What to expect on your first visit?

The first visit is designed to ask you relevant questions - a clinical history and then examine your mouth and jaws - a clinical examination. It is both these steps that enable us to make a clinical diagnosis.

A medical history form needs to be completed, including any medication you might be prescribed. The history form is a little more detailed than you might be used to filling in when attending the dentist, but as a specialist dentist in Oral Medicine often the mouth can be affected by a health problem or a medication you may be taking.

Please bring any relevant imaging (such as a radiograph; CAT scan or MRI scan and the matching reports) or blood tests your doctor may have already done for you. This helps save a lot of time and enables us to derive a diagnosis without the need of additional costs for repeat imaging.

Any further investigations needed will be discussed with you at the time of this first visit. Sometimes this might require a biopsy or more detailed imaging of your jaws/face. Sometimes pain can be managed simply while further investigations or tests are arranged.