self delete.

[Snoutport]

[PassingFair]

1. British healthcare story, dental version: Partially erupted wisdom tooth edition.

Partial eruption

Sometimes the wisdom tooth fails to erupt completely through the gum bed and the gum at the back of the wisdom tooth extends over the biting surface, forming a soft tissue flap or lid around the tooth called an operculum. Teeth covered by an operculum can be difficult to clean with a toothbrush. Additional cleaning techniques can include using a needle-less plastic syringe to vigorously wash the tooth with moderately pressured water or to softly wash it with hydrogen peroxide.

However, debris and bacteria can easily accumulate under an operculum, which may cause pericoronitis, a common infection problem in young adults with partial impactions that is often exacerbated by occlusion with opposing third or second molars. Common symptoms include a swelling and redness of the gum around the eruption site, difficulty in opening the mouth, a bad odor or taste in the mouth, and pain in the general area which may also run down the entire lower jaw or possibly the neck. Untreated pericoronitis can progress to a much more severe infection.

If the operculum does not disappear, recommended treatment is extraction of the wisdom tooth. An alternative treatment involving removal of the operculum, called operculectomy, has been advocated. There is a high risk of permanent or temporary numbness of the tongue due to damage of the nerve with this treatment and it is no longer recommended as a standard treatment in oral surgery.


OK, so I'd had a problem with this BEFORE I left for my vacation, (I was 21 years old), and I had had to have the offending gum area irrigated and been put on antibiotics. It was VERY painful and my neck looked like I had a goiter.

Fast forward three weeks...I'm walking down one of the famous crescent streets of Bath, England, when it flares up again, on the OTHER SIDE.

The concierge at my hotel points me to the local Doctor's office and I trot off, in a world of pain, supposing that I am about to spend HOURS in a nightmare version of a british emergency room. When I get there, the nurse takes one look at me and takes me straight into the doctors office, even
though there were lots of people waiting for their appointments. She said that pain level took precedence, and that I looked like I was in a lot of pain. Tooth was irrigated, flap was snipped, I was given a numbing powder, and sent to the pharmacy around the corner for free antibiotics.

Cost: 4 pounds

Another time, my daughter's asthma nebulizer blew up, even with an adapter, and we had to go to a doctor's office in London to get a replacement, also, she had a nasty case of viral pink-eye that she had picked up on the plane. The doctor told me that he wished British mothers were as well informed as American mothers (in front of my cousin's wife!). Debbie later told me that when a doctor told her to take something, she swallowed it without asking any questions! In my case, I refused antibiotics for the pink-eye, because I was pretty sure it was not bacterial and indeed, it did clear up spontaneously the next day... again, cost.. ZERO

I am a big advocate for a NATIONAL HEALTH SYSTEM, which is how I refer to "Universal Health Care" or "Single Payer Care".

I have a funny story about free health care in France, and trying to explain that my daughter had both a middle-ear AND an outer ear infection...
along with cartoons drawn by my husband and a swimming pantomime by my daughter...

I seriously have friends in Canada that WON'T visit the US because they are afraid of becoming ill here and going bankrupt.