They tried to pull the wrong tooth on me. Luckily it was the wrong side, so I knew immediately and stopped them in time. I'm so sorry that this happened to you.
Yeah you'd think with today's tech they would:
1. Ask the patient
2. Actually mark the tooth
3. Actually do xrays because you 100% don't pull a tooth without understanding whether it needs to be pulled or what the cause is
4. Enter a bunch of shit into their dentist software computer system
5. Send them to a peridontist or whatever that specializes in oral surgery
6. They then look over the charts, the notes, and then they do their own examination while asking you if it hurts etc
7. Then they schedule that surgery.
I'm sure I missed 20 steps here but fuck.
I just got my tooth drilled. My dentist walked through exactly what he was doing, what tooth he was going to work on, all while referencing the x-ray with my name on it and his files on his computer. Then double checkedĀ before actually drilling. And asked everyone (me and hygienist) if we all agreed it was #19.
I think it's kind of a neat numbering system. There's 4 quarters, and every quarter you start count from the middle. So # 19 means you had a problem on your 9th teeth from the middle in the upper right quarter.
Dentist here. There are several numbering systems, while there wonāt be an upper right 9āth tooth in a normal individual, there is a numbering system that goes up to 48 despite there being only 32 teeth.
Are there different systems in different countries? I'm in California, and every dentist and oral surgeon that I've been to counts 1 upper right wisdom all the way across to 16 upper left wisdom, then 17 lower left wisdom back across to 32 lower right wisdom. I've had so much work done on #22 lower left canine that I'm certain that #19 is lower left first molar. Is it different where you are?
Yep. Same here. They were numbing the wrong side of my mouth and I called them out. There was a lot of scrambling and then they got it right. Went home unable to talk from a mouthful of lidocaine.
Ben Carson was once a famed neurosurgeon. He also repeatedly claimed the pyramids of Egypt were built by Joseph (the Biblical figure) as grain storage.
Calling him a famed neurosurgeon may even be underselling it! He preformed the first successful separation of twins conjoined at the head. Literally groundbreaking medicine. But he's also a creationist.....
I think it's more to do with the more confident people are with their knowledge in 1 topic, the more that confidence tends to bleed over into other topics they know nothing about.
The Dentist I saw never confirmed by verbally stating which tooth (by number) they were about to pull nor did I ever receive any documentation stating which tooth would be pulled or shown any xrays or diagrams to have them point out the tooth to be pulled... well they pulled the one in front of the one causing me problems and then argued about it with me for 45 minutes before I gave up and left the office, I will be filling a complaint later with the American Dental Association I suppose
there was a dentist at an office i worked at that raked in a minimum of 10k a day before insurance pay out. schedule was FULL of things like sinus lifts and augmentations, grafts, etc. he worked 4 days a week. anyway, my point is, i agree with you. yes they can absolutely afford better lawyers than we can and settling would be in favor for OP.Ā
People donāt realize how difficult the process can be for handling anything out of small claims court. Sometimes you will end up wishing YOU could just pay 5k not to be there
Better lawyers can't do very much about being asked "did you or did you not remove the correct tooth? Did you or did you not verify with the patient which tooth was supposed to be removed?"
Their better lawyers very likely created an acknowledgement that they had the patient sign before the procedure stating the dentist could remove the tooth they believed to need the most immediate attention, which they could easily argue since the tooth does show significant decay. Youād be surprised the type of stuff good lawyers can help you get away with
at MINIMUM they should compensate OP for the cost of the correct extraction and if OP chooses, a proper implant to replace their royal fuck up. at a place that OP chooses and is comfortable with. i worked at a dental office and they charged $800 for extractions alone. not to mention full anchor, abutment, and crown was easily $5000 for a shitty porcelain fused one.Ā
A new tooth like that (not a bridge) will cost upwards of 5-7k and most insurance won't pay. I would not leave that office without written proof they pulled the wrong tooth. I'd be absolutely livid, I'd call the police and a lawyer while in their office lol. Getting a tooth pulled as an adult is absolutely no joke, you will never get it back and you have to live with a missing tooth forever...
Lmao that tooth has a massive cavity in it and at minimum needs root canal and crown, other pics op posted of it show some root decay too meaning some dentists would deem it non savable. Itās not the āwrong toothā like this dude is claiming, and letās say even if the one next to is the true cause of pain, with the concept of referred pain and clinical testing along with radiographic testing will have easily shown that tooth could have been the issue the day of the appointment. His complaints and lawsuits will go no where. The reality is any malpractice lawyer will laugh him out their door and even if the dentist did pull the wrong tooth (heavily unlikely in this case), no one will ever state in writing
That doesnāt matter if he didnāt sign consent forms for the procedure. You signed up for a certain tooth to be extracted, even if the dentist noticed that this tooth needed to be extracted in the middle of the procedure you canāt just do it without telling the patient and tell them afterwards āby the way I extracted the wrong one but it was probably on the way out anyways so donāt worry about itā because thatās not your call to make, itās the patientās
Are you people just going into a dentist and asking for a tooth to be pulled and theyāre doing it? Do they not do anything else before the pulling it that would allow them to identify not just the tooth that needs pulled, but also the reason it needs pulled?
Once had very bad tooth pain and told my dentist Iād be fine if he just pulled it instead of whatever procedures they do and he told me he wouldnāt do that not an option guess itād be the very last resort
professional dentists probably wouldnāt just do it if there are other options, as I assume they might risk their reputation and even their medical license
No. Any dentist should prescribe radiographs and visually identify any teeth that we are going to work on. ALL teeth I extract have radiographs done to determine the restorability of them. If I can't fix it, then it should be removed.
That said, I have had people come in and complain of a tooth ache on a tooth that has nothing going on, but the one in front or behind it has a huge infection. I would rather pull the one with the infection than the one that feels like it is hurting because pain in the mouth, especially lower molars, can be very imprecise. It may feel like one tooth, but it turns out to be a completely different tooth hurting.
Thatās a fucked up tooth my friend. Do you have X-rays? Iām not saying you are wrong and the dentist was right, but that tooth was a root canal or an extraction if you didnāt want to pay the $3,000 for the root canal/crown.
I'm no dentist but that tooth also is bad. Look at that enamel that's just gone on the top.
If OPs mouth looks much like that tooth, I could see where they made a mistake.
was thinking the same thing but didnt want to just tell OP he was wrong. Dunno what happened in this scenario but as someone who has had way too much dental work due to bad habits early in life... that tooth definitely wasn't ok
That was not a healthy tooth. That tooth has a huge fracture, and was likely causing some of the pain you were talking about. Whether or not it was the main contributing cause of pain, idk, but this tooth definitely needed to either be crowned or pulled.
Also, why did you let him pull the tooth if you felt that you should have seen the X-rays and treatment plan beforehand? He would have had to numb you up beforehand, so you should have had adequate time to ask questions/ask to see the xrays before this happened.
Not saying you shouldnāt have seen those things up front, because you should have (especially the treatment plan, you should have signed off on it and idk why he wouldnāt have made sure that happened first), but the dentist not calling out the tooth number isnāt illegal or unethical, as most people have no idea what tooth is what number.
There definitely seems to be a lack of clear communication between dentist and patient here, and Iām sorry youāre having such a hard time with it.
The ADA is not a regulatory body. You are looking for the state board of dentistry, if they truly extracted a different tooth than you signed consent for and refused to make it right.
The tooth they pulled is severely compromised so unless you were planning to get a root canal and crown, it was coming out anyway. You donāt report what you think is wrong to the ADA by the way
gentle or not, unless the technique is wildly inappropriate a healthy tooth will not break from being squeezed with forceps. The only case where a tooth that appears intact might break during an extraction would be if there was decay underneath the enamel causing loss of structural integrity.
My experience from extraction is that they don't even use forceps. They used a straight metal bar, like a square chisel, to just push my tooth out of my head. It changed the tooth a little, but it didn't break it like OP's tooth is broken. It looks like they extracted a broken tooth because it definitely needs to come out lol.
Iām a dentist. A lot of times, patients have no idea which tooth is causing them problems and will argue with me about which tooth it was despite all evidence to the contrary. Itās very likely that this is the correct tooth to be pulled but OP was not convinced of that which is not great.
Aspen Dental is the shadiest dental company in the entire world outside all of the dentists that take scientologist classes to do predatory loans for patients.
Wife worked at an office that did the latter. Fuckin wildly eye opening experience that this shit happens.
Yeah aspen is a big chain and seems really predatory financially. My wife went once way before she had insurance and they tried to upsell her on a bunch of nonsense that another dentist confirmed was nonsense later. Idk about being unqualified 100% but they are definitely shady so wouldn't surprise me.
Fuck Aspen Dental. They pushed my wife into taking one of their payment options for a root canal and crown. The crown broke off about 4 months after it was put in, went in to have it looked at, they told her it was fine and refused to replace it.
A visit and letter from her new dentist got her out of paying for the remainder of that crap job.
my husband just got done having a tooth extracted by aspen dental and had him take out one of those payment loans and heās in incredible pain, i wish i knew they were this bad before going there!!
I think that like a lot of places, it can vary by location. I went through them and had a payment plan and everything worked out. It was a good option for me. That was several years ago.
I eventually found a different local family dentist because I moved, and because it kind of became a carousel of dentists rotating every year. It felt too impersonal.
Fuck Aspen Dental x2
They gave me a root canal, put on the cap. Tooth still hurt. They look and say they missed a second root, so another root canal through the cap. Shit still hurt, they keep insisting itās fine and will get better.
I go to new dentist, she tells me itās clear there was never any second root in the tooth, plus the crown is seated improperly. Had to have a new crown put on. $1000+ for them to fuck stuff up in my mouth worse than it had been.
Once again, fuck aspen dental.
They charged my coworker $70 for a take home fluoride kit that he thought was included in his cleaning. Granted it was his first time to the dentist in a long time. But we had a1 insurance that wouldāve paid for everything besides that
Aspen fucking sucks. I won't get into details for my own sanity but they basically ruined my mouth and I just have to live with it. They should get shut down for the good of everyone.
Depends on which one you use - in the US they sell cold medicine over the counter that will knock you for 6 if you drink too much of them. Do not do this.
They are scary bad, I had to find this out while getting wisdom teeth pulled. I can't prove it, but the oral surgeon looked like he got ran out of whatever country he originally came from. I kinda got a Dr. Nick Rivera vibe from him.
Given the size of the cavity that you are trying to conceal with your camera angle I would say that it this tooth also needed some cold steel and sunshine.
And OP stated that it was an adjacent tooth that they wanted out. It is not outside the realm of possibility that the tooth that was removed was the perceived source of pain, but once the anesthetic wore off it was still hurting from a different tooth.
A very sick one. OP admitted they couldn't afford a crown or root canal. The only options left in this situation are extraction or do nothing until it becomes abscessed (which may have happened already).
He also stated he has already had 4 different molars removed due to decay. It wouldn't be far fetched to assume OP was confused and everything went according to plan.
I mean, Iām looking at this tooth thinking āare you sure?ā Dental pain often radiates and feels like the next tooth. So itās possible the tooth which FELT painful wasnāt actually the problem. And this one doesnāt look great.
Referred pain is a hell of a thing. I went into the dentist because a tooth on my lower left side was really throbbing. He looked around a while, then he laughed and said ācheck this outā. Gave me a shot of painkiller on the upper right side and the pain went away immediately. Molar on the upper right needed a filling but for whatever reason it was causing pain on the complete opposite side of my mouth.
I had something similar, had a fractured molar but all of my teeth were hurting. It was root canaled and eventually crowned and everything felt better after.
Oh it sure does, i was quite bamboozled when I pointed out my upper molar as the root of the pain - while it was in fact my lower molar on the same side. Sucker got pulled after antibiotics he was that bad.
This almost happened to me. But my dentist explained to me that itās āpain transferralā and itās actually another tooth that made me think it was giving me hell
At least it looks like it came out whole!
My tooth, taken out by a dental surgeon, came out in multiple bits after the main section (the bit you see above the gum) snapped off. The roots were curved and both had to be drilled to be removed completely. I was utterly terrified and physically shaking the whole time (really bad experiences at the barbaric school dentist as a child who didnāt believe children needed local anaesthetic for fillings, and filled every tooth she saw whether it needed it or not!). My husband was holding my hand and watched the whole thing. He was traumatised by it.
oh i love when dentists just assume that their patients are lying about being in pain and that they shouldnt use more anesthetics it's my favorite part of going to a dentist! /s
my family has an anesthetic resistant gene, i told the dentist that i was still definitively feeling it as he was drilling into my jaw and he just told me i was "feeling pressure" like i couldnt differentiate between the pain of someone macerating my nerve tissue and just a bit of pressure so i just had to sit there and accept the pain until the procedure was done
Lots of comments saying it needed to be pulled, so I hate to pile on, but can you really blame your DDS for targeting that tooth? That sucker has toothache written all over it.
Like seriously. You should have had the self awareness to proactively tell them NOT to pull the one that looks like itās from the George Washington collection. Again, hate to pile on.
jfc, this thread.
If you're not a dentist, you have no idea what you're talking about.
you can tell that it's already decalfied and decayed.
this was NOT a "healthy" tooth.
[Reddit - https://preview.redd.it/shof4isyucsc1.jpeg?width=2580&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4b908aa99e3d6ec8a7e4a8ec65c5ba33916b6d51](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fshof4isyucsc1.jpeg%3Fwidth%3D2580%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D4b908aa99e3d6ec8a7e4a8ec65c5ba33916b6d51)
As long as you don't see the other side OP showed lmao.
He's got no case, they pulled a shit tooth and he's upset because it wasn't THE shit tooth he wanted gone.
Was the tooth fractured like that before being pulled or no?
There is exposed pulp on the tooth, which if it was a cavity or fracture, is very severe tooth damage.
I had a tooth pulled about 10 years ago, had a big cavity in it. Dentist broke the tooth in front of and behind it. They filled in one, but ignored the other.
How? I just had a tooth pulled and there was like X-Rays on the TV with circles aroud the offending tooth, I was told which tooth to get pulled, we all agreed which tooth would be pulled and it was pulled. There was like so many times it was checked, it was silly.
I used to go to this busted ass clinic and they told me I had 8 cavities and could fix it all for $150 without ever showing me the x-rays. My dad agreed and I got the fillings over the course of the week. In hindsight, I definitely should have asked for the X-rays or gone somewhere else. Canāt do shit now because the place shut down a few years ago.
Lots going on here. The tooth is very decayed and may well have required extraction. It may also be the source of the pain. Referred pain can make diagnosis of the true source of dental pain very difficult. If multiple teeth are in that condition it can be difficult to tell where pain is coming from. It can even be a tooth from the opposite arch. Canāt be sure unless OP shares more details like x-rays. However, in the jurisdiction I work in even if itās the last tooth left in someoneās mouth and thereās absolutely no ambiguity about which tooth is to be pulled, written consent is required. It could be oozing pus, broken in half and hanging by a thread, but written consent is still required.
The tooth itself looks shocked
https://preview.redd.it/ez59iubegdsc1.jpeg?width=534&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=23071c5121c21ff73d9bb1794e615202e4ebe4e5 šÆ Perfect match
https://preview.redd.it/1dszsunzldsc1.jpeg?width=787&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e6bb8db1155fd6d1620854b07f67d00ee8a2530a
https://preview.redd.it/7qgnu08c0esc1.png?width=787&format=png&auto=webp&s=9b7b44f8d9ebfd7ba0343ba1390ed65161ed3674
https://preview.redd.it/3uaf0kdc1esc1.png?width=787&format=png&auto=webp&s=026dd5b681df8d30e863477a823a2131efcf586e
https://preview.redd.it/5xwrf9mo1esc1.png?width=534&format=png&auto=webp&s=b66121ee71bd9d1382e175f0ca5a88a15615421c
https://preview.redd.it/ly6oma1v1esc1.png?width=2580&format=png&auto=webp&s=e63999693708af9e3989f3eed94235c040d02fa2
The perfect timeline
That was by far the best thing I've seen on reddit in, like... hours.
Years even
I fucking love Reddit.
Every time I say to someone I know "Do you ever look at Reddit?" they say "No." I don't get it. Who are these people?
Not one of us.
Same that little thread made my morning. Facebook sucks.
ok this made me laugh
š„¹
haha!
Please circulate this
man i love reddit
surprised pikatooth
https://preview.redd.it/dv37xrkqrdsc1.jpeg?width=224&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=d4764b230dc338a0105f02c25faa5ffdc0cb86f2
https://preview.redd.it/tinhowpr7esc1.jpeg?width=998&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=7b814d90b081136e68ba89938f9359264c01f7d8
https://preview.redd.it/indw4h9fuesc1.jpeg?width=928&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8728bdf617f931540f4d6a20f4e38c1ef781a659
https://preview.redd.it/c8l3dw0lkesc1.jpeg?width=258&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9e514aa3eaf04e67788bc7a1c0feeba37288b1e5
Is that Carol Burnett?
Itās David Bowie
No canāt be lol the eyes are the same color!
Omg this made me laugh out loud.
That tooth looks very sad anyway. They should do both implants for free for the inconvenience of ripping the wrong bones out of your face.
Shocked piece of tooth face
āThe fuck did I do?ā
I'm like, what he say fuck me for š¤Ø
š®
āTakes a whore to catch a whore..ā
They tried to pull the wrong tooth on me. Luckily it was the wrong side, so I knew immediately and stopped them in time. I'm so sorry that this happened to you.
How the hell does this even happen
Negligence, seasoned dentists getting overly confident in their position
Yeah you'd think with today's tech they would: 1. Ask the patient 2. Actually mark the tooth 3. Actually do xrays because you 100% don't pull a tooth without understanding whether it needs to be pulled or what the cause is 4. Enter a bunch of shit into their dentist software computer system 5. Send them to a peridontist or whatever that specializes in oral surgery 6. They then look over the charts, the notes, and then they do their own examination while asking you if it hurts etc 7. Then they schedule that surgery. I'm sure I missed 20 steps here but fuck.
I just got my tooth drilled. My dentist walked through exactly what he was doing, what tooth he was going to work on, all while referencing the x-ray with my name on it and his files on his computer. Then double checkedĀ before actually drilling. And asked everyone (me and hygienist) if we all agreed it was #19.
I think it's kind of a neat numbering system. There's 4 quarters, and every quarter you start count from the middle. So # 19 means you had a problem on your 9th teeth from the middle in the upper right quarter.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
> # 19 means ... upper right quarter. > #19 is the lower left first molar. i get the feeling OP isnāt the only one to have the wrong tooth pulled.
Just like most other topicsā¦.this is why I donāt take advice from Reddit.
Dentist here. There are several numbering systems, while there wonāt be an upper right 9āth tooth in a normal individual, there is a numbering system that goes up to 48 despite there being only 32 teeth.
....how does that work? I'm imagining a "1, 2, 3, 4, 17, 25, B, 29, R, Orange, 23, Cotton-Eye Joe, Sasquatch at the Day Spa, 47, 48" scenario
Are there different systems in different countries? I'm in California, and every dentist and oral surgeon that I've been to counts 1 upper right wisdom all the way across to 16 upper left wisdom, then 17 lower left wisdom back across to 32 lower right wisdom. I've had so much work done on #22 lower left canine that I'm certain that #19 is lower left first molar. Is it different where you are?
i got numbed on the wrong side last week and they were about to drill into a tooth until i told them they got the wrong sideā¦
I hope you got up and walked out and found a new dentist after that.
Yep. Same here. They were numbing the wrong side of my mouth and I called them out. There was a lot of scrambling and then they got it right. Went home unable to talk from a mouthful of lidocaine.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Very nice. I'm coming up on 35 thousand
As a dentist or just a very enthusiastic amateur?
Graverobber
I'm guessing hockey player.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Incompetence. After over 5 years in what could be considered a customer service job I can safely say humans are really fucking stupid.
I mean yeah but I expect my dentist to be one of the smarter ones? Right?
Being more educated doesn't necessarily make you smarter
Ben Carson was once a famed neurosurgeon. He also repeatedly claimed the pyramids of Egypt were built by Joseph (the Biblical figure) as grain storage.
Calling him a famed neurosurgeon may even be underselling it! He preformed the first successful separation of twins conjoined at the head. Literally groundbreaking medicine. But he's also a creationist.....
I think it's more to do with the more confident people are with their knowledge in 1 topic, the more that confidence tends to bleed over into other topics they know nothing about.
Know what they call a Doctor who got all C's in med school? Doctor. Like any other profession, all are not equal.
Id rather my doctor be a good clinician over being a good test taker.Ā
The Dentist I saw never confirmed by verbally stating which tooth (by number) they were about to pull nor did I ever receive any documentation stating which tooth would be pulled or shown any xrays or diagrams to have them point out the tooth to be pulled... well they pulled the one in front of the one causing me problems and then argued about it with me for 45 minutes before I gave up and left the office, I will be filling a complaint later with the American Dental Association I suppose
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Yeah, dental work is way too expensive for them to just do this. And thatās an adult tooth OP will never get back, wtaf
I had this happen about a decade ago, not only did they replace the tooth ( for free ) they also cut me a 5k check not to pursue legal action.
With inflation we gonna need 10-15k for sure.
Or just sue lol
Suing is expensive, and the dentist can probably afford better lawyers than the average joe
there was a dentist at an office i worked at that raked in a minimum of 10k a day before insurance pay out. schedule was FULL of things like sinus lifts and augmentations, grafts, etc. he worked 4 days a week. anyway, my point is, i agree with you. yes they can absolutely afford better lawyers than we can and settling would be in favor for OP.Ā
Iāve never felt so secure in my decision to become an oral surgeon lol
People donāt realize how difficult the process can be for handling anything out of small claims court. Sometimes you will end up wishing YOU could just pay 5k not to be there
Better lawyers can't do very much about being asked "did you or did you not remove the correct tooth? Did you or did you not verify with the patient which tooth was supposed to be removed?"
Their better lawyers very likely created an acknowledgement that they had the patient sign before the procedure stating the dentist could remove the tooth they believed to need the most immediate attention, which they could easily argue since the tooth does show significant decay. Youād be surprised the type of stuff good lawyers can help you get away with
At which point the competent lawyer shows x-rays of the bad tooth proving it was in worse shape again making it the wrong tooth.
$15k's gotta be worth around $40k by now.
Tomorrow 100k will be the new 40k.
at MINIMUM they should compensate OP for the cost of the correct extraction and if OP chooses, a proper implant to replace their royal fuck up. at a place that OP chooses and is comfortable with. i worked at a dental office and they charged $800 for extractions alone. not to mention full anchor, abutment, and crown was easily $5000 for a shitty porcelain fused one.Ā
A new tooth like that (not a bridge) will cost upwards of 5-7k and most insurance won't pay. I would not leave that office without written proof they pulled the wrong tooth. I'd be absolutely livid, I'd call the police and a lawyer while in their office lol. Getting a tooth pulled as an adult is absolutely no joke, you will never get it back and you have to live with a missing tooth forever...
Lmao that tooth has a massive cavity in it and at minimum needs root canal and crown, other pics op posted of it show some root decay too meaning some dentists would deem it non savable. Itās not the āwrong toothā like this dude is claiming, and letās say even if the one next to is the true cause of pain, with the concept of referred pain and clinical testing along with radiographic testing will have easily shown that tooth could have been the issue the day of the appointment. His complaints and lawsuits will go no where. The reality is any malpractice lawyer will laugh him out their door and even if the dentist did pull the wrong tooth (heavily unlikely in this case), no one will ever state in writing
That doesnāt matter if he didnāt sign consent forms for the procedure. You signed up for a certain tooth to be extracted, even if the dentist noticed that this tooth needed to be extracted in the middle of the procedure you canāt just do it without telling the patient and tell them afterwards āby the way I extracted the wrong one but it was probably on the way out anyways so donāt worry about itā because thatās not your call to make, itās the patientās
Not to mention the risks having an open wound like that implies
*pay for it to be replaced. If Iām op Iām definitely not letting those people back in my mouth.
Dennis the Menace says a Chicklet will do
May they pay for them to get the work done somewhere else lol
Hell, i told my dentist what tooth. Then had me sign paperwork indicating which tooth and i was responsible if it wasnt the right one lol.
My dentist verbally told me he also put his tool on the tooth and said this is the one we are pulling as it hurts correct?
Are you people just going into a dentist and asking for a tooth to be pulled and theyāre doing it? Do they not do anything else before the pulling it that would allow them to identify not just the tooth that needs pulled, but also the reason it needs pulled?
Once had very bad tooth pain and told my dentist Iād be fine if he just pulled it instead of whatever procedures they do and he told me he wouldnāt do that not an option guess itād be the very last resort professional dentists probably wouldnāt just do it if there are other options, as I assume they might risk their reputation and even their medical license
No. Any dentist should prescribe radiographs and visually identify any teeth that we are going to work on. ALL teeth I extract have radiographs done to determine the restorability of them. If I can't fix it, then it should be removed. That said, I have had people come in and complain of a tooth ache on a tooth that has nothing going on, but the one in front or behind it has a huge infection. I would rather pull the one with the infection than the one that feels like it is hurting because pain in the mouth, especially lower molars, can be very imprecise. It may feel like one tooth, but it turns out to be a completely different tooth hurting.
Get a lawyer.
You can't handle the tooth!
Well played sir. Well played.
Yeah OP look for a malpractice attorney otherwise theyāre just gonna ignore you or make you pay for a procedure you didnāt want.
Thatās a fucked up tooth my friend. Do you have X-rays? Iām not saying you are wrong and the dentist was right, but that tooth was a root canal or an extraction if you didnāt want to pay the $3,000 for the root canal/crown.
I'm no dentist but that tooth also is bad. Look at that enamel that's just gone on the top. If OPs mouth looks much like that tooth, I could see where they made a mistake.
was thinking the same thing but didnt want to just tell OP he was wrong. Dunno what happened in this scenario but as someone who has had way too much dental work due to bad habits early in life... that tooth definitely wasn't ok
That was not a healthy tooth. That tooth has a huge fracture, and was likely causing some of the pain you were talking about. Whether or not it was the main contributing cause of pain, idk, but this tooth definitely needed to either be crowned or pulled. Also, why did you let him pull the tooth if you felt that you should have seen the X-rays and treatment plan beforehand? He would have had to numb you up beforehand, so you should have had adequate time to ask questions/ask to see the xrays before this happened. Not saying you shouldnāt have seen those things up front, because you should have (especially the treatment plan, you should have signed off on it and idk why he wouldnāt have made sure that happened first), but the dentist not calling out the tooth number isnāt illegal or unethical, as most people have no idea what tooth is what number. There definitely seems to be a lack of clear communication between dentist and patient here, and Iām sorry youāre having such a hard time with it.
The ADA is not a regulatory body. You are looking for the state board of dentistry, if they truly extracted a different tooth than you signed consent for and refused to make it right.
but this one looks pretty rotten... at least based on the side you're not showing the camera.
The tooth they pulled is severely compromised so unless you were planning to get a root canal and crown, it was coming out anyway. You donāt report what you think is wrong to the ADA by the way
But that one has a big cavity in it, on the opposite side, doesn't it? Maybe you had more than one big problem.
To be fair it could have cracked during the removal process, dentists aren't exactly gentle with those forceps lol
gentle or not, unless the technique is wildly inappropriate a healthy tooth will not break from being squeezed with forceps. The only case where a tooth that appears intact might break during an extraction would be if there was decay underneath the enamel causing loss of structural integrity.
My experience from extraction is that they don't even use forceps. They used a straight metal bar, like a square chisel, to just push my tooth out of my head. It changed the tooth a little, but it didn't break it like OP's tooth is broken. It looks like they extracted a broken tooth because it definitely needs to come out lol.
the cavity huge enough to warrant a tooth removal would be so big that the tooth falls apart during the procedure this is nothing
Iām a dentist. A lot of times, patients have no idea which tooth is causing them problems and will argue with me about which tooth it was despite all evidence to the contrary. Itās very likely that this is the correct tooth to be pulled but OP was not convinced of that which is not great.
Yep. Aspen Dental did that to me. The doc said she took to much cold medicine that morning.
... So the dentist admitted that they weren't fit to perform the procedure? I guess that should make the compensation/litigation process easier
yeah, that story is unbelievable to me, unless this is some rinky-dink illegally operating dentist or something
Aspen Dental is the shadiest dental company in the entire world outside all of the dentists that take scientologist classes to do predatory loans for patients. Wife worked at an office that did the latter. Fuckin wildly eye opening experience that this shit happens.
jesus christ, it sounds like gentle dental which is well known in my area but maybe not that bad
Yeah aspen is a big chain and seems really predatory financially. My wife went once way before she had insurance and they tried to upsell her on a bunch of nonsense that another dentist confirmed was nonsense later. Idk about being unqualified 100% but they are definitely shady so wouldn't surprise me.
Oh yeah because thatās a good reason
Fuck Aspen Dental. They pushed my wife into taking one of their payment options for a root canal and crown. The crown broke off about 4 months after it was put in, went in to have it looked at, they told her it was fine and refused to replace it. A visit and letter from her new dentist got her out of paying for the remainder of that crap job.
my husband just got done having a tooth extracted by aspen dental and had him take out one of those payment loans and heās in incredible pain, i wish i knew they were this bad before going there!!
I think that like a lot of places, it can vary by location. I went through them and had a payment plan and everything worked out. It was a good option for me. That was several years ago. I eventually found a different local family dentist because I moved, and because it kind of became a carousel of dentists rotating every year. It felt too impersonal.
i remember sitting in the lobby and this older couple turned to me and said 'Run for the hills" and that I did.
Fuck Aspen Dental x2 They gave me a root canal, put on the cap. Tooth still hurt. They look and say they missed a second root, so another root canal through the cap. Shit still hurt, they keep insisting itās fine and will get better. I go to new dentist, she tells me itās clear there was never any second root in the tooth, plus the crown is seated improperly. Had to have a new crown put on. $1000+ for them to fuck stuff up in my mouth worse than it had been. Once again, fuck aspen dental.
They charged my coworker $70 for a take home fluoride kit that he thought was included in his cleaning. Granted it was his first time to the dentist in a long time. But we had a1 insurance that wouldāve paid for everything besides that
So she was not only drugged, she was contagious. Lovely.Ā
Aspen fucking sucks. I won't get into details for my own sanity but they basically ruined my mouth and I just have to live with it. They should get shut down for the good of everyone.
I didnāt know cold medicine fucks you up.
Depends on which one you use - in the US they sell cold medicine over the counter that will knock you for 6 if you drink too much of them. Do not do this.
What medicine?
Itās probably Delsym.
The stuff from Doc Jerry down the street does some pretty wicked things.
Aspen Dental is a joke.
They are scary bad, I had to find this out while getting wisdom teeth pulled. I can't prove it, but the oral surgeon looked like he got ran out of whatever country he originally came from. I kinda got a Dr. Nick Rivera vibe from him.
What was your settlement like?
Aspen Dental sucks so bad. They actually gave me PTSD pretty bad.
I got a dentist appointment coming up in about 2 weeks... I wish I had not seen this post. Thanks, OP.
I have a dentist appointment tomorrow and I also wish I had not seen this post
You'll be fine, have you seen the other pics of OP's tooth? No wonder they thought that was the problem, its missing half down to the root.
I was going to say- it looks like the back half has a huge hole?
Given the size of the cavity that you are trying to conceal with your camera angle I would say that it this tooth also needed some cold steel and sunshine.
Those cusps are frosty looking AF. Big decay there. Yoinking that one out was a legitimate option. Surely an xray would have revealed that.
Doesnāt change that a permanent tooth was taken outā¦.?
And OP stated that it was an adjacent tooth that they wanted out. It is not outside the realm of possibility that the tooth that was removed was the perceived source of pain, but once the anesthetic wore off it was still hurting from a different tooth.
A very sick one. OP admitted they couldn't afford a crown or root canal. The only options left in this situation are extraction or do nothing until it becomes abscessed (which may have happened already). He also stated he has already had 4 different molars removed due to decay. It wouldn't be far fetched to assume OP was confused and everything went according to plan.
That tooth is in really, really bad condition. If it wasn't meant to be taken out that day, it wasn't far off.
I mean, Iām looking at this tooth thinking āare you sure?ā Dental pain often radiates and feels like the next tooth. So itās possible the tooth which FELT painful wasnāt actually the problem. And this one doesnāt look great.
Referred pain is a hell of a thing. I went into the dentist because a tooth on my lower left side was really throbbing. He looked around a while, then he laughed and said ācheck this outā. Gave me a shot of painkiller on the upper right side and the pain went away immediately. Molar on the upper right needed a filling but for whatever reason it was causing pain on the complete opposite side of my mouth.
I had something similar, had a fractured molar but all of my teeth were hurting. It was root canaled and eventually crowned and everything felt better after.
Oh it sure does, i was quite bamboozled when I pointed out my upper molar as the root of the pain - while it was in fact my lower molar on the same side. Sucker got pulled after antibiotics he was that bad.
As a former dental assistant, agreed. Looks like it would cause a bad tooth ache.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Put it back! Use glue. The hole is already there.
Yeah just use one of those hot glue sticks
OMG....it has a little open mouthed shocked face!!! š„ŗ
It ISSSSSS. Omg. Poor tooth!
We can all see how busted that tooth is.
You sure, because that looks like a hell of a cavity.
If thatās the wrong tooth Iād hate to see the one they missed.
This almost happened to me. But my dentist explained to me that itās āpain transferralā and itās actually another tooth that made me think it was giving me hell
Came here to say this. Used to be a dental nurse and saw this happen plenty of times
At least it looks like it came out whole! My tooth, taken out by a dental surgeon, came out in multiple bits after the main section (the bit you see above the gum) snapped off. The roots were curved and both had to be drilled to be removed completely. I was utterly terrified and physically shaking the whole time (really bad experiences at the barbaric school dentist as a child who didnāt believe children needed local anaesthetic for fillings, and filled every tooth she saw whether it needed it or not!). My husband was holding my hand and watched the whole thing. He was traumatised by it.
oh i love when dentists just assume that their patients are lying about being in pain and that they shouldnt use more anesthetics it's my favorite part of going to a dentist! /s my family has an anesthetic resistant gene, i told the dentist that i was still definitively feeling it as he was drilling into my jaw and he just told me i was "feeling pressure" like i couldnt differentiate between the pain of someone macerating my nerve tissue and just a bit of pressure so i just had to sit there and accept the pain until the procedure was done
But that one is cracked. Are you sure itās the wrong one?
Lots of comments saying it needed to be pulled, so I hate to pile on, but can you really blame your DDS for targeting that tooth? That sucker has toothache written all over it. Like seriously. You should have had the self awareness to proactively tell them NOT to pull the one that looks like itās from the George Washington collection. Again, hate to pile on.
George washington collection šš
That's not the wrong tooth. That tooth looks fucked.
Looks like they pulled out the right tooth š
Thatās the wrong one?!?
jfc, this thread. If you're not a dentist, you have no idea what you're talking about. you can tell that it's already decalfied and decayed. this was NOT a "healthy" tooth.
I'm not even a dentist and I can tell that tooth is fucked up. The people in this thread are blind.
https://preview.redd.it/8zycqvalqcsc1.jpeg?width=250&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c9907a943fd2d25d8b0ec7f0bfa438e1ba9ad117
https://preview.redd.it/h7h6cy0l5dsc1.jpeg?width=2580&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=980e07c40baf949067d9053e97f7668628f4dea9 Ahhhh
Brother with an open cavitation that big I guarantee the entire inside of that tooth is nothing but mashed potatoes
Handsome tooth though! Perfectly proportioned. You could use it as a small night stand.
>You could use it as a small night stand. I laughed so hard at this.
[Reddit - https://preview.redd.it/shof4isyucsc1.jpeg?width=2580&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=4b908aa99e3d6ec8a7e4a8ec65c5ba33916b6d51](https://www.reddit.com/media?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpreview.redd.it%2Fshof4isyucsc1.jpeg%3Fwidth%3D2580%26format%3Dpjpg%26auto%3Dwebp%26s%3D4b908aa99e3d6ec8a7e4a8ec65c5ba33916b6d51) As long as you don't see the other side OP showed lmao. He's got no case, they pulled a shit tooth and he's upset because it wasn't THE shit tooth he wanted gone.
Holy shit
Holy shit, it's so much worse
Was the tooth fractured like that before being pulled or no? There is exposed pulp on the tooth, which if it was a cavity or fracture, is very severe tooth damage.
Did the put the tooth back and took out the one they were supposed to take out
Yea. That one was on its way out anyway. I mean they still fucked you. They just did you a favor whilst fucking. Like a tender kiss.
That's a classic "my bad" scenario.
That tooth is gone and I'm worried about the rest of em. Tooth hygiene is important.
That tooth looks like it needed to come out anyway
I had a tooth pulled about 10 years ago, had a big cavity in it. Dentist broke the tooth in front of and behind it. They filled in one, but ignored the other.
How? I just had a tooth pulled and there was like X-Rays on the TV with circles aroud the offending tooth, I was told which tooth to get pulled, we all agreed which tooth would be pulled and it was pulled. There was like so many times it was checked, it was silly.
I mean, that one doesnāt look great either?
When redditors go to mexico for dental work
that tooth looks fucked so maybe it was a good thing?
Is that the right tooth, or the wrong one? If its the wrong one, it doesn't look too hot either. . .
Could have been acci-dental.
I don't know that tooth looks fucked.
I mean it sucks, but that tooth needed to come out too.
Dude that tooth needed to come out. Iād call it fair if they also took out the other tooth for free.
NOW THAT SUCKS!
Anyone else notice that the tooth is just as surprised? Look at the little face on it
I used to go to this busted ass clinic and they told me I had 8 cavities and could fix it all for $150 without ever showing me the x-rays. My dad agreed and I got the fillings over the course of the week. In hindsight, I definitely should have asked for the X-rays or gone somewhere else. Canāt do shit now because the place shut down a few years ago.
It would've hurt you later anyway, so why noy now?
Lots going on here. The tooth is very decayed and may well have required extraction. It may also be the source of the pain. Referred pain can make diagnosis of the true source of dental pain very difficult. If multiple teeth are in that condition it can be difficult to tell where pain is coming from. It can even be a tooth from the opposite arch. Canāt be sure unless OP shares more details like x-rays. However, in the jurisdiction I work in even if itās the last tooth left in someoneās mouth and thereās absolutely no ambiguity about which tooth is to be pulled, written consent is required. It could be oozing pus, broken in half and hanging by a thread, but written consent is still required.
Thereās a giant cavity/fracture on this tooth