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Bad Dentistry - Dental Student Damages Patients Tooth

What follows below is a real case study submitted by a reader of this website. It describes how their health was harmed by bad dentistry.

Dear Ramiel,
     I have lived through so many examples of bad medicine and bad dentistry, that I cannot even fit them all into one e-mail. I shall try to recall, in order, the most important examples of bad dentistry.

     First off, the philosophy fed to children in my day was that something does not have to feel good or even comfortable to be healthy; and that small pain and discomfort today makes your body used to the "correct" positioning/direction of growth, and will prevent larger pains in the future.

     As a small child, I went through what everyone else went through: fluoride treatments that left me with white, glowing teeth, huge fillings where there was only a nick in the enamel. In fact, I have never had a toothache in my life, other than ones that dentists have directly caused me.

     On to more concrete examples:
     When I was fifteen, my father's dentist and my father wanted to convince me to have my perfectly formed, healthy wisdom teeth pulled out "because I would probably forget to brush them." Luckily worse things got in the way of me losing my four babies. They are still to this day my healthiest molars.

     When I was seventeen, I went to the dentist for a check-up. She found a deep spot in my enamel in tooth number fourteen (first molar, top left) and stuck her probe-thing into it. I had absolutely no pain in the tooth, but she claimed it was a small cavity, and she would charge my mother less if I agreed to let her apprentice work on it. The apprentice proceeded to drill out the entire tooth, leaving only the root, and the inner and outer walls of the tooth. He filled the gap in with temporary amalgam (cement; glass polymer ionomer, or something). I have never been able to chew normally since, and ended up (much later) losing the tooth. The only tooth I have ever lost.

     When I was twenty-two I got a crown on that tooth that fit perfectly.

     I also got completely unnecessary head surgery, which caused trigeminal neuralgia, with the worst pain projecting into the crowned tooth. Anything that touched the tooth during the day, including cooked zucchini or white bread, made the entire left side of my head feel like a crater of pain at night. I went to sleep with intense pain every night for about two years, going through hellish dental treatments because no dentist allowed me to make the connection between the surgery and the neuralgia. No one even called it neuralgia. I found out that my condition had a name only through a friend in 2004.

     During those two years, I went to dentists in several states and in Canada. -- no, I suffered quietly during those two years -- visiting lots of dentists happened later. So this segment is out of order:

(Summer 1999):
     One dentist x-rayed my teeth and said I had nothing.
     The next dentist refused to treat me because I refused an additional x-ray within 2-3 months of the first.
     Some dentists referred me to other dentists.

(Summer, Fall and Winter, 1998, 1999):
     Then I lived in Vermont (aged 24) and decided I was leaving modern society as soon as I had my dental pain in order. I was so sick of modern society.
     My dentist referred me to another dentist in South Burlington (I do not even remember his name), saying he would send his daughter there if she ever had dental troubles.
     By this time I was so desperate for a solution.... This dentist decided I had TMJ-Syndrome, asking if I ever had popping of the jaw. I had never had popping until then -- but it began pretty intensely once his treatment started. When I told him it had started due to treatment, he said: "Told you so! Ya had TMJ all along." He said I had an occlusion problem, and that the pain was not coming from where I thought it was coming from. He wanted to make me a night guard, and then to "adjust" (file away) my enamel at the first points of contact. I knew this was not the solution and avoided him for several months.
     But the pain was gnawing away at my peace of mind.
     And I had heard so often, in California, Minnesota, Vermont, and almost everywhere else, that doctors knew what they were doing; that injuries inflicted by doctors made you better, not worse; that stupid people are happier because they do what they are told; that if I tried the conventional way for once, I would be so happy with the results and then become a "convert", so to speak. (Thus far in life, I had experienced nothing but negative effects of medicine and dentistry but I wanted to force myself to be stupid so that I could finally be happy.)
     After a couple of months I agreed to the treatment, of course, with the result that I now have fillings in all molars and premolars (except for two or three wisdom teeth); I have virtually no contour of the teeth on the right side of my mouth; a bit more on the left; that I cannot make my teeth come in contact at all points at once; I have lost the tooth anyway (which resulted in immediate drastic reduction in the neuralgia); and that my teeth can hardly tolerate cold, hot and sweet.

     Over that following Summer, 1999, that was when I visited the dentists in Canada, Cincinnati, and all over the place.

     Up until that point, nearly every dentist I had visited wrote a report along the lines of "Patient's teeth are in excellent shape. X-ray normal. No problems to speak of" (that is, "all in her head").

      After "treating" my teeth to this dentist in Vermont; giving modern society every chance possible, so to speak, I actually did hit the road, at one point ending up homeless in Santa Cruz (Winter 1999-2000) for several months. A friend of mine with a rotten tooth came upon the free clinic (somewhere in the area of the Food Bin) and had his tooth pulled there. Since I had tried all conventional treatments, I decided it was time to pull my number 14 tooth, as well; this time on the grounds that I had already experienced the conventional way of dealing with a "bad bite". The dentist did not believe me.
     At the time, I had been experimenting never biting my teeth together at all (living on discarded jamba juices I found in trash cans, and soup from the homeless place); or in biting together at odd places. The only place I had not tried was the front teeth -- which was not a good place for me to bite down, since my teeth were still perfectly razor sharp, as they had come in when I was six, and since the top teeth (8,9) are slightly longer than the second incisors (7,10).
     So I asked the dentist at the free clinic to file down my front teeth (8,9), since it was along the lines of the previous treatment, totally damaging, and would at least get dentists to take me seriously when I told them I had bad teeth. This, of course, he was willing to do. So then I had somewhat shortened front teeth, which caused me to pronounce my Vs and Fs a bit funny.... But tooth number 14 was still there.


     In April 2000, I travelled to Minnesota to a dentist I had seen there previously. I begged her to pull #14, and she said she could not, but referred me to a dentist in Lakeville, who pulled the tooth. The pain of extraction was NOTHING compared to the relief from the neuralgia.


     Of course, the teeth damaged by the Vermontian dentist are still damaged.
     My dentist in Northfield, Minnesota also repaired my front teeth This section belongs in 2004... with two strips of composite filling, which she affixed to my front teeth (8,9) and filed in the exact shape my teeth had previously been. They feel nearly as good as new, except they are sharper and cut a bit into my lips if I pull them in. I love my dentist in Northfield for helping me in this way. I can also speak normally again (almost -- Vs and Fs sound best with natural tooth (hydroxy-apatite), not with composite).

     So, now that I had a mouthful of "bad teeth", when I settled into Wisconsin the following Winter (2000-2001), and as soon as I had a bit of money, I searched for a dentist.
     This time the dentist did not write anything about "beautiful teeth" but quite the contrary. "Patient's teeth are in terrible condition -- and one of them is even missing!" He insisted on x-rays, which I allowed, and since he found no cavities, he had nothing to offer. I told him there were cavities beneath my mercury fillings. He did not believe me. So I told him I at least wanted this filling replaced by a composite. This he was willing to do. (I think he was even conscientious enough to use a rubber "rainjacket" to prevent me from swallowing amalgam dust.) There was so little natural tooth on one of the teeth (31), that a crown was necessary. Also tooth number 15 was in need of a crown. While taking the impression, I tried to tell the assistant to give me time to find the right location, but she just closed my mouth however she saw fit. I tried to complain about it, and asked for another impression, but they just told me this would be done scientifically, having nothing to do with how my teeth happened to come together for the impression.... The crown did not fit properly....

     After several more dentists and two more sets of crowns (one temporary), my dentist in Northfield, Minnesota fitted me with full ceramic crowns (teeth 2, 15 and 31), which fit pretty decently. (This was in 2004 -- also when she fixed my front teeth.)


     The next piece of bad dentistry happened in Austria, when the crown on 15 fell out. I went to a new dentist, who glued it in the wrong way, and when I called him on it, it was too late to do anything about it, and he tried to convince me it just feels different because my teeth had shifted in the two hours that the crown had been off. I left him in a big huff.

     I have another small example out of Austria, but it is really small: My current dentist likes to leave only a thin natural wall of the tooth, and to make shallow fillings, which leaves the edges sharp. When I requested her to fill the tooth properly, she just took a file and "shortened" my tooth, taking away even more of the natural structure, unnecessarily.


     And when I was at the university clinic in Austria, they forced me to let them "clean" my teeth with lava-stone pumice (bimsstein), even though I stated I did not want this. The dental hygienist just dipped her rotating brush-thing into it anyway and reached into my mouth, telling me it was stupid to be afraid of a cleaning.

     This is when I finally decided to take matters into my own hands. My teeth are still beat-up, but feel much better since I have changed my diet (not as much as I wish I could afford to), and begun to brush with castor oil (no pastes or salts), and there is a toothbrush called hyG, which is way too hard for daily use, but, used occasionally, it does wonders for removing any debris with no paste, whatsoever (using only water)!

     I do not expect any reply to this, but do feel free to contact me with questions if there are any; also, to edit any part of this if you wish.

Thank you,
Helene

Why Bad Dentistry?

I decided to create an area on my website to focus on bad dentistry. Many people have kept quiet about the mistreatment of their teeth by dentists. I do not encourage people to avoid dentists, but in order to get people to go to the dentist, the dentist must provide excellent care. Unfortunately most do not. This list can help you find a good dentist.

Modern dentistry, in general, damages our teeth. It drills away too much healthy tooth structure. It places toxic materials in our mouths, and recommends treatments that don't last over the long term. Moving beyond bad dentistry means using the book, Cure Tooth Decay, to help you remineralize your cavities naturally.

You can submit a story about how dentistry has negatively harmed your life by sending an e-mail to: testimonial@curetoothdecay.com
Make sure to include the name you want posted on your testimonial, a little bit about yourself, and how you were harmed by bad dentistry. You do not need to remain silent about the harm done to your mouth. Because I do not want to be in the middle of any type of dispute I will not post the name of the bad dentist.

Other people have learned the secrets to stopping cavities with the published book Cure Tooth Decay