Dhrun

Thank you NewBiz. Made my application 1st April. The website said it had been received but it didnt give a reference number or send an auto email. NewBiz just let me know it has been processed and was paid on 14th. That's a huge relief since after nearly 4 weeks the bank has still not come back with any offer of a loan.

Ingress is a free Beta game made and run by Google. You need a reasonably decent Android phone and mobile data to play it. Its been on the go for about 10 months now. Originally you had to apply to Google for an activation code and wait a month for it to turn up. But a lot of the players now have codes to give away. Sheffield used to be run by the Enlightened ( the green team ) but over the last few weeks the Resistance ( the blue team ) have been getting uppity and fighting back and the city is now in a state of total war. New blood is needed. But be warned. You dont play this game by sitting in front of a monitor. You have to get out there and walk or bike or drive to where the Portals are in the city. More details about the game are here http://www.ingress.com/ I and some of my comrades in the Enlightened have activation codes available if your interested and would like to join us. But we want players who are going to give it a proper go. Please dont ask for a code unless you are serious about using it.

Fluoride can protect teeth in two ways. The strongest effect is topical and affects the outside of the enamel. Fluoride in water and in toothpaste gives this effect at any age. Fluoride incorperated into growing enamel makes it stronger but this is a lesser effect. You dont want too high a level or it can cause fluorosis and stain and disfigure the enamel. Inevitably children swallow a fair bit of their toothpaste and get a dose of fluoride from it. Its very hard to measure exactly how much of a dose they are ingesting and in my opinion taking drops as well as using a fluoride toothpaste has a too high risk of getting the amounts slightly wrong and ending up with stained enamel, even in an area like SHeffield where there is very low fluoride in the water. The dose of any substance you take is related to your weight so a small child or baby will tend to be getting a relatively higher level of fluoride by swallowing their toothpaste, so I dont think its unreasonable to use a childs toothpaste with a lower concentration of fluoride.

The cost of private treatment is very variable from dentist to dentist, the cost of a bridge would also be influenced by what materials were being used, how many teeth were missing, if any of the supporting teeth needed a post. For a simple 3 unit bridge ( 1 missing tooth, no posts required ) I think it works out to £280 in my practice, however I wouldnt undertake something advanced like that without a full examination and an xray which would bring it up to ummm £315 I think. If any of the more visible front teeth are involved I would tend to use a higher proportion of gold in the underlying alloy which adds on another £30 aproximately.

Tooth decay is related to the frequency that you drink anything sugary rather than the amount or the concentration. If you must drink it at least have a big drink and quench your thirst, dont keep sipping it and making it last, each sip is as damaging to your teeth as chugging the whole can in one go. Making your ribena dilute doesnt really help teeth wise either. 3 dilute Ribenas still worse than 2 concentrated ones. Best time to drink coke or Ribena is with a meal, there will be sugar in the meal anyway so extra in the drink wont really make a difference. Finally after a drink of coke, dont rush off and brush your teeth immediately, your acid weakened enamel is temporarily more vulnerable to toothbrush abrasion.

Try this one an addon to google maps. Its really for walking but fine for cycling too. Just keep double clicking along your route, it puts in little mile markers for you and will tell you total distance and can show you elevations as well. http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/

Shame I cant draw a little picture. The outer bit of tooth is very hard, resistant Enamel, below it is much softer dentine. Decay can punch through in one hidden spot, then much like rust spreading through your car it goes underground and can do a lot of concealed damage. With fluoride around a lot these days Enamel tends to be stronger, this is good since you get less decay to start with, however it can also mean the Enamel is less likely to cave in when the underlying dentine has decayed so the hole can stay concealed longer. Lots of soft drinks can explain the problem if you have a lot of cavities, but a single cavity can just be one of those things even if you dont normally get through a lot of sugar.

A dentist can not always tell if its appropriate to fill or to root fill untill hes actually removed the old filling and had a look underneath it. Root fillings may be needed for a few different reasons. 1. The tooth is dying, but its not dead yet. Often very painful and sensitive to hot and cold, but - not swollen, not infected, Antibiotics no help at all. Nothing to be seen on an X ray 2. Tooth already dead. Infection, swelling. May see a dark space on an X ray. Antibiotics may help temporarily. 3. Tooth snapped off at gum level. May want to root fill it so you can then put in a post and crown it If when you saw your own dentist the tooth was just starting to hurt a bit it would be quite normal for him to book you in to check and replace the normal filling. We dont automatically X-ray any tooth thats giving a bit of pain. However if the tooth then goes downhill and starts really hurting constantly, then yes it may well need a root filling, so the second dentist was also correct, after all your symptoms had changed for the worse between your visits. Of course what really, really, makes us popular is when we give you a normal (but perhaps quite deep filling), and the tooth then goes on to start dying off as a result of its close shave and then requires a root filling.

Umm Students do take X-Rays at the Charles Clifford or at least they certainly did when I was there nearly 20 years back, although under supervision of the Radiographers. It would be a bit lame releasing new dentists into the wild who had never taken any real X-rays of real people and then expect them to suddenly start taking them when they are on their own

Deepcarowl Try sending off an HC1 form ( which you can pick up from PO, Pharmacist, Optician or Dentist) You may then receive a certificate giving you full or partial exemption from dental/optical/prescription costs even though you no longer qualify automatically for exemption.

Well you did pay 80% percent of the price up till the end of last week. If you are a paying NHS patient now the percentage you pay is going to be very variable depending on what you need doing. People with well maintained mouths will probably pay a lot more than 80%. People with a lot of work needed will pay a much lower percentage. In other words its a bit like prescriptions where many people pay a lot more for an NHS prescription than a private one for the same medication would have cost.

Errm Venners, Had to look it up, 145 for first, 75 for each subsequent one done in same arch. Even more variation in price for laboratory items than for normal fillings.

Rough guide to my current prices at end of post, however Im aware they are at the low end. Quite a few practices have web sites with price guides on. Most practices should give you their fee guide if you ask them. Its worth shopping around since as Twiglet says they vary a lot. New Patient Checkup 31 Routine Adult Checkup 23 Child U10 8 Child Over 10 16 Filling 15 - 49 Scaling 14 - 60 Extraction 39 - 90 Crown 160 1st one aprox 90 for each extra one in same arch.

The recent NHS changes are far from small. They are the largest changes since the NHS began. NHS Patient charges have jumped considerably since the start of this month for the majority of people. This extra charge however wont go to the dentist, its another stealth tax. Figures from the Inland Revenue show that most dentists who go private only make an extra 1%, this is not about income. The big difference is that we have a lot more time to spend with our patients and do things properly. Rather than going crosseyed with one eye on your mouth and one eye on the clock to see how far behind we are running.

Out of Hours emergency treatment was taken over by local PCTs on the first of this month. Ring NHS direct to be directed to the local service. However it looks like the PCT services are going to be a lot stricter about what an emergency is than the out of hours services we dentists were running. You may well find they dont class toothache as an emergency. Your local PCT is also now responsible for allocating you an NHS dentist so ring them and ask. As for registering, Dental registration stopped on April 1st. It no longer exists. Robin