I have had several horrible experiences with dentists. I am extremely happy that my current dentist is great.
One of my worst ever experiences was when I was 12 years old and I went to the dentist to have 2 upper teeth extracted in preparation for braces. This dentist advised my parents that I needed some work done on two other teeth. I seem to remember it was a root canal. I had to go see him about 3 times and it was the most painful experience I have ever had at the dentist.
I wonder if he was trying to save money by refraining from using much novacaine. He did use some. But no matter how much I screamed and complained, he would not use any more. Could he actually save much money by refraining from using more novacaine? It seems extremely doubtful to me.
In any case, what could have been up with this dentist such that this woman died? It seems to me fairly obvious that pulling 20 teeth at a sitting is just too many. Why wouldn’t he know any better?
IMHO, this dentist should clearly be suspended for an extremely long time - maybe even forever. How and why would he have done such a thing?
The article says she was having lots of teeth extracted and replaced by implants - I’ve certainly heard of dentistry this drastic before - it sounds like it was a problem with the anaesthetic or her general health, rather than a problem with the extractions themselves.
Dentist here, 20 teeth in one sitting is a bit, but not unheard of by any means. Fairly common for denture cases. Patiensts want all teeth out at once and denture placed at same appointment. The article doesn’t say but I would imagine that the patient was sedated and there was a problem with the sedation. The phrase “became unresponsive” is what leads to think this.
Charlie Wayne I’d guess your dentist then didn’t have good placement of the anesthetic. Failure to get anesthesia is virtually never a volumn(of anesthetic) problem but a placement problem. Where it is placed v. where it needs to be. Upper teeth should almost never be a problem to get numb. Lowers are a bit more problematic. I like to explain to my patients it is like when having blood drawn and the sometimes miss, hell they can see the target and still miss. We can’t see the target so are bound to miss sometimes. The key of course is making the proper adjustment the second injection.
I had seven teeth out in one go when I was a kid – 3 baby teeth and the 4 permanent teeth underneath them. It was preventative orthodontia – rather than waiting for them to come in crowded, they made space in advance.
I had 15 teeth (all of my uppers, less one that’d already been extracted) out at once last year. I was anesthetized for it, but it was an outpatient procedure at an oral surgery clinic and I was out the door about an hour and a half after they put me under.
I’m sure glad I didn’t read about this before I had that done.
Very nice to have a dentist post in this thread and I’m very happy to meet you!
My dentist once told me that it is much easier to freeze upper teeth than lowers and I think he also said that it is much easier to work on uppers than lowers. Just curious, but, has that been your experience as well?
Fairly amazing that some maniac would torture his victim and almost in the same breath tell him, “you really should take better care of your teeth”.
I remember that I found that movie to be quite amazing when I first saw it around 1976 (Marathon Man starring Dustin Hoffman). But it certainly did not hold up at all very well. I saw it again recently and it seemed very trashy to me. Bizarre!
However, if anyone here would like to see the most painful scene of dental torture ever,
you should see that movie "Marathon Man’ starring Dustin Hoffman circa 1976). It did have one interesting plot line in that a Nazi working in a death camp stole a fortune in diamonds from his victims and then, 30 years later, he attempted to convert them into cash in NYC. As he walked down the street in Manhattan, several of his victims recognized him and a group of octogenarians began chasing him down the street. I don’t know whether to say it was amazingly funny or amazingly horrible, but it was def fairly amazing and worth seeing at least once.
“freeze” you in Canada? No insult intended, just only hear that from Canadians. Down here we say “numb up” or rarely “put to sleep”.
Absolutely easier to numb uppers. The bone is thinner and the anesthetic infitrates through it to the nerve. Lowers one generally is trying to place the anesthetic near the mandibular nerve before it enters the bone. Not knowing the exact location and going by anatomic landmarks is harder than just place the needle adjacent to the tooth as on the uppers.
I don’t think it is really any harder or easier to work on an upper or a lower. With good technique it doesn’t make much difference. The patient makes much more difference. Some people are much easier to work on then others.
I generally try to weigh in on all the dental threads, Doesn’t everyone want my opinion?
I’m sorry for any misunderstanding. I never said anything about a hospital procedure.
I’m sure there is a big difference between having 20 teeth extracted when sitting in a dental chair versus going into a hospital and going under anesthesia and having the procedure done that way - with a doctor and anesthesist and dentist all present. I think those are two very diff procedures and I wouldn’t mind having 20 teeth pulled if I went into a hospital and was put under.
But I would never want to do that if I just sat in a dentist’s chair and he did everything himself. I’m sure that I would strongly object to that.
Encore movie channels have been showing that this month and heavily promiting it between shows on their Classics channel. Haven’t seen it and was wondering what those screams were about so, thanks.
A lot of folks have it done in just the dental chair, usually with IV sedation. As in my first post this is probably what went wrong, not the extractions themselves. IV sedation requires additional training and monitoring but not hard to get. Most people wouldn’t want the expense of general anesthia and hospital stay.
