My family thought we found the perfect dentist! 

His office was really a Victorian home that was converted into a dentist office.  It was a clean office with new equipment that looked great!  During the visits, he was nice and would always talk to his assistant and me talking about his trip to other countries or other fun vacations like Disney.  The dentists hygienists all were friendly and attractive.

Sound like the perfect dentist?  Well he wasn’t, and here’s why:

• My city (it’s just a little bigger than a town) is small, much to small to afford the lifestyle of this dentist.
• He was taking way to many vacations for a small city dentist.
• Every checkup it seemed that I needed to scheduled to have some type of work done for the next visit.
• He kept trying to convince me to get crowns for some of my teeth.
• He tried to get my wife to do crowns too, and her were molars.
• He wanted to do major work on our kids, while they had their baby teeth still in.

My wife took the kids to a different dentist, and he said they didn’t need the work, and especially now at such a young age.  The new dentist also said that my wife didn’t really need a crown.  I stayed with my this dentist…  big mistake!

The turning point for me was when my dentist removed all of my old filling in a tooth, but not actually fixing the slow cavity on the side of the tooth.  The way in which he fixed my tooth was brutual, I actually saw pieces flying out of my mouth!  The integrity of the tooth is now very poor, I have problems eating peanuts and many food now…

Learn from my mistakes, and don’t be afraid to ask your dentist questions!  Since my experience, I’ve talked to other people that have had similar experiences with the dentist that I previously went to.  I have one buddy at work that went to him and my old dentist was pushing for him to get a crown for a molar too.

If you suspect a dentist is using you as a cash cow, ask him to show you why he wants to do what he claims!  After all, it’s your teeth in addition to your money!

-MR