Did dentists in the past butcher teeth for financial reward?

I'm 52 and have loads of fillings, all originally from when I was a kid and everything since has been replacement of those fillings or repair of teeth that have decayed around those fillings. My dentist lived nearby and bought a new Jag every couple of years

My kids are 19 and 15 and my 15 year old has one filling due to a poorly formed tooth that was a debris trap and decay risk. The 19 y/o has none.

Conversely my wife (50) has none.

I've had a private dentist for 20 years after a poor experience with the only NHS one I could get at the time (this doesn't seem to be an issue now, wife and kids had no problems registering with the local dentist when we moved here 16 years ago), He has replaced most metal fillings with white ones as they fail but otherwise treatment is very much 'wait-and-see' rather than the drill and fill of 30/40 /50 years ago. His words not mine. My dentist drives an old Peugeot

Born in 1953, I was a regular at the dentist and from the age of about maybe 7(?) I was getting the odd filling, someimes as many a three into my teens. Dentist used to tell my Mum I had acidic saliva and that was the cause.
Years later A "more modern" Dentist told me that they were paid per filling and therefore made the most of the "cash cow" as no one could dispute their expertise.
Does it still go on? About three year ago I was suffering toothache from the upper molars. Went to the local Dentist who flicked something out from between my teeth then told me it was a problem with the lower molars and proceeded to attempt a root canal filling and crown. Four visits later, a lot of pain, she claimed there were three roots on the xray to fill, couldn't find the last one, virtually destroyed the tooth then slapped a filling on the top as a crown was no longer a possibility. That tooth has ached ever since and I'm not going back there again.
Strangely, that particular tooth had a crown on it previously, never been root canal filled and was perfectly sound and not giving any trouble.

I think there is truth in both statements. In every profession there is a percentage of cowboys who are just out to make money. When I qualified as a dentist in the eighties it was obvious in some patients, a pattern of fillings for profit. We used to call them Australian trenches. Basically a groove was drilled along all the back teeth and filled with no seperation between each tooth. This characteristically failed very rapidly. It was supposedly a trademark of imported dentists who came to this country to milk the NHS system.
Conversley it is usual to get decayed teeth in your teens when your sugar consumption is higher. As you get older sugar consumption drops and new fillings are not needed. However you then spend the rest of your life having these replaced as they fail, progressing to larger and larger fillings then crowns, root fillings and finally extraction when unconservable.
Personally I was too lazy to do unnecessary fillings, especially in children. There was too much necessary work to be done without inventing more! I used to get quite a few patients who claimed to have been butchered for profit, but I was rarely convinced on examination because of the type and position and extension of the fillings was consistent with a normal decay process.

Yep same here.

I had a dentist who basically ruined my teath when I was a young teenager. He ended up getting struck off by the NHS and turned private only.

He also held the record in the local rugby club for how many 2p pieces he could fit in his foreskin!

Just checked. He was finally struck off from practicing as a dentist in 2019.

Did he partner up with the chap who could stretch his scrotum across the top of a bar stool? Quite infamous in some circles

Disgraceful isn’t it. We need it to turn into a PPI type media outcry. Imagine ruining teenagers teeth ffs, unbelievable.

I've always thought this. My mum was very strict about our sugar intake and sweets yet every one of the three of us would have fillings every time we went for a check up.

We are all mid to late 50s now and apart from repairs to old fillings, some resulting in root canals, non of us have had new fillings and neither have any of our kids.

Maybe they were employed by the surgery and paid a salary? Maybe they had another income, family wealth etc?

I don't know how it works but clearly to become a dentist requires a lot of training and education which I'd expect would be rewarded appropriately otherwise they wouldn't bother.

As an aside, I've found the best dentists I've had have been the young ones. Do older more experienced dentists get complacent or greedy?

You won’t be suing the government as NHS dentists are independent contractors

I went to dentist yesterday and it makes me nervous - he wants to replace 2 existing amalgam fillings ive had for 20 years with white ones, and one new filling in the top. £400.

But how do I know the bottom ones need replacing? I think it might only be that on both of them, a corner of my original tooth has broken off. But I don’t care (it’s smooth to the touch) unless that means they need replacing (perhaps to stop a gap opening up?). He didn’t really say why, just that they need replacing.

I do have 2 other amalgam fillings he didn’t mention, so it’s not like he’s just saying replace them all.