• 28-year-old Lauren Bradshaw, from Manchester, unnecessarily lost three teeth after her dentist botched treatment
• Ms Bradshaw had two teeth extracted after the dentist failed to spot and treat decay and lost another after the dentist botched root canal treatment
• When Ms Bradshaw’s dentist extracted her teeth he failed to remove the roots, causing her excruciating pain
• £25,000 awarded in compensation
Ms Lauren Bradshaw, a 28-year-old senior sales advisor from Manchester has won £25,000 in compensation from her local dentist with the help of specialist dental negligence solicitors, the Dental Law Partnership.
Ms Bradshaw first visited Dr Edward Fisher at E Fisher Dental Practice in 1991, when she was a year old.
“As Dr Fisher was my childhood dentist I completely trusted him,” Ms Bradshaw said. “So whenever I had issues with my teeth I just assumed he knew what he was doing. Between 2004 and 2007 he placed three fillings, but I wasn’t concerned as fillings are fairly normal aren’t they? I didn’t think anything was wrong with my teeth.”
However, in 2008 Ms Bradshaw began to experience swelling and toothache. She went to see Dr Fisher, who performed root canal treatment and prescribed antibiotics. But by 2011 Ms Bradshaw’s pain had returned, so she went back to see Dr Fisher. The dentist extracted her tooth in an attempt to stop her pain.
“I thought Dr Fisher had resolved the problem when he undertook root canal treatment,” Ms Bradshaw said. “But only three years or so later the toothache had returned and I was suddenly being told the tooth needed to be extracted, which you don’t expect when you’re young. Nevertheless, I still trusted Dr Fisher was recommending the best course of action.”
Unfortunately, Ms Bradshaw’s pain continued. In 2013 she was back with Dr Fisher, still experiencing pain around the area where the tooth had been extracted. This time, Dr Fisher extracted the roots of the tooth, which it turned out had not been removed during the initial extraction.
“The procedure was awful,” Ms Bradshaw said. “It took far longer than expected and my anaesthetic wore off. I remember there being a lot of blood, it was quite traumatic.”
Then the following year, a filling at another one of Ms Bradshaw’s teeth fell out. She was also suffering from severe pain again.
“I didn’t know why the filling had fallen out and the pain was the excruciating,” Ms Bradshaw recalled. “I was struggling to sleep, I couldn’t eat, it was horrendous. So I went to see Dr Fisher yet again, but he offered no real treatment, just some antibiotics. I took them but they didn’t really help.”
Several weeks later Dr Fisher finally told Ms Bradshaw that the tooth would have to be extracted after all. But even after it had been extracted Ms Bradshaw’s pain continued.
“After the extraction I was in agony,” Ms Bradshaw said. “The pain kept going for months. Eventually Dr Fisher prescribed more antibiotics but didn’t offer any further treatment.”
In June 2015, Ms Bradshaw was finally referred to have the tooth’s roots surgically extracted by a specialist. Shockingly, an X-ray revealed that for the second time, Dr Fisher had failed to remove the roots of the tooth he’d extracted.
Ms Bradshaw contacted the Dental Law Partnership. Analysis of her dental records revealed that Dr Fisher had failed to spot and treat decay, which had damaged her teeth and led to them needing to be extracted. The dentist then botched the extractions, leading to added suffering for Ms Bradshaw while the roots remained in situ. In 2015 just before the second extraction Dr Fisher had also provided substandard root canal treatment at one of Ms Bradshaw’s front teeth, which has since been lost due to the decay.
“If Dr Fisher had treated the decay I’d still have my teeth,” Ms Bradshaw said. “I’m too young to have lost three teeth – it’s obviously not what anyone wants. I now can’t trust dentists because of the years of poor treatment I suffered at the hands of Dr Fisher. I just wish I’d seen a different dentist sooner.”
The Dental Law Partnership commented: “The distress and pain our client experienced was completely unnecessary. If the dentist had carried out adequate treatment in the first place, all her problems could have been avoided.”
The Dental Law Partnership took on Ms Bradshaw’s case in 2015. The case was successfully settled in 2018 when the dentist paid £25,000 in an out of court settlement. The dentist did not admit liability.