the programme said... Her brother was quite readily offered sedation and yet she wasn't . Not only that, but no other options (such as oral sedation, referral to a psychologist and/or other dentist, desensitisation etc) were explored either. He also seemed quick to decide that she needed a GA or sedation - which was a bit odd if his belief was that patients feel better if they have control .

I think the appt was supposed to be for her to have i/v sedation (but no evidence of sedationist being present) and the voiceover said sth like '...but Neil will not proceed with i/v sedation unless she is completely relaxed as it could make her worse' ......my concern is that she did not look that upset to me and if she were completely relaxed she wouldn't need the sedation. And given that she had a lot of tartar build up....there was no need for her to undergo that unsedated either as someone else said.

The only thing I can say is that if he felt he couldn't treat her because of her level of fear, then god help him if he ever comes across a patient like myself ! So far at every appointment with my current dentist, I have been in floods of tears, shaking and at the last appointment I even fainted . Throughout all of which, my dentist is completely calm, unflappable, has a sense of humour, doesn't make me feel bad about it and in a nutshell is an absolute star - and most importantly, I am making progress. Having been on the receiving end of 'hand over mouth' plus a few other definitely non-approved techniques myself years ago as a child, I can totally understand her level of fear and total lack of trust .

Vicki...it was you I thought about as I was watching it....if he's a phobia specialist what behaviour does he expect? You wouldn't want any phobics watching to think a dentist would refuse to treat them as he effectively did, based on the behaviour she showed on screen - which I really don't think was at all extreme...a few silent tears that's all it was. He let her down badly as she was beginning to bond and to trust him..only to be dashed like that.

The other thing that bothered me was the hypnotherapist they were sent to see. Allthough she was pleasant enough, why she saw them both together is completely beyond me...

Yes, also odd...she also didn't go into the surgery with them the first time and was not there at all subsequently....she just got them through the door......I'm not sure the hypnotherapy helped either party at all...I think the brother just felt he could trust the dentist once he'd met him and after his first sedation experience he was much happier with the whole thing....suporting his sister through her brief cleaning for instance by holding her hand...[/quote]

All in all, a very strange programme indeed. Not necessarily a good example of how people with dental fear/phobia can be helped though, so for anyone reading this who saw it, please don't let it put you off .

Agreed...someone should raise these points with the programme makers???? They'll probably respond that we should wait for Episode 2 where she finally succeeds !

 

[harper]

looking forward to seing this now(thanks brit)
vicki i wouldnt have wanted that dentist to see me either i dont know how c stayed in the same room as me in the begining i was terrible

 

[letsconnect]

It always annoys me when someone calls themselves a "dental phobia specialist" - there's no such specialty (although some dental schools offer post-grad courses for treating anxious people).

 

[brit]

It always annoys me when someone calls themselves a "dental phobia specialist" - there's no such specialty (although some dental schools offer post-grad courses for treating anxious people).

That may not have been the exact description they used but they were referred to as three of Britain's top dentists. Presumably showing the Community Dental Service treating them would have been a better option but probably they don't want to build demand for their services .

 

[glitter_wench]

Hmmmm....

I was looking over older topics in the two cents worth section and i came across this one from last year:

[removed out-of-date link]

I wonder if that was from the producers of the programme. I think that it must be as i can't recall any other TV programmes on dentistry in the last year. I also think that the language she uses in the post is quite telling. Her use of "rotten" and "in a state" really does not convey any sympathy or real desire to actually help someone.

Hmm...

 

[Issy]

Hmmmm....

I was looking over older topics in the two cents worth section and i came across this one from last year:

[removed out-of-date link]

I wonder if that was from the producers of the programme. I think that it must be as i can't recall any other TV programmes on dentistry in the last year. I also think that the language she uses in the post is quite telling. Her use of "rotten" and "in a state" really does not convey any sympathy or real desire to actually help someone.

Hmm...

I completely agree. Using words like that, is gonna scare anyone from seeing her.
Most people are already ashamed about their teeth and no Dentist should call them, Rotten or bad etc.

Well that's what i think anyway

 

[letsconnect]

Having watched "Panic Room", I've decided never to let any TV ads/solicitations on the forum ever again

 

[glitter_wench]

You know what i was thinking? I was thinking of mailing that email address she had included just to see if it was her and if it was i was going to post a link to this thread just to make them aware of the impact it had and basically how much they have terrified people. Would that be ok with you lets?

 

[glitter_wench]

I completely agree. Using words like that, is gonna scare anyone from seeing her.
Most people are already ashamed about their teeth and no Dentist should call them, Rotten or bad etc.

Well that's what i think anyway

Nah see i dont think she's actually a dentist herself. I think she's a researcher for the production company that maybe possibly made the programme. The thing is though she came on to a phobics forum using totally insensitive language which i think showed from the outset that they were just looking for guinea pigs really and didnt care about peoples feelings.

 

[Issy]

Nah see i dont think she's actually a dentist herself. I think she's a researcher for the production company that maybe possibly made the programme. The thing is though she came on to a phobics forum using totally insensitive language which i think showed from the outset that they were just looking for guinea pigs really and didnt care about peoples feelings.

Oh ok i misunderstood. I thought she was the actual dentist.
Even so u don't use that language with phobics.

 

[letsconnect]

I was thinking of mailing that email address she had included just to see if it was her and if it was i was going to post a link to this thread just to make them aware of the impact it had and basically how much they have terrified people. Would that be ok with you lets?

Of course - great idea, go ahead (no need to ask for "permission" BTW )