Mike’s Story
With an NHS dentist “impossible” to find, Mike missed out on years of dental treatment – and is now facing expensive bills to get his teeth sorted.
“I’ve got quite a few teeth that have crumbled with bad decay in them, and they’re getting painful. I’ve got an extraction coming up, and hundreds of pounds worth of work to get it done privately.
“It’s impossible to get an NHS dentist.”
“It’s impossible to get an NHS dentist. You can only get emergency care from an NHS dentist and they’ll see you, do a quick job and then send you away again.”
Mike was born with a cleft lip and palate, and wears a denture plate.
“I don’t have any front teeth, because my cleft repair didn’t work. As an adult, the decay has been really bad – especially where my orthodontics have been, and between the teeth where the wires were attached. When I was younger, dental floss and dental brushes for cleaning between the teeth and all that weren’t around.”
When Mike’s NHS dentist switched to private practise, and he couldn’t find another NHS practitioner, Mike started avoiding dental care due to the cost and a “lack of understanding” from dentists.
“I don’t mind going, but if you’ve got cleft stuff going on in your mouth you need to find a good dentist and that’s very difficult.
“I hate that drowning sensation when you have a filling, as I can’t breathe through my nose because of my cleft.”
“I hate that drowning sensation when you have a filling, as I can’t breathe through my nose because of my cleft. They can’t understand why I’m struggling, but there’s fluid going down the back of my throat and I can’t actually breathe.
“They don’t understand about my dental plate too, that causes problems. The biggest problem I ever had was when I had a denture made up by a high street private dentist when mine broke. It was absolutely diabolical, and cost me a lot of money.
“At the time, I didn’t realise I could go back into NHS cleft care, but that awful denture prompted me to find out and get back.”
Like many involved in CLAPA’s Dental Campaign, Mike believes people born with cleft should get access to free dental care, “in the same way that if anybody had an issue elsewhere, they’d get that care for free, wouldn’t they?
“Having cleft is like having a pre-existing health condition, which should result in free dental care, although there’s not enough NHS dentists to do the care.”
“Having cleft is like having a pre-existing health condition, which should result in free dental care, although there’s not enough NHS dentists to do the care.
“I hear it from the dentists’ point of view too. They’re not able to take on NHS work because they’re not getting the money from the NHS for the work. So dentistry has become incredibly expensive for everyone, but especially if you’ve got tooth problems caused by having a cleft.
“And there’s no specialist dentists either, because they don’t see enough cleft patients. We’re not that common so how do they get the experience of working with cleft patients if they’re not seeing us?”
Mike has to have a 3D scan of one of his decayed teeth, because it’s so close to his cleft denture plate.
He explained: “They need it to put everything back exactly as it is. But of course, that makes it more expensive than a regular filling because of my cleft. It’s probably the right thing to do, but it’s going to be a lot more money.
“And you think you’re throwing away money, but you’ve got no choice, because you haven’t got anywhere else to go.”
“And you think you’re throwing away money, but you’ve got no choice, because you haven’t got anywhere else to go.
“Maybe having some form of dental team attached to the cleft teams would make more sense. It’d be challenging distance wise for people, but I would travel a long way to go to a specialist NHS cleft dentist.
“I completely support this cleft dental campaign, and think it’s just a case of shouting and making noise, to say, ‘come on, you’ve got to treat us better’.”