Friday August 25, 2006

Are you satisfied with your dentist?

I was reading this article about doctors suing their patients who post bad reviews on their blogs or on websites, and that reminded me of something.

How many times do you post a review saying you're satisfied with a service or product? I bet it's not as often as you post how unsatisfied you are with said service or product.

I only thought of it because of a recent experience I had at the dentist's office. It was unlike any other dentist visit I had ever experienced. It was pleasant!

That's right, I said "pleasant."

First, some background on my dental experiences. I do not like the dentist.

The last time I went to the dentist, before last year, was to have my wisdom teeth out in 1998. Yeah, I know that 7 years is a bit long to go without a checkup, but I use a SoniCare™ twice a day and floss every night, and use listerine regularly. I also don't have nasty gums or dead, fuzzy, teeth. No pain, other than from grinding my teeth in my sleep.

The dentist who took out my wisdom teeth had to use a hammer and chisel on the bottom ones, and my insurance didn't cover general anesthesia. Suffice to say, a moderately unpleasant situation.

Before that, in 1997 I had a dentist who decided he wanted to replace some of my fillings because they were corroding, which was fine, except that the new fillings were never quite shaped properly, and it combined with the wisdom teeth extraction to form The Great Dental Migration™ wherein all my molars realigned in my mouth to try and all fit together as best as possible. This lasted several years and was a leading cause of my distrust of dental professionals.

Another dentist told my wife that she needed about $4000 worth of work done to fix cracking molars. My wife has never had any pain, so she decided to get another opinion. The second dentist took the full set of X-Rays, and a hygienist did a thorough cleaning, and then the dentist came back and said "Your mouth looks great. I wish all my patients took as good a care of their mouths. See you in 6 months."

That shocked me. So I went to see *that* dentist. He did a full set of X-Rays on me. Had me get a thorough cleaning, and came back and said "Your teeth look great. No cavities, but you are showing signs of gingivitis, so I recommend that sometime in the next year you get <some super below the gum cleaning>. After 7 years, not needing to have all my teeth drilled out of my head with dull spoons was a great outcome, I thought.

So over the course of the next 12 months, I went in 3 times for this cleaning process, which cost me a couple hundred bucks, but insurance picked up some of that. The first time they did the gum measurements where they poke at your gums, see if they bleed, and call out a number between 1 and 3 (1's being better). No Z's, though. :)

The first time I went, I was mostly 3's. And my gums bled quite a bit. The phrase "Your gums bled quite a bit" apparently means different things to the dental hygienist than it does to me. I was expecting blood transfusions, or at the very least a metallic taste in my mouth. Alas, to them it just means "we can see any amount of blood". Much less exciting.

By the 3rd visit, I was mostly 1's and they said "My what remarkable improvement you've made!". I said, "well, thank you. All the better to eat with." The truth is that they just taught me how to floss better, and I still use the Sonicare™, so really, with this added care, it stands to reason that my mouth would be in better shape.

At this last visit, I mentioned to the dentist that one of my teeth felt funny, so he had a look. Apparently I'd cracked open, and lost a big piece of, one of my metal fillings. He said "come in tomorrow and we'll fix it. In the meantime, stay away from crunchy foods, rices, and popcorn around that tooth. You could split the whole tooth open if you get something caught in there just right.
I went in the next day to have my most pleasant experience ever with a drill in my mouth. Utterly painless, and he didn't OD me on the lidocaine, so I could even feel my face. Wondrous!

Since then, he's replaced my 4 remaining metallic fillings, mostly because I thought the epoxy fillings looked better, not because of any hockey puckey about corrosion. As he replace 4 molar fillings, I mentioned that the didn't fit together proplerly, and explained about the last time my molars had been done. He said this, "You should never have to get used to filling. They should always just fit."

Apparently my last dentist sucked. I won't be posting his name here though, because he might sue me. :)

My new dentist ROCKS! I know, that's a very unusual phrase to hear about a dentist, isn't it?

My new dentist's name is Dr. Michael Rotter. He practices in the Northern Virginia area, with offices near Skyline (Bailey's Crossroads), and Fair Oaks Mall(Fairfax). Listing here. They accept a variety of insurance types.
I think they're taking on new patients, too, so if you're in the Fairfax/Arlington Virginia areas and you need a dentist, give his office a call. Everyone there is super.