Dentist reveals how much toothpaste you should use
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Dr Bernard Lester has shared the most shocking and hilarious tales from his decades of experience as a dentist in a new book. The 74-year-old professional, who retired last year, dealt with multiple generations of families at his practices across Manchester.
And he was particularly aghast when a new patient with eroded gums and sensitive teeth visited his surgery.
Dr Lester said: “I commenced my examination but could not believe what I saw. The teeth were brilliant white in colour, but the gums were eroded and completely worn away, exposing the roots of the teeth. No wonder they were sensitive. I thought.”
The man told Dr Lester had been using Vim, a brand of scouring powder, as toothpaste but this contains concentrated bleach.
The dentist recalled asking: “May I suggest you stop using it, because it has corroded your gums as well as bleaching the teeth beyond belief.”
“No way,” the patient replied.
Dr Lester said this happened in the days before camera phones but wished it was a recent occurrence so he could document the damage.
Scouring powder cleans hard surfaces like stove tops, counters, porcelain and is dangerous to put on or in your body.
But Dr Lester concedes he has experienced many bizarre dental cases during his long career.
In his memoirs “Open Wide! Fifty Glorious Years as a Dentist”, the pensioner also says he has encountered people demanding full dentures when they’re teeth have been perfectly healthy.
One mother of a bride begged her daughter get them just for the benefit of the wedding photographs. Dr Lester refused.
But Dr Lester, who lives with 74-year-old wife Sue in Prestwich, Greater Manchester, feels denistry can make huge differences to people’s lives.
“I feel flattered and honoured that I’ve been able to touch so many people’s lives,” he told Manchester Evening News.
“That I have had more triumphs than disasters is so important to me as I look at the thank you cards and letters of appreciation from grateful patients.
“There’s a constant palpable tension that emanates from almost every patient who enters the surgery, I can completely empathise with that.
“I know that with every injection for the patient there is a worry. Will it hurt? Will it numb the pain of the treatment? This anxious feeling is transmitted to the dentist, but from a different angle.
“I have always taken a more holistic approach to assessing a patient’s needs, psychologically as well as orally. Remember the mouth is an extremely sensitive area and there is an almost intimate relationship between dentist and patient.
“And that’s why a lot of them remained patients and friends for many years.”
Dr Lester’s career started in 1970 when, after qualifying at Manchester Dental School, he took up a position at Hobson, Bennett and White in Crumpsall, Manchester, a surgery he had attended himself through childhood.
After just nine months of practice the owner, Barry Hobson, revealed he was selling up, and offered the 23-year-old Bernard the chance of owning his own surgery.
Even though he’d barely left university, Bernard took the plunge, borrowing half the money from the bank, while owner Barry let him pay the rest off over the years. Those early days would set the tone for a career defined by Bernard’s ability to build a rapport with nervous patients.
Since then, he’s had patients so happy they kissed him, marriage proposals, and restored the confidence of people across a grateful city.
His light-hearted book, published by Pegasus, also shares the adorable story of a little boy whose tooth needed to be pulled out – only for it to slip out of the dentist’s finger into the inner workings of the chair. He dismantled it all just to get the tooth back for the distraught boy who wanted to leave it for the tooth fairy to get his £1.
A week later, Dr Lester received a card from the boy with a 50p attached – he wanted to share the money the tooth fairy had left him with his dentist.
Open Wide has been put forward for the Costa Book Awards and is available from Waterstones, Book Depository and all major bookshops, as well as Amazon, where a Kindle version is also available.
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