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Seven years to visit the dentist was simply too long to wait for Linda Colla, who was forced to pull out her own teeth due to the pain.
Colla, 75, began experiencing problems with gum disease and her teeth in her thirties – which she puts down to “too much coffee, too much wine and smoking”.
As she entered her late thirties, Colla started having her real teeth replaced with dentures by an NHS dentist where she lived near Nottingham.
When she moved to east Devon in 2018, however, Colla was unable to join any dental surgeries – being told that they either weren’t taking NHS patients or they didn’t have capacity to take on new ones.
Colla has recounted her hellish dental story in detail during an interview with The Guardian.
“One receptionist said they’d love to take more NHS patients, but with the budget given by the government they can only take a certain amount,” she said.
Colla was put on a waiting list. That was seven years ago and she hasn’t heard anything since.
Her real teeth, of which there remained three, became too painful to live with – and Colla could not afford the £150 fee to have a tooth removed privately. She previously worked as a charity area manager and a dog warden. She is now receiving pension credit.
The only solution Colla could see was to do the dentist work herself, and so she extracted her three remaining teeth herself, starting with her front incisor and then a canine and a big molar.
“It took me a couple of weeks to get each one out, because they just loosened and loosened and loosened,” she told the publication. “I used a tissue to get a better grip.”
“It sounds very dramatic, pulling them out. But actually they were already loose,” said Colla, who experienced some pain yanking them out.
Colla is far from the only person to take dentistry matters into her own hands. In March 2023, YouGov found that 10 per cent of Britons did their own dental work, with 34 per cent of those having pulled out – or tried to pull out – their own teeth.
As reported by The Guardian, an analysis in July 2024 by the British Dental Association (BDA) found that 13 million people (28 per cent of the adult population) have an unmet need for dentistry.
This figure includes 5.6 million people who have tried and failed to get an appointment in the last two years, and 5.4 million who did not even attempt to secure an appointment because they thought they would not get one.
It also accounts for 1.25 million who were put off getting dental work because of the steep cost.
An estimated 780,000 people are on waiting lists for an NHS dentist.
In December, ONS data showed that 94.1 per cent of people in England who didn’t have a dentist and tried to access NHS dental care in the previous 28 days were unsuccessful.
Several of the practices that were listed on the NHS website as “accepting new patients when availability allows” were, in fact, not accepting new patients, with 86 of the 100 practices called by the BDA and the Daily Mirror turning away applicants.
Last year, BDA warned people against scammers who “prey” on people desperate to secure an NHS dentist appointment.
The organisation said scammers have targeted people in Essex, Devon, Merseyside, Norfolk and Suffolk, taking up to £319.10 for care.
After pulling out her teeth, Colla has been left with visible gaps, which the NHS will not fill for her.
Colla managed to save together money to go private in order for the procedure.
“[The dentist] didn’t charge me for the initial consultation, which was good of him. Then it was nearly £300 to put three on the plate,” she said.
