A dad was forced to pull out a loose tooth with pliers after failing to get an NHS dentist appointment.
Chris Langston, from Oswestry in Shropshire, was left in agony after his back molar became loose, causing pain when eating, drinking and speaking.
But the 50-year-old couldn’t get an appointment on the NHS for six months.
He had the choice of paying £90 to have his tooth removed privately, 30 miles away at the nearest emergency dentist, or taking matters into his own hands.
Out of “necessity,” Mr. Langston, a metal detectorist, grabbed his pliers and ripped out the tooth in the bathroom of his home.
Chris Langston, 50, who organizes metal detecting holidays, removed his back molar with pliers after it became loose
Mr Langston admitted he felt ‘weak at the knees’ when he came out of the bathroom after pulling out his tooth and almost fainted, but says the pain relief was worth it. An appointment with a private dentist would have cost Mr Langston £40 for a check-up and up to £50 for removal, which he could not afford
Mr Langston said his loose tooth caused him the “worst pain” of his life and forced him to eat only soup and sandwiches.
Mr Langston said: ‘I’ve never had much of a toothache. As it loosened up, it really hurt every time I spoke. I could hear it grunting.
“Every time I spoke, swallowed, drank or ate, it was a pain.”
But an appointment with a private dentist would have cost him £40 for a check-up and up to £50 for the removal, which he could not afford.
On top of the costs, a private visit would entail a 60-mile round trip.
Mr Langston said: ‘I couldn’t get there with the kids. So I grabbed the pliers.
“I heard the awards and thought I had to suck this up.”
Describing the process, he said: ‘As soon as I touched it, it hurt.
‘When I picked it up, it was like: should I do it or not? It was a shock. Quite a job, but it came out fairly clean.’
Mr Langston said: ‘A little tug and pull on the pliers and it was done. I wouldn’t recommend it. For nobody. It was horrible.’
‘There were two carrots in there and half a carrot out. It took quite a bit of strength. It makes me cringe. The metal on the teeth is not a nice feeling.’
Although he claims the tooth came out “nice and easy,” he does admit that there was “a little bit of blood.”
But pulling out the tooth brought “relief,” even though it left a “void” in his mouth, Langston said.
Mr Langston admitted he felt ‘weak at the knees’ when he came out of his bathroom and almost fainted, but says the pain relief was worth it.
He said: ‘The children were shocked. I did it in the bathroom, I almost fainted, I was weak in the knees. It takes a lot of adrenaline to cheer yourself up.”
His sister was shocked when Mr Langston admitted he had pulled out his own tooth, but he did not show his mother the extracted tooth because she thought it was ‘disgusting’.
While caring for his children, he said he drank a “strong cup of tea” after having his tooth extracted instead of brandy.
‘It was just out of necessity at the time, it was the circumstances. I can imagine a dentist rolling his eyes when he reads this,” Mr. Langston added.
Since pulling out the tooth last week, Mr. Langston said his pain has subsided to a dull ache and he can eat again.
‘The week before I could only eat soup and a sandwich. Now I can eat steak. The pain is not nearly as bad as it used to be. It just hurts,” he said.
This graph shows the number of dentists who carried out NHS activities each year. This figure fell sharply during the Covid pandemic but has recovered slightly to just over 24,000 according to the latest data
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He fears he could find himself in a similar situation again if the government does not get a handle on the dental crisis.
‘It should never have gotten to the point where I had to pull my own teeth. The government needs to do something urgently,” Langston said.
‘It’s impossible to get an NHS appointment in Oswestry. In the future I am still without a dentist, I cannot afford to pay privately.
“Fingers crossed that everything stays in place so I don’t have to take these out again.”
He said he was able to get an NHS dental appointment the same day, and he had a an emergency dentist by going private falls outside his ‘realm of affordability’.
Mr Langston is one of many adults who cannot access NHS dentistry.
The latest figures from June last year show that around 26 million adults (about 60 percent of the population) have not had a check-up in the past two years.
This is one of the lowest rates since modern records began in 2006.
The crisis has led to more and more desperate Brits turning to do-it-yourself dentistry to relieve their pain.
A lack of NHS appointments has also been blamed for more and more cases of oral cancer being missed, which is usually caught at its earliest and most treatable stages during routine dental checks.
It comes after No10 this week unveiled its long-awaited NHS dental recovery plan, described as ‘putting NHS dentistry on a sustainable footing’.
Under Rishi Sunak’s bold blueprint to solve the appointment crisis affecting millions, dentists will be offered up to £50 to see patients who have not had a check-up in the past two years.
Around 240 dentists – roughly one per cent of the current workforce – will receive a one-off ‘golden hello’ bonus of up to £20,000 if they work in deprived areas for three years.
‘Dental vans’ will also be deployed in rural and coastal areas so that people in the most isolated communities can still access help.
The government is also planning to controversially add fluoride to the drinking water of millions more Britons in a bid to passively protect their oral health.
Officials hope the measures could generate up to 2.5 million additional NHS appointments for patients over the next 12 months.
But the plan – unveiled ten months after it was promised – was rejected by dental bosses and politicians as not going far enough. One of them said it amounted to ‘rearranging the loungers’.
The police were even forced to turn away some patients. Pictured, patients outside St Pauls dental surgery on Wednesday
The new Labor advert, headlined ‘Dentistry doesn’t work’, depicts snaking queues of potential patients waiting to register at the newly opened NHS dental practice in Bristol
Healthcare leaders instead called for “radical reform” of the dental contract, accusing Mr Sunak of reneging on his promise to fix the crippled industry.
Labor has also accused the government of taking much of the blueprint from its own plans.
NHS dentistry has been in crisis for years, with leaders claiming the sector is chronically underfunded, making it financially unviable to provide treatments.
The problem is made worse by the fact that as more dentists leave the NHS, those that remain are swamped by more and more patients.
Some Britons have been forced to travel abroad – including to war-torn Ukraine – to visit a dentist due to a dire lack of access to the NHS.
Others have no choice but to queue outside newly opened NHS practices from 4am in the hope of securing a check. Scenes outside an operating theater in Bristol this week were described as ‘reminiscent of Soviet-era Eastern Europe’.