NHS: Shropshire man pulls his own tooth out with pliers after being unable to get a dentist appointment

A dad was forced to yank out a loose tooth with a pair of pliers after being unable to get a dentist appointment - saying he had no option.

Chris Langston, 50, was left in excruciating pain for six months as he tried to arrange an NHS dentist appointment to resolve the issue. His back molar had become loose, causing pain from eating, drinking and even talking.

Chris says that he couldn’t afford the £90 private fee for tooth removals and that the nearest emergency dentist was over 30 miles away. Instead he grabbed his pliers and ripped the tooth out in the bathroom of his home in Oswestry, Shropshire.

He said: "I’d been trying to get an appointment for around six months but I couldn't get one. Private dentists wanted £40 for the check up and another £40 or £50 for the removal. It was £80 or £90 for the extraction privately, and I couldn't afford that.

"It was around six months ago that I felt it go loose. It gradually got worse, you sort of leave it. I’ve never had a major toothache. As it got looser it was really painful every time I spoke. I could hear it niggling.

"Every time I spoke or swallowed or drank or ate, it was agony. I wanted to go for an emergency dentist but that was a 60 mile round trip. I couldn’t get there with the kids.

"So I took the pliers."

Chris, who runs metal detecting holidays, admitted he felt "weak at the knees" when he came out of the bathroom and nearly fainted, but says the pain relief was worth it. He added that it was "impossible to get an NHS appointment in Oswestry," and simply has to cross his fingers that he won't need a dentist again in the future.

"The kids were horrified," he said. "I did it in the bathroom, I nearly passed out, I was weak at the knees. To psych yourself up, it’s a lot of adrenaline.

"There were two roots in and half a root out. It took quite a pull. It makes me cringe. The metal on the teeth is not a nice feeling."

The crisis in NHS dentistry reached the streets earlier this week when hundreds of people queued up for two days outside a dental practice in Bristol to register.