l went to an NHS dentist for two fillings (my first fillings ever) and i'm a little worried about a few things. Hopefully there may be some dentists or dentists assistants that can shed light on some of these issues. l already went for a second opinion at a private dentist, and he confirmed that l needed the fillings, but his prices were too high for me to afford so l stuck with the NHS dentist for the actual work.

So, the dentist did the fillings, and they were deeper than he was expecting. He is told me that he is put some 'medication' inside one of the fillings (he said something like 'kashim') to prevent it getting worse, but he says there is a 5% chance it will continue to get worse and start to hurt in a year or so, at which point i will have to come back and get the filling redone. Is this normal practice? Why can not he clean it out to the extent that it definitely wo not get any worse?? It feels horrible to know there is still something wrong in my tooth that might just continue to get worse.

The other thing is that when l went for my checkup with the private dentist he saw some decay at the sides of those teeth as well, inbetween the teeth at the gum. He may have said that is where the decay started (can not remember). But my NHS dentist never mentioned this and certainly did not do anything about it.

I've decided to go with the private dentist from now on, as he was more friendly and explained things much better, and could show me my teeth on a screen. But do you think l should go to him now, and get him to check the work of the NHS dentist, and see if he feels the need to do something with the decay at the side of the teeth too?
l hate the idea that i've not fully concluded the work, and nothing is solved, if you see what l mean.

Sorry, long question! Hopefully someone with a bit of dental experience can offer me some thoughts. l would just go to the private guy to put my mind at ease, but l feel a bit foolish going back to him having gone elsewhere for the work, and it is also pretty expensive so l do not wanna go if l do not need to. :)
Sorry, let me explain timeline:

~ NHS checkup. Sees need for two fillings.
~ Private checkup. Confirms need for two fillings. Also sees decay at side of those teeth.
~ NHS fillings. Does not say anything about decay at side, nor does any work there.

Dentists and doctors try their best .the maintenence is left to you?do you brush n floss your teeth correctly?

Its hard to say what happened, but l can say in dentistry there r situations where when a dentist opens up a cavity it ends up being a lot deeper than the xray shows. There is a saying in dental schools that says the x-rays only reaveal half of whats going on, the reason is that there may be eneough sound tooth structure surrounding the damaged area that it is masked.

Also, when a filling is done a common complaint is a tooth that was not sensitive all of a sudden becomes sensitive. In the US most places will state this in their consent forms. This usually occurs when the decay is larger than the x ray leads us to believe. It becomes a catch 22 for the dentist. The dentist needs to remove it since its decay, & teh patient will more likely become upset because all of a suddent their tooth hurts.

If left untreated the tooth will most likely become symptomatic since the decay is near the nerve. So this is the reason why the dentist has to remove all of the decay. If there is pain with it that may be bad for the patient at least at that moment but for the doctor it tell us that the damage was already extensive & a root canal is probably indicated.
The reason l say this is because if the doctor where to leave the decay behind & just put a filling on it, u may not notice any thing right away but once enough of the toxin gets to the nerve the tooth will start to die & u may possibly get an abscess, & then u will go back to the dentist & say well u just filled a couple of months ago.

So the agani there is a catch 22 here for the dentist. As for putting a medication inside of the tooth, that is a common thing too. Its dentistry its called a base & it is placed when u r getting close to the nerve. In some cases if the nerve has not been damaged it will help the tooth build reparative dentin around the nerve.

As for the other part, if he missed decay on a different part of the same tooth then that would be the dentist fault.

If u r more comfortable with ur private dentist then continue the treatment there. Express ur concerns about the fillings & have the dentist evaluate them. Have the private dentist look at the fillings & come up with a comprehensive treatment plan for you. Even though it will be a little bit expensive for the private dentist to do this u will be avoiding even more expensive treatment later by doing this. Ask ur dentist to educate u on how u can avoid future fillings as they r expensive.