Poland: worst teeth in the world?

Spot on. It's the same over here, to a degree - walk around somewhere like Richmond or Chelsea and you won't see many people with bad teeth, then go to some chavvy former mill town and it's full of people with no/bad teeth. Less money, plain and simple. Even NHS dental work costs a fortune these days. I would prefer to have decent teeth than a crateful of beer and a pocketful of soapbar, but each to their own ;)

Though the point about Poland does ring true to some extent. It reminds me of something my (Polish) mum once said - "the reason Polish women never smile is because they're hiding their bad teeth" lol. Cruel, but to some extent, fair. However, my former Polish-born partner had perfect teeth, so it's definitely not everyone. :)

It has more to do with lack of material reinforcement.Anyway you never get to feel polish teeth hopefully.Very few tigers.

Teffle

Tell me what's the link between bad teeth and dentists? I see no correlation. When I was 12 none of my teeth were decayed but I was obviously lucky. In general kids don't wash their teeth after every meal, eat too much sweets and visit rarely dentist (probably only when tooth starts to ache or someone from the family is visiting a dentisist so takes kids just by the way).

Good preventive dentistry - if they go that is.


Well I was the same, most people I know too.

If there was a lot of illness or disease or whatever would you not question the healthcare system?

I'm not saying there is a direct correlation but it's not outlandish to suggest there is at least some link.

There is no health system. If you want to do your teeth you go private and have to pay for it. Of course there are public services provided in private clinics as well but gov refunds only worst treatment (amalgamat fillings only, unless treating the front teeth). Generally people don't remember about going to dentist regulary. Last time when I visited one was few years ago... That's the real reason.

I meant general health, hospitals, doctors etc

So basically, you think poles don't go to the dentist regularly?

As I said, neither do Irish people as far as I can see but they are much lower down the table.

I had four fillings while living in Poland and have had to have all four replaced since leaving. Yes, cheap. Good, not necessarily.

Yes, that's what I'm saying.
By the way does someone know if in Poland water is fluorized?

Ahhh - now there's a point maybe.

But see Patrick's post too ^ ^

I don't say that Polish dentists are good or bad. I just say that there is no logical correlation between bad teeth and bad dentists. Would you say that high amount of cancer is the fault of oncologists?

It's not necessarily better here. I've never had any problem finding a good doctor, but dentists??? OMG, thay are like gold dust, and paying privately doesn't even guarantee better treatment.

I used to have the same dentist (NHS) for 15 years, but then I moved, and my most recent dentist was doing more harm than good - constant excuses about why they can only put temporary fillings in, saying there's "nothing wrong" when I've been in pain for months, instead of doing the job right. I think the problem is that they have too few paying patients, as most of the people attending the practice seem to be on benefits, so it costs them too much to do the job right. I've found another practice (recommended by someone), but I suspect that it will cost me a lot to put the damage right. I'm considering legal action if my new dentist finds evidence of negligence. I've had my teeth damaged by a poor dentist in the past, and it took the good dentist mentioned above nearly 10 years to fix the problems - I'm not going through that again, this time I'm doing something about it if I'm advised to do so. Working NHS patients pay 80% of the actual cost, and many things have to be done privately, so I'm entitled to expect value for money, especially as most of the people who go there seem to get the same treatment for free.


Wrong. Bad dentists can do a lot of damage to otherwise reasonable healthy teeth and gums. See my post above. The initial problem (20 years ago) was caused by a dentist who refused to treat an infection - I had to go to hospital to get the infection treated, and suffered years of problems as a result.

Not necessarily, but if it's a particular chronic problem, documented and well known to the population and to medical professionals and given that early intervention dramatically improves prognosis and if immediate environmental factors can be ruled out, but the problem still persists, then it wouldn't be unreasonable to suggest there may be something remiss in the healthcare system - would it?

Sidliste_Chodov
It's a specific problem while general rule is that prophylaxis is a task of the patient. If a patient doesn't visit doctor regulary, refuse to follow recomendations of healthy lifestyle, he might get ill.

Everyone knows that to prevent breast cancer a woman needs to test her breasts. There was even an action of inviting women of certain age for free mammography. Guess what? Little women bothered to check their brests. Also what a doctor can do with people who smoke cigarettes? So as you see the role of a patient is also important.

Of course, all I'm saying is that it's not impossible that poor dentistry may also be to blame.

Also, as I've said, people/kids seem not to visit the dentist regularly here in Ireland either. Pretty sure kids eat more sweets here too, but according to the chart, much less problems.

Is in Ireland water fluorized?

Yes - as it is in Poland (just checked)

My source say it's not.

I only checked Wiki. Not really that easy to find other info - what was your source?

True, Poles' teeth are not great, and there's a good reason for that. Either you can go to a Health Service dentist, who may or may not give you an anaesthetic, or you can go private. As I said, I paid 1000PLN for treatment and was happy to pay it, but for many people here that would seem an astronomical sum of money to pay 'just for teeth'.

The skill of Polish dentists is on a par with anything I've seen (felt) in the UK and elsewhere, but the prices for private dentistry are much lower here.

As others have said, it's up to the patient to look after their teeth. The poor old dentist just does the crash repairs.

I'd say that the dentists here are much better than dentists in the UK or in the other countries I have lived in. And the prices for private work here are pretty much what you'd pay for NHS work in the UK.

An Internet service about children related to one of the biggest Polish newspaper, which I guess readers can ask a doctor for advice. The enquiry was about why children in Poland even as little as 3 have rotten teeth. A doctor in this article replied that almost nowhere in Poland water is fluorized. However it can be not very up to date now because it was written few years ago...

OK, thanks.

By the way, just on dental costs being prohibitive, relatively speaking, the cost of a simple extraction at €80 - €100 (I know it can vary, but roughly speaking) here in Ireland is about 17-18% of an average weekly wage.

How would that compare in Poland?

One Kraków clinic quotes 58GBP on its website.

OK, but thats obviously teeth tourism.

£58 would be expensive for a Pole on a Polish salary - no?

Yes, it would be painful. As you say, this Kraków clinic is a swanky outfit catering for foreigners. I can't imagine it would cost anything like that at your friendly local dentist operating out of a room in a high st. block.

A tooth removed (without fuss, but with painkillers) is about 80-100zl privately in a normal, clean dentist.


The nice thing here is that if you have a mix of public and private treatment - there's no cap at all on the public treatment, unlike the shambles that is the NHS system.

I heard that teeth are very prone to suffer from the burden of past generations` bad habits. If your Polish grandparents used to have decayed teeth because they didn`t care and their eating habits were tragic, then the grandchildren will have a problem too.

It may be rubbish, though.

Yes, tooth care was always backwards in Poland, as I remember it.

However, your title is exaggerated.


I am sure there are countries with worse statistics.

Dentist in Poland are hit or miss. Generally they are not that expensive.

However, this must be the most boring thread on PF EVER. Congratulation.

True, I got amalgite (sp? the metal stuff) fillings and it cost me 260 quid for that and descaling (again, it's important to FLOSS kids!!). That's because I hadn't been to a dentist for about 5 or 6 years. 260 doesn't sound much for 12 fillings and a cleaning (oh, and replacing a chip in my front tooth), but imagine you were earning 200 pound a week and had rent, bills, kids, food and transport costs to pay for...suddenly taking over a quarter of your monthly income to fix your teeth sounds like an awful lot.

I think the same rings true in Poland where there a lot of people (especially in the city where rent is very expensive) are on wages which leave very little squeezing room.

the water in poland does not have fluoride in it. Children in this country have black teeth because parents put juice in bottles causing "bottle rot" in the teeth. In Canada it is recommended not to give juice until 1 year old and out of a cup- in Poland they have juice from day one.

Also, there is an iodine deficency in the soil. What this means is that vegetables and fruits and other products such as beef that are raised using soil/ grass have less iodine than other parts of the world- I have to take iodine supplements.

People don't typically drink tap water here anyway, unless it is boiled in coffee or tea.

in my experience Turkish people have the worst teeth- or lack of.