"Hellish Experience"

I attended the Dundee dental hospital recently for an emergency appointment a couple of days after having root canal treatment. I had been in agonising pain and nothing I did would help, then my face started to swell and I realised I had an infection.

The final year student who treated me was lovely and comforting but nevertheless I had a hellish experience. It took them 5 attempts to numb my mouth, which is fine, because it was a necessity but half way through the procedure the anaesthetic had worn off - the dental student was hesitant to continue but her adviser, the qualified dentist, had told her to continue without numbing me further - I don't have words for how painful it was and I was crying in pain the during the remainder of the treatment.

The root canal had only been half completed by my own dentist and had a temporary filling - at the dental hospital they removed the temporary filling, cleaned and irrigated the tooth and closed it up again with another temporary filling but they didn't do anything to help the infection. They didn't drain the abscess or give me anti biotics, they didn't give me anything for the pain and advised that I just take paracetamol and ibuprofen, which I told them didn't even make any difference to the pain I was experiencing.

Since leaving the dental hospital the pain had increased even more severely (which I didn't thin was possible), the swelling rapidly grew and I looked like I had a golf ball in my mouth, I became feverish, had chills and spent the next day writhing in pain.

I don't believe I was treated correctly and it was on the advise of the fully qualified dentist! This had been the single worst dental experience I'd ever had and in the case of emergency I will never attend the dental hospital in Dundee again.