What was dental care like in your childhood ?

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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!

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 am so sorry if this has brought back bad memories !

As I have gone on about several times on here, I had a horrendous experience at the dentist as a child.
Through parental neglect, my front teeth rotted. My mother took me to the dentist who told her that all my teeth in would have to come out. I was 11. He took them all out, there and then. I can still smell the the rubber of the gas mask over my face, the smell of the gas and the blood in my mouth. I feel that I was an experiment to that mad dentist. What was my mother thinking?

Dentist in the 50s here, I must have been lucky he was a charming man. I do remember having 'gas' for extractions and being sick afterwards. Still have one or two metal fillings but mostly a mouthful of crowns now.
Gibbs toothpaste in a round tin then my mother changed to Eucryl tooth powder which I hated.

A tooth dragged out ripped my gum and the bleeding wouldnt stop,2 trips through the streets in a motorbike and side car late in the evening and again in the early hours causing the clots to break off and swallow the blood, finally doctor put 3 stitches in after dad got quite forceful, I fainted next day getting out of bed due to the heavy blood loss

The pink stuff in a tin was called Gibbs Dentifrice.

I was taken to the dentist every six months as a child in the 1940s and 1950s, and had fillings I doubt were necessary, never any sort of anaesthetic. A friend of mine famously bit the dentist!

No school dentists, though we had school medicals.

I got into the habit of going to the dentist every six months, and this last year has been the longest time I have ever had in my life without having my teeth looked at. I miss it!

In the 1960s I think dentists were paid to drill and fill teeth. Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong.

No, you're right I think.
They were keen to persuade people to have their fillings re-done before the age of 21 when you have to start paying. Consequently small fillings were removed, teeth were excavated and huge amalgam fillings put in.

I kept asking for a brace, but he always refused.

A visit to the school dentist was something to be dreaded, too.

My dentist now is lovely. She has replaced some of those old amalgam fillings with white ones and tries to save teeth rather than yank them out.

Actually it wasn't just in childhood I suffered in a dentist chair. When I was 19 I had 2 wisdom teeth removed under local anaesthetic and the dentist looked at me afterwards and said
" Are you ok ? You look like a dead frog ! "
Charming ! Stupidly I went on a night shift as a student nurse at the hospital and a confused old lady hit me in the jaw causing the stitches to come out. Got told off by the night sister and sent to the nurses home.
Happy tooth memories !

The dentist we used in 60s when I was a child was an alcoholic and hated women. His father was also a dentist and apparently a good one,hence why my parents used that practice. Therefore I had many fillings done with no pain relief at all. It wasn't great.

I hated the dentist so much. He had a drill that would vibrate throughout your body. He also slapped.me for pushing his hand away while drilling painfully. No wondering I was a dentist public until these modern times with the butterfly touches some dentist have.

I can also remember the dream I had while having gas for an extraction at the age of six. It was little ducks around the top of the ceiling like a type of frieze. I was also sick on the way home. What was in that gas?

I used to be a dental nurse, and "gas day" was my favourite part of the job.
Very gruesome.

I too have vivid memories of the black gas mask and the unnecessary extractions. On a lighter note,the waiting room had a wonderful fish tank. I thought this was quite common,put there to distract patients while they waited. Was it common? DH had no idea when I was talking about it.

Like Kalu & sodapop, I had a lovely dentist who praised me and my mum for looking after my teeth. He was a refugee from Nazi-occupied Austria, and he arrived in our area when my mum was a teenager. Word spread on how kind and gentle he was, and she went to him, then took us.
I feel so lucky, I had a positive early experience of both dentist and refugees. Although ironically the other refugee family we knew well were cake-makers!

I remember the pain of the drill and loads of fillings in the 50's and 60's. We were taken every six months, but my fear of the dentist carried into adult life until I found a sympathetic dentist in my 40's.
I've just received a reminder to make an appointment, after about 15 months, when I believe only emergencies were being seen.

I spent a lot of time in the early 1950s at the dentist. It was a bus ride and long walk to get there. Lots of mercury fillings and use of gas.
More recently my dentist suspected something and sent me to the hospital . The Verdict was a complicated root canal to be done using a dental dam. I was sent to a specialist who unfortunately let his trainee scrape out the root by hand. I thought I would choke with the dam thing.
The next time I went back to my own dentist who was a highly strung little man. He found another awkward problem and when I asked him what needed done he completely cracked up , threw down his tools and told me I needed to leave and ask someone else to fix it. I was very upset and didn't know what to do .I think he was having problems with his wife who was the nurse.

Horror stories of the dentist from me too. Started with a local chap who had one side of his glasses patched - he only had one eye! At Grammar School I was referred to the local dental hospital - just a bloody guinea pig for them! I had teeth out, braces to move teeth to fill the gaps, then braces to open them again when the teeth got too close. My poor Mum had all her teeth out in her mid 20’s because it was seen as a part cure for RA and she didn’t want me to have false teeth as early in life as she was forced to.
My teeth were never good but 25 years ago I found a chap who uses sedation and had all my top teeth crowned and considering having the bottom ones done too.

My mother was evangelical about dental appointments. I always seemed to be having fillings, a whole lot of drilling was always going on. Our dentist was called Dr Keiller, but I called him Dr Killer☹️

Never knew about hygienists till I was in my 20s. I imagine dentists themselves did all that.