EXTRACTION WAS THE ONLY OPTION GIVEN

HOUSEWIFE Angela Wood, 49, lives in Sheffield with her husband, John, 48, a software engineer. The couple have two children aged 16 and 19. She says:

IT’S bad enough that I’ve had a healthy tooth taken out. What’s worse is that I’m still in terrible pain.

Just after lockdown began, I developed a throbbing in the bottom left side of my mouth. I phoned my dentist. They couldn’t see me and told me to take painkillers.

But over the following three weeks, the pain got so bad I couldn’t concentrate on even the simplest of tasks. Hearing my distress, my dentist referred me to an emergency treatment centre.

There, I was told that, although I could have an X-ray, the only procedure being offered was extraction. (Dentists can’t use their drills because the aerosol spray it produces may spread the virus.)

I was told the X-ray suggested I may have an infection near a crown and was given a five-day course of antibiotics. But the drugs didn’t help. Two days later, I called the centre in despair. The dentist said he couldn’t say with any certainty what the problem was. Most likely it was an infection that, under normal circumstances, would need root canal treatment. But the only treatment he could offer was extraction.

Within days of having the tooth out, I had developed sensitivity in my upper-left teeth. Now, two weeks later, if I have anything hot or cold it’s excruciatingly painful.

The emergency dentist suggested taking out the tooth next to the one he had removed, as it could also have an infection. I was horrified.

I’m in a miserable no man’s land. I can’t believe dentistry has been reduced to this.