When dental patients have no pain and any infection in the gums has already been healed by homeopathic medicine and natural remedies but are then cajoled into having healthy teeth removed - to be replaced by dentures, causing various painful symptoms - modern methods of dental care need looking into.

After an extraction, patients are allowed to spit out or rinse their mouth either by aspirator or glass of water and are told the blood clot must be left in to prevent infection.

A new denture is then inserted with fixative and patients are told to keep it intact for 24 hours to hold the blood clot in the gum, which will heal up over the clot.

This, we are told, fills up the hole left by the extracted tooth and the cells of the blood clot form new gum and bone.

My question is this: If the infection comes from the injection needle or other agent, what then?

Does it matter that the new denture is promptly clamped over the extraction area?

Does it matter that the patient then suffers ongoing pain in the gums as well as headaches, nausea and intense pain in the body?

The media seldom reports the number of people who now suffer cancer of the mouth but many suffer the effects of X-rays and the ultraviolet light used as a setting agent for filling material and cement, though non-light-cured ones are available.

Most patients do not know what is being used on their bodies and rarely give feedback to their dentists or doctors.

The result is we have lost the right and motivation to care for our own bodies - until disaster strikes to make us face up to taking more responsibility for own health.

-J Brown, Worthing