What was dental care like in your childhood ?

I am so sorry if this has brought back bad memories !

Spot on jaffacake2,the school dentist loved pulling /filling teeth regardless how good they were.
I wouldn`t go to school when i knew they were going in.

I had two teeth extracted for orthodontic work without a working anaesthetic aged 11. The dentist put the needle in but didn't wait for it to take effect. I went into shock and collapsed, hyperventilated to the point that my arms and legs became paralysed. I was carried out of the surgery to the waiting room and my doctor was called, but by the time he arrived I was able to breathe a bit more normally.

When it came to have impressions done, the orthodontist used an adult plate and piled it high with thick pink gunge which made me gag furiously as it went down my throat and choked me. He held my head in a vice like grip for 5 minutes while it set. That would be repeated at regular intervals during the treatment. When the braces were put on, fortunately not cemented, I could not eat at all with them, and sat there with tears rolling down my face trying to eat the soft food my mother was providing. Eventually she lost patience, and told me to 'take the damn things out!' I never wore them for meals again.

When I went into hospital to have my wisdom teeth out, something went wrong during the procedure, my tongue fell back and they had to yank it forward with tongue forceps which cut a hole in it and it instantly started to swell. The surgeon deemed it too risky to continue, and I only had two teeth out instead of the four. My face came up like a football, and I could not eat for a week afterwards. The yanking open of my mouth damaged my TMJ joints, which have caused problems ever since.

Unsurprisingly I am terrified of the dentist. I panic at having things in my mouth, and can just about manage a checkup if I count down from 300 and tell myself to slow my breathing! X-rays are still a problem, the plate holders won't fit into my small mouth, and cut into my gums. I think if I needed anything more than a tiny filling, they would have to put me out!

Sorry for the long post, but you did ask!

I remember Gibbs toothpaste in a small round tin. You wet your toothbrush and made rings until you had enough on your brush. It was pink.

As for dentists the school dentist was a man called Catchpole. I can remember him yelling at me “open your mouth child” as I couldn’t open my mouth wide enough. We went to his surgery for treatment. In those days having a tooth out was with gas -horrible, horrible. I lived in such fear I suffered toothache night after night and ended up with a painful abscess.

In the 60’s I it was fill,fill, fill, as others have said. I used to lie awake all night every time I had a dental appointment. Finally when I got older I found a very good dentist with gentle hands and manner and I stopped being so afraid.

Horrendous---gas. Thankfully I don't remember being called to go very often.

They very thought makes me shudder! We had toothbrushes, though cleaning with that pink powder stuff wasn’t enforced regularly, so I had lots of fillings. Since being an adult and with dentistry having improved, I’ve scarcely had another filling since.

I had four molars out by gas as a child of about ten. I remember being sick on the street outside afterwards then having to walk home. The holes got infected and I was ill in bed for a week, unable to eat anything solid.

Same story here of 1960’s dental work - all adult molars filled, gaps now where teeth taken out before primitive brace was fitted, awful black gas mask etc. I was fortunate though that my mum always took me to the dentist and came in the room with me but it still left me with a fear of going to the dentist.

Mum is 89 years old and still has all her own teeth, cleaning our teeth was a very important part of our lives.

Similar experiences here. We were sent alone to the dentist, my sister and I, and had to take the form home to be signed by mum. What was she thinking sending an eight year old to the dentist with an eleven year old? Every time we went he did a filling on each of us resulting in a mouth full of amalgam by age eleven. He ruined my teeth! I absolutely hate what was done to us. No pain relief either, but pain relief given to my cousin because her mother went with her.

I hated going to the dentist, it was a bus ride, then a long walk away, and he never used any type of pain relief. Even just a check up was an ordeal because he clamped children’s’ mouths open, and afterwards you felt like the sides of your lips were splitting. We cleaned our teeth twice daily, but still had loads of fillings, so there was definitely some opportunistic money making going on I would say. On the other hand, I’ve still got all my teeth, albeit a couple with root canal fillings - and my dentist now is excellent.

I went to the dentist (NHS patient) yesterday. £23.80 for a thorough check up and as I’d not been for a year owing to the virus, 2 x-rays taken to check thoroughly for any hidden dental decay. Excellent service.

And this was on their website I noticed:

“NERVOUS PATIENTS”

“Everyone hates a trip to the dentist, generally, it is not enjoyable. The dentist pokes around your mouth with sharp objects, tells you off for smoking, eating sweets and chocolates.

Historically the dentist has caused you some pain. The dentist with the knee on the chest, the painful experiences and the demon school dentist have certainly put a lot of people off the dentist for life! Some of the worst experiences we have as a child are at the dentist.”

Seems the message has gotten through nowadays!

We certainly had toothbrushes, and pink tooth powder in a tin (we used salt when it ran out). I remember one trip to the dentist, when I had a tooth out. It was traumatic. The smell of that awful mask and the gas, and I woke with a mouth full of blood to find I’d been strapped down (I’d fought the anaesthetic, apparently). I felt completely out of it, was crying and sobbing, and they sat me on the wall outside to wait for my mother, who was shopping up the road.

But a much worse experience was in Germany, when DH and I went for a check up with a dentist who “cleaned” our teeth by scraping the surfaces and in between our teeth violently and painfully with a knife. Again, mouths full of blood. That man damaged the surface of my front teeth so badly I’d to have laminates fitted when I got home.

We both had flashbacks a few years later when Marathon Man was released at the cinema!

We had a lovely old gentleman as our dentist. I remember the gas mask being put over my mouth, for an extraction and dreaming of horses and feeling like a rag doll once the treatment was over. Took the rest of the day for the effects to wear off. 1960, I was ten. As I had a protruding eye tooth, our dentist feared my tripping and the tooth going through my lip so I had a brace made. I felt like a freak as it wasn’t a common sight then.
DH had a very different experience, still wary of dentists due to the ‘butcher’ he had to suffer in childhood.

The trauma of having teeth extracted when I was 8 years old remains with me to this day - as Dave the Dentist will testify. I can remember that big black gas mask being put over my face and waking up to find blood and teeth fragments all over my school jumper. He then pushed cotton wool swabs, wrapped in gauze into my mouth and told me to chew on them to stop the bleeding. I can remember staggering down the corridor, bouncing off the walls, to go straight back into class. M

I remember our school dentist with fear which has never really left me. She was rough and impatient and had filled all my teeth bar one by the time I was 11.
I still go regularly but always feel nervous whereas my children and grandchildren never had a problem which I am glad about.
I used to think of the school dentist as a witch. Scary!

Scared stiff. Still am but I go. I was before fillings. First sign of trouble and 'out with it'. Horrible. Advantage was I took great care of my teeeth to avoid visits. Unhappy memories indeed.

X posts Mollygo . It was toothpaste as you remember it too.

I remember horrid gritty toothpaste in a round tin (at least I had toothpaste. Well, I think it was toothpaste ?)

Yes I had lots of fillings, and baby teeth out, don’t know how necessary it was. Other children I knew went to the local authority clinic dentist, don’t know if that was any better!I also went on my own from about the age of 10, and had to take a form home for my Mum to sign and post back to them!

Another drill and fill experience here, with the added nightmare of his appalling breath.
Hearing the surname Kinsey whisks me straight back into the nightmare.
We brushed our teeth regularly with toothpaste in a tin! Brushing was even more enthusiastic after the first visit to the dentist.

It was OK, we were sent to the dentist at more or less regular intervals.

One thing that does stand out for me, was having 2 x upper canine teeth appear over the baby teeth - a bit like Dracula fangs! So 2 upper molars were taken out for overcrowding, and I was given a horrible plate to wear, to straighten my teeth.
I hated it so much, I only wore it for about 2 days and my teeth straightened themselves perfectly well anyway.

In later life it turned out that my lower teeth were also overcrowded, so I had to have two impacted wisdom teeth extracted in my mid 20s. Earlier extraction of a couple of lower teeth would have avoided that - I had to have a week off work each time, since I was in a public facing role and my face was black and blue.
I dare say that a few decades later, that would have been picked up and acted on much sooner.

We rarely had toothbrushs not always had toothpaste either but we did go to the dentist. The worse part about it we went on our own our dad worked mum had partime jobs. We went to the local dentist and was always gassed to have extractions or metal fillings. It's disgusting sending a child to the dentist anything could have happened while we were knocked out. I just do not know what my mum was thinking about.

We went regularly to the dentist, but my teeth are still in a horrible state.
I think I take after my dad's side of the family in that respect.

Was it a thing to go on our own too at a fairly early age? I remember being 11y and going, taking my NINE YEAR OLD SISTER along with me! Wouldn’t be allowed nowadays I’m sure.

On the walk there I used to try and reassure my little sister. A few years ago we were talking about this subject. She said ‘I can remember you said relax and just look out of the window at the tree branches and see if a bird comes to sit on one. It really helped me.’

God, shows how traumatic it must have been, in that we still recall the fear even now.

We had annual visits from the school dentist at school, but after having to have 3 teeth taken out before I started school, we always were taken to the dentist every 6 months by mum.
Our dentist actually lived, until recently, in my village and I was in fact friendly with his daughters.
His practice was in the nearest town and can still remember the way the needle for the anaesthetic seemed to go right up the side of my nose if I needed fillings in any of my top teeth!

This could end up being the scariest GN thread ever! ??