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My son when 3 had a fall and a few teeth were bent. Went to our local dentist who mostly had a wait and see opinion. But then calls a day later and says they’ve

My son when 3 had a fall and a few teeth were bent. Went to our local dentist who mostly had a wait and see opinion. But then calls a day later and says they’ve decided they should just come out. Two top front teeth. Would have no top front teeth for years. I went into engineer mode and while I acknowledged I didn’t have domain expertise, I asked questions and probed the whole situation. Very unsatisfactory, meandering answers. This was a deeply distressing experience. For the first time ever I did the “call in a personal favour” thing and asked my dad to reach out a family friend, a former cosmetic dentist and former head of the province’s dental association for a second opinion. He saw my son a few hours later and he was just livid about the diagnosis. That it was possible they’d have to come out but it’s impossible to know this for at least a few more weeks or more. In a few months the teeth returned 100% to normal and firmed right up as the ligaments healed. I’m not a conspiracy nut. I believe in listening to experts (but ultimately making an informed decision). I believe in modern medicine. But that experience shook me and forever changed my trust in the dental industry. My feeling is that the nature of dentistry leaves a lot of room for subjectivity and COVID left a lot of dental chairs empty.

nazka 3y ago
Thank you to share you story. Well no need to go into conspiracy it’s what is happening and you can see it in our field. Look at all the Oracle consultants out there. :) I would never recommend Oracle for anything. But how can a non tech guy know? All the non tech companies use it, even the top 500… So even more impossible to see that as a non tech guy. I am sure you came across many staff engineers with +10 years of exp that will give weird ideas too and architecture decisions, tech choice etc.. it’s everywhere not just for dentists.
xyzelement 3y ago
Good for you figuring this out. I always point out to my wife that an expert with a financial benefit in the advice they are giving you is potentially more dangerous than an amateur. If you are a dentist, "more dentistry" is likely to resonate with them as a solution, especially if that means they charge for doing the work. No different than if you ask a software developer if you should hire them to automate some process. A true pro may say "nah it's not worth it for you" but that's rare... It's fashionable to dunk on folks who "do their own research" but I admire that more than those who are proud of unquestionably taking direction from vested parties.
- Waterluvian 3y ago
  I think the “do your own research” label conflates two categories: people who are shopping for a comforting answer, and people who want to be informed and make conscious decisions. I don’t have to be a dental expert to know that something isn’t adding up and to seek a second opinion.
  - hunson_abadeer 3y ago
    I think it's easy to come up with such delineation after the fact, but OP was looking for a more comforting answer. By the sound of it, they just didn't like the implications of the initial diagnosis. It wasn't about facts not adding up. The reality is that modern medicine is absolutely amazing, but there are also many interventions backed by shoddy science or no science at all. Sometimes, "doing your own research" exposes such lapses. Sometimes, it sends you off the deep end and you end up chasing ghosts. To allow the former, you need to tolerate some of the latter. And yeah, sometimes the shoddy science involves interventions so basic and so common that you'd think they're sorted out. Consider that Europe and the US take wildly divergent views on topics such as wisdom teeth, colonoscopies, or the value of flu vaccines. "Science literacy" doesn't shield you from being wrong. Maybe it helps, but there's no shortage of Nobel laureates who believe in conspiracy theories or promote dubious medical treatments. Talking about "science literacy" is usually just how geeks convince themselves that their beliefs can't be wrong.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - Waterluvian 3y ago
      It’s funny how every generation of modern medicine acts like this time they know 100% what the correct answers are while we all scoff at how wrong they got it just a few decades ago. Every generation the advice on which way to put your kid to sleep flip flops. It would be shamefully foolish to disregard all the incredible advances and technologies that modern medicine offers. It would be equally shamefully foolish to think it’s not still deeply flawed.
EGreg 3y ago
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- chpatrick 3y ago
  What's the right level of diagnosis for these?
  - Waterluvian 3y ago
    I think that’s part of the problem. Because of long-standing systemic issues with statistical medicine, it’s all but impossible to say “that number is too high or low.” The tail can wag the dog if it so chooses.
  - EGreg 3y ago
    [flagged]
    - anonacct37 3y ago
      I found your comment a bit hard to follow. Did you just blame "ganst" (sic) rap for the increase in diagnosis of gender dysphoria? How does that work?
      - eropple 3y ago
        For those reading who may be unfamiliar, "gangsta rap/drill music" is a common conspiracy-theory shibboleth. Has been for the last ten (drill) to thirty (rap) years. Between that and the water-carrying for anti-trans bigots, this has no place here.
        EGreg 3y ago
        On the contrary, discussing institutional dogma has a major place on HN because the hacker ethos is to question authority and the official narratives of the dominant system we are embedded in. Or at least it used to be… now a larger number of people on HN support centralized power in the form of corporations, state governments, CBDCs, etc. while also bitterly complaining about the downstream results of their exercise of that power. Just because people are being systematically squelched for questioning gangsta rap or giving amphetamines to kids doesn’t mean they are “bigots”. They may care more about individuals than the people who view the kids as just a cog in a machine, and the administrators who cover their butt and barely know anything about the kid. I believe that water-carrying is being done in the other direction far more — the capitalist industries that make a profit. Check out the following issues and ask yourself whether all they have in common is “conspiracy nuts”, or whether on the other side they have a highly organized cooperation to push a change through, and to deplatform and delegitimize anyone — even previously respected experts or people whose job it is to deal with these issues - who dares to make too much noise or criticize whatever agenda is pushed: Weapons industry / military industrial complex — the latest being the war in Ukraine, but previously in Iraq etc. Plastic - recycling (later revealed to be a scam) Depression - I saw lots of pushback right here on HN when questioning SSRIs and imbalance theory, but since the 2022 meta-study that died down Vaccines - we are all aware of how pervasive the push for censorship was, just look at the latest revelations out of FB, Twitter (CBDCs and National IDs - coming soon) Gangsta Rap - anyone speaking against it or its misogyny is attacked Trans activism - anyone voicing any concern for overdiagnosis, or the economic system that separates kids from both their parents, or even continues to use the psychiatric perspective of a disorder or dysphoria out of a concern for children, is shamed as “on the wrong side of history”. BLM - Anyone discussing any other killings other than by cops of unarmed Black men was systematically attacked MeToo - Men told to be quiet, listen and not be part of the conversation. Once again rape is very important topic, but the concept got “overdiagnosed” and stretched to the point where someone like Matt Damon making a nuanced distinction becomes persona non grata To be clear, a man disagreeing with the following tweet is not the same as normalizing rape, but look how quick one side (the water-carrying one, in my opinion) is to paint the other as an “antisemitic/racist/white supremacist/misogynist/putin-supporting/bigot” for merely speaking up and voicing different opinion: https://twitter.com/driverminnie/status/941905518284566528?s=46&t=cVnRCkZW6gXPEHY1gwe9dQ https://twitter.com/driverminnie/status/941905518284566528?s... There are groups who pounce on anyone attributing disparities in economic outcomes to any other factors than the one-dimensional explanation of systemic sexism, racism, etc. It is like when some Zionists explain criticism of Israel purely in terms of systemic antisemitism, or some anti-Zionists navel-gaze at Israel call it the world’s worst violator of human rights and hurl epithets at anyone who mildly disgrees. When you have an agenda you tend to do lots of adhominems. It shuts down the conversation and prevents real discussion exploring other factors. Because institutions have an agenda and they co-opt people into enforcing it. Whether it’s regular Han Chinese in China supporting the locking up of Uyghurs for the “greater good”. Or Sunni/Shiite proxy wars in Yemen. Their “solutions” are invariably worse than the problem, which in any case is upstream and probably due to the very institution and government working together to create it. The well-meaning activists who carry water for these industries and agendas do not engage in good faith. They are so convinced they are morally superior that they simply insinuate you’re a bad person and then respond in passive-aggressive one-liners!
seanmcdirmid 3y ago
Did you consider seeing a doctor? Dentists are sort of doctors, but MDs with teeth specialties could be better, I’m sure your GP could have given you a rec. (Edit: it turns out orthodontist is not like ophthalmologist).
- calderwoodra 3y ago
  Where did you hear that? Most Orthodontists do not have MDs... Did you mean an oral surgeon?
  - seanmcdirmid 3y ago
    Ugh, probably.
- joe5150 3y ago
  All of the orthodontists I quickly searched in my area have DMDs from dental schools.
gitfan86 3y ago
90% of dentistry revenue is a scam. But at the same time it is very important to brush you teeth twice a day and floss weekly. You should also avoid sugary food as much as possible. Dentistry is much like Realtors, they like to take credit for very little actual work. "If I'm not here to confirm people are brushing regularly everyone would lose all their teeth" "I'm so glad I could sell your house for 500k. Without me you may have never sold it"
- benjaminwootton 3y ago
  Surely floss daily should be the advice? It only takes an extra minute when you are brushing so there’s no reason not to.
  - jnwatson 3y ago
    For the same reason you don’t brush 10 times a day. It isn’t significantly more effective than once a week and we all have better things to do.
    - the-alchemist 3y ago
      Was wondering if you knew any RCTs or solid studies...
      - ProjectArcturis 3y ago
        Dentistry in general seems averse to doing RCTs.
- smallerfish 3y ago
  > floss weekly For me daily makes a big difference. If I leave it until weekly my gums will start to suffer for it. I use the little floss picks, as they're much easier to manage for me than floss, and - here's something - they're reusable. Rinse them off like you would your toothbrush and you can keep those suckers going for a long time. You can also get them made from bio-plastic, so that they'll degrade once they go to landfill.
throwaway290 3y ago
Once I had bad pain and went to a dentist, he pulled out a tooth. Later I heard it's absolutely last ditch and replacement teeth are finicky and will make your life much more problematic. Thankfully it's just enough to the side to not be visible so I am getting away without one. (Though I think it's also problematic long term, because remaining teeth would shift.) Never again to trust a dentist, no matter if it's a private clinic in developed country with supposedly great healthcare. Always talk, discuss and research and ask around enough to make own judgement...
- nick__m 3y ago
  Dental implant while costly are wonderful if you have sufficiently dense jawbone, they feel like a real teeth. My dentist also told me that tooth extraction is a last-ditch effort. But that come sooner than you would like; after one rounds of antibiotics, if the pain come back but there are no apparent mechanical defect in the tooth yet the roots are blurry on the x-rays, the probability that a root canal treatment would be successful is quite small and extraction followed by an implant is your best bet.
  - throwaway290 3y ago
    Thank you for insight. Perhaps I heard or understood wrong. Almost sure I was not prescribed antibiotics before extraction that time but to be fair I may be forgetting, it was 4-5 years ago. I guess an implant becomes difficult after so long but I should look it up and see what dentists around say probably.
- dawnerd 3y ago
  I’m missing quite a few teeth not mostly biologically but had two that grew in weird and had to be extracted. Found an amazing dentist that’s on the local board and they’re not pushy about implants but does say don’t wait too long since it’ll end up costing more if the other teeth move. He’s also managed to save a tooth my last dentist absolutely demolished trying to put a crown on it. It’s hard to shop around for dentists but when you find a good one it’s life changing.
umvi 3y ago
It's not just the dental industry that's like this. A lot of medicine is subjective, and a lot of doctors have poor "debugging" skills and do the equivalent of print statements to try to diagnose an issue (guess and check).
- benjaminwootton 3y ago
  I also found this with accountants. My tax affairs are semi-complicated, and every accountant I speak with has a totally different approach and advice. I think if I went to see ten, none of the advice would overlap.
  - GartzenDeHaes 3y ago
    I think that's more in the domain of tax attorneys than accountants.
- heavenlyblue 3y ago
  print statements are not a bad practice
  - psd1 3y ago
    I might expect more when it comes to my health, though
- darkerside 3y ago
  Sometimes that's the best and cheapest way to diagnose.
kypro 3y ago
The same is true for healthcare generally in my experience. Very bad advice is often given. I can't really common about the US, but here in the UK the quality of healthcare is shocking bad. Although we may have the opposite problem, where instead of doing unnecessary procedures to increase costs, the NHS generally tries to avoid doing anything unless you're dying. I had some pain in my abdomen a few years back and had persistently elevated liver enzymes. My doctor told continuously told me not worry about it and would say the pain was probably because I was sitting funny and other nonsense. In their opinion I was too young to have liver problems so there was no point in doing any further tests. Fed up, I decided to do my own research and pay for my own tests. From this I found out that I have a fairly rare generic condition which makes me highly predisposed to liver disease and NAFLD. Certainly not the end of the world, but it pissed me off a bit because the disease could have progressed had I taken their advice and simply ignored it. Around this time I also had a family friend who was the same age as me. She went to the doctors repeatedly over the course of a year describing several symptoms she was experiencing just to be dismissed. Turns out she actually had cervical cancer, but they never ran any tests and kept telling her it was probably nothing to worry about. By the time she found out she had cancer it was stage four and she died a few weeks later. She was 28 and had two kids. Like you I believe in listening to experts. Most experts know what they're talking about and generally give good advice, but it's important to keep in mind the conditions experts operate in. Here in the UK the NHS has neither the time or money to give you high quality healthcare. It doesn't really matter if you see the best doctor in the world, if they can't spent the time and money running the tests you need you're not going to get a good diagnosis.
- iancmceachern 3y ago
  >The same is true for healthcare generally in my experience. Very bad advice is often given. I have seen this in my personal life time and again. I have seen it in my professional life time and again. The only way though the mine field is to take personal ownership over your Healthcare, you need to learn more about what ailes you than the doctors know. You need to be confident in this knowledge enough to challenge them and walk out to receive better care at any moment. This is why people say that healthcare us such a trap in the US particularly. If you are injured and incapacitated you can't advocate for yourself, and if you don't have the support infrastructure in place in your personal life we are just one medical event away from financial and physical ruin.
2-718-281-828 3y ago
> I’m not a conspiracy nut where would be the conspiracy in your experience anyway? > But that experience shook me and forever changed my trust in the dental industry. don't trust any industry. industry is always about making money and keeping a comfortable status quo. sometimes this is achieved through conspiracies.
- read_if_gay_ 3y ago
  [dead]
lowkey 3y ago
> I’m not a conspiracy nut I think that term has lost all meaning. A more appropriate term for someone who no longer blindly trusts expert consensus without question is an inquisitive skeptic who takes in expert opinions and applies reason, judgement, analysis and data to determine a course of action. It’s becoming more and more recognized that expert consensus has become highly politicized and that the problem with blindly following the science is that science often follows the money.
phpisthebest 3y ago
>>I believe in listening to experts (but ultimately making an informed decision). The problem for the most part in all industries is we have moved from a system of experts to a system of credentials. Now one would say that in order to get a credential in something one must be an "expert" but this is far far from the truth, there are all kinds of competing incentives to ensure an ever increasing supply of "credentialed" professionals that have nothing to do with validation of their expertise in a given field or subject. It does not matter if it something like an electrician, or brain surgeon, from teaching, to physics, and everything in between including medicine, we favor credentials now not expertise Largely the consumer public simply looks to see if this person as the correct credential. license, etc for the given job... Consumers often lack the resources, information, or decisions tree in most instances to look for any indicators of actual knowledge in the field beyond that credential
- tomsmeding 3y ago
  > Consumers often lack the resources, information, or decisions tree in most instances to look for any indicators of actual knowledge in the field beyond that credential This is true. I have no clue how to check the expertise of my dentist, apart from using my own mental bullshit detector (of limited use here) and reading reviews by others (also of questionable use, because who reviews their dentist? And where?). The analogous problem exists for certain kinds of expensive products with the property that they usually work well, but sometimes become flaky. Think a washing machine. Who posts a review about their washing machine four years post-date that it's still going strong? And absence of base rate information makes absolute numbers of bad reviews mostly meaningless.
  - phpisthebest 3y ago
    >>expensive products with the property that they usually work well, but sometimes become flaky. Think a washing machine. that is a different problem, consumerism killed that. There used to be several media companies that focused on long term durability of "durable goods" like washing machines and such But today most people buy new appliances not when they fail but when they need to upgrade to the latest technology, or because new government regulations makes them unfeasible to use / service, or because the Calendar function on their smart fridge does not work with google cloud anymore (true story), etc...
basisword 3y ago
>> I’m not a conspiracy nut. I believe in listening to experts (but ultimately making an informed decision). I believe in modern medicine. But that experience shook me and forever changed my trust in the dental industry. Ask anybody who’s experienced a “chronic” illness about the “experts” and they’ll tell you a tale or two. The experts are great until they have a case that is unusual. The don’t have the time or knowledge to treat you properly. You get passed from “expert” to “expert” each time having your hopes dashed. You start feeling like a conspiracy nut chatting with other patients online sharing what’s anecdotally helped. After running into this issue more than once I’ve lost all blind trust in medical experts. I’ll verify what they tell me as best I can and get second opinions if necessary. In one case I was passed up the chain of experts until I finally found the right one myself after a year, and it still blows my mind that this wasn’t the first referral. The system is at the same time incredible and awful.
- chrismarlow9 3y ago
  Same experience here. My analysis is it's a money milking scheme between groups of doctors. Pass you around so everyone gets a cut and they cross refer people to scratch each other's backs. Surgeon refers you to pain management and pain management refers you to surgeon. Add in a physical therapist, testing facility, and chiropractor and you got a pretty lucrative meshnet of referrals going.
  - basisword 3y ago
    Tbf in my case this was NHS so no money to be made by referrals afaik. It mostly seems to be a lack of up-to date knowledge paired with a reluctance to take the initiative and research the latest information for a specific case. As a substitute they refer you up the chain where the same problem also exists.
    - wizofaus 3y ago
      > NHS so no money to be made by referrals afaik I wouldn't assume that - just because the money isn't coming from your pocket directly, it's inevitable there are doctors that milk the system. But you'd think bureaucrats whose job it is to assess the legitimacy of requests to the NHS (or equivalent institution in your own country) for payment might be harder to swindle than your typical patient.
NullPrefix 3y ago
>For the first time ever I did the “call in a personal favour” thing and asked my dad to reach out a family friend, a former cosmetic dentist and former head of the province’s dental association for a second opinion. Why aren't you using connections on a daily basis to get reliable services?
varjag 3y ago
D students have to work somewhere too.
ArisakaDJB 3y ago
I'm not from the U.S. but I was that kid. I broke my teeth when I was 6. My dad took me to the local dentist who told me to "leave him as it is" for a decade. Except my teeth were my second teeth, and they were half broken. I was walking around with half-blackened by the rot teeth, which caused all sorts of health problems on top of all the bullying and the first kiss kids tend to take came to me after I fixed the teeth. And don't get me started with my chronic illness that I've been looking for diagnosis for the last 10+ years.
- cies 3y ago
  I have a tooth with a root-canal treatment that I dont trust. But several dentists say all is fine.
- redeeman 3y ago
  the dentist regularly examined you and doubled down on "leave him as it is" thoughout a decade? while a dentist should of course make sure to double check if its the permanent teeth and all that, I feel that your dad did not really fulfill his role as a proper parent here
slim 3y ago
the whole discipline is based on interpretation of symptoms. the job of a doctor is exactly like debugging a live system except when it crashes you don't get to restart it. they actually investigate by testing their suspected diagnostic on you. they literally give you a medicine and don't know if it will work. that's their normal process. I think what happened to that dentist is he changed his diagnostic because of an external factor, like realising that removing the teeth is less risky with regards to getting sued by you.
selfmodruntime 3y ago
Similar story here. I went to a dentist, who with a sad look told me that all my wisdom teeth needed pulling. She recommended me to an oral surgeon who agreed and wanted to do the surgery, but not without first handing me a letter to sign which stated that I would not sue her if I lost feelings in my face or developed some kind of permanent pain. Seemed fine to me, but my father insisted to ask a friend of his who is a dentist. Turns out my wisdom teeth were completely fine and none needed pulling. My pain just stemmed from me grinding my teeth at night.
- cies 3y ago
  > grinding my teeth For which magnesium (try different types of Mg-salts) helps many! (never heard that from a dentist, again, possssibllyy because the solution is not sold in their shop)
svara 3y ago
> I’m not a conspiracy nut. I believe in listening to experts (but ultimately making an informed decision). I believe in modern medicine. But that experience shook me and forever changed my trust in the dental industry. To be fair, in your story the "former head of the province’s dental association" apparently did know his craft, indicating that competence is rewarded in dentistry also... There are a lot of doctors and dentists, and as in any field, mastership of a profession is rare. So you did the obvious and correct thing of finding someone more competent when you had doubts. That would honestly have reinforced my trust in medicine more than do the opposite...
wouldbecouldbe 3y ago
I have learned from personal experience to never take healthcare medicals for their words. Always do your own research. Ask them consequences and how sure they are. And take into consideration the impact of treatments and diagnosis to the life quality of yourself or loved ones. At times can be hard for doctors and others to look beyond their own worldview. Personally I’ve had this eczema where I found the correct cream by reading the research on it, and later found out this is also the official advice. Most doctors here just prescribe an old cream out of habit, that contains hormones and often creates worse side effects. But a bigger diagnosis mistake was a close family member diagnosed with a very bad gen defect that would cause liver failure within a few years. He wanted the kid to start taking unpleasant medicines to be sure. He told us to get bloodwork done (without mentioning the costs) but in the end couldn’t find enough genes that had the mistakes. He wanted to do even more bloodwork being convinced there needed to be 2 genes with the defect, but I clearly told him he was going in uncharted territory, after doing the extra bloodwork he had to come back and agree he was wrong. One defect gene was found and in extreme health circumstances liver values were found that matched the pattern of a certain disease. Which is why he was convinced it was wrong. He was a well intentioned doctor, but these academics doctors get obsessed with analysing and diagnosis without always understanding the costs for the patients. Although they try to. In the meantime our family thought the kid was going to die for months and made significant unnecessary costs.
- NovaDudely 3y ago
  Oh yeah I had really bad skin flaking, they would orescibe all kinds of hormone or steroid based creams that would next to nothing. One search on Reddit and many people just said to use petrolium gel. Bam fixed it up in two days! Costs me about $3 a year to control this now.
  - Scoundreller 3y ago
    petrolatum is underappreciated as a moisturizer imo. Too cheap for a good marketing budget. Most of the expensive moisturizers is going to be 80-90% petrolatum and a bunch of crap that's more likely to irritate than help (but smells nice!). Don't get me started on "non-greasy" formulations... it's the greasiness that makes it work! Pro-tip: put your moisturizer on just after washing. You want to trap in all that water!
dublo7 3y ago
My kids had insurance through their mom, because she made shitty pay, but good benefits. She lost her job and put them on state medicaid plan. Suddenly my son who has never had a cavity in his life needed 6 fillings. I took him to my dentist who found a single tooth that may have a cavity but it's too early to be sure. A year later he's had one filling. And that one was not any of the teeth the other dentist wanted to drill. He flosses in public bathrooms. They obviously was a cash grab and were going to just drill the fuck out of his mouth to maximize medicaid payments.
- whynotminot 3y ago
  Was military in the past, so on tricare. Base dentist was busy so they referred me off base to a local dental clinic for my regular cleaning. That local dentist I guess saw a blank check when I walked in the door and tried to convince me I had 5 cavities that needed filling. I told him to finish just the cleaning and I’d check back in with my military dentist. Military dentist later looked me over again and said I had one slowly developing potential cavity to keep an eye on. That’s it. A lot of dentists are apparently unethical hack shops.
ornornor 3y ago
I feel like dentistry in particular is one of the least rigorous of medical sciences. From my point of view (patient), I feels like dentists base their treatment recommendations on how much kickback they’re getting from medical corporations (Invisalign anyone?) and biased papers. I wonder why dentistry is so far removed from the rest of the medical profession on this. Not that MDs are immune to the above but it feels to me like it’s not as bad as in dentistry.
- gochi 3y ago
  I don't feel the same, a lot of other medical professions are very similar to dentistry. Deal with a chronic plantar fasciitis and you'll see exactly what I mean, clueless experts everywhere with nowhere near the amount of rigor you would expect. Anyways beyond that, dentistry sits in a very interesting position where there isn't a whole lot that can be done (without major breakthrough). It's why so much is based on preventative measure. It's also why the field feels "antiquated" in a way, we're still using simple instruments to scrape the teeth (or inside the tooth when it comes to root canals), or yanking the entire tooth out. We haven't got much farther than cavemen using stones to clean plaque in that way, besides the pain mitigation. It's the one field that is ripe for revolutionary improvements if it weren't for corporations constantly pushing their garbage studies.
- goostavos 3y ago
  Invisalign works pretty well, though. I'm pretty pleased it was "pushed" on me. I had some messed up teeth. 12 months of trays later and I my teeth are more or less in the right place now.
  - ornornor 3y ago
    What bothers me is that it’s a commercial product that is pushed very hard and where dentists have a financial incentive in you getting the treatment they’re recommending. It might work, but the conflict of interest is there and you’ll never know if there wasn’t a superior/cheaper/more suitable alternative. Ditto Oral B toothbrushes. Or Pedigree Pal at vets.
dsugarman 3y ago
I think in general it's safe to take a cynical view on every vendors aptitude. Many, if not most, people are terrible at their jobs and it's your job to find the good ones and hold onto them
AQuantized 3y ago
I saw a private dentist for the first time roughly a year ago. I was under the impression that I had 10+ fillings, and prior to lockdowns a dentist had told me I needed at least 2 more, which I assumed would still be the case. He said he could see no indication of decay that would need treatment, and all the 'fillings' I had were more like sealants in the enamel, none of which reached the dentin, and any of them could have been avoided by a more wait and see approach. I saw 5+ dentists on the public health system that all had the same cavalier approach, and it's hard to assume it wasn't to line their own pockets.
jokethrowaway 3y ago
My son had cavities at 3, likely resulting from a lack of minerals and breastfeeding until 3. UK NHS diagnosis was to pull 4 front top teeth out. I asked a relative (a doctor working in a public hospital but not a dentist) who advised to absolutely don't do that without even seeing him in person (COVID lockdown BS). A local private dentist agreed and wanted 5k to fix his teeth (remove cavities, put fillings under general anesthetics). In the end we went to Russia and got it done for 1k. That's public healthcare for you! His teeth have been fine for years, not long until he loses them naturally.
manicennui 3y ago
Believing that absolutely everything in the US, including medicine and food, is negatively impacted by the drive for more profit, does not make you a conspiracy nut; it is the defining characteristic of the US economy.
megablast 3y ago
How did he eat with bent teeth?
rmbyrro 3y ago
> COVID left a lot of dental chairs empty Why?
ekianjo 3y ago
> I’m not a conspiracy nut. I believe in listening to experts (but ultimately making an informed decision). I believe in modern medicine. But that experience shook me and forever changed my trust in the dental industry. This is the same thing with doctors for any difficult disease to treat. You will tons of different opinions based on the same facts that are available to them. It makes you seriously wonder what kind of expertise is that in the end?
janmo 3y ago
Same experience when I was a kid. I fell and had a milk teeth that was completely lose. The dentist just said to leave it as is. It fixed itself as well.
neycoda 3y ago
Seems like the dentist could have just searched Google for how bent teeth work.
matheusmoreira 3y ago
> I believe in listening to experts (but ultimately making an informed decision). The whole point of consulting a professional is so they can provide you with the necessary information to make important decisions. It's up to them to explain things to you so that you understand well enough to make an informed decision. Unsatisfactory, meandering answers means you aren't getting the information you need to decide and you should absolutely seek another professional until you find one you trust. In fact, when we don't know something, the professional thing to do is to admit it and refer you to another professional who does.
dham 3y ago
Everyone made fun of people that said, "I did my own research" during Covid, but if you've been failed by the medical system once, you're used to this.
gcanyon 3y ago
I was probably four when I fell against the sandbox in the playground and knocked one of my top front teeth right out. I carried it inside to the teacher, who had me bite on a paper towel to stop the bleeding and sent me home with the tooth wrapped in another paper towel in my pocket. About a week later I fell against a large wooden block in the classroom and knocked the other top front tooth clean out. I went for something over a year without top front teeth, but my adult teeth came in early, so it wasn't 2 or 3 years like it might have been. This was a long time ago, and I still have both the adult teeth, although one of them died when I got hit in the face with a football in the third grade. All to say that n=1 but it likely wouldn't have been the worst thing if the two teeth had come out.
- sensanaty 3y ago
  My friend it seems to me like you should be wearing mouthguards more often, with how often you seem to get your front teeth hit somehow!
- guythedudebro 3y ago
  You need a mouth guard
  - gcanyon 3y ago
    It was worse than that -- the football thing happened when I had old-school braces, and my lips were literally smashed onto the railroad tracks, so much so that I had to walk to the drinking fountain and pry/peel my lips off the braces, with an accompanying rush of blood. Good times! I'm a grown-ass adult now, and I haven't had issues like this since my late teens.
steeve 3y ago
Exactly my own experience with a Guillain Barré syndrome. Went full engineer and finally met the right people. Medicine is a marvel, but it’s a opportunity cost. You meet with people who have 10 minutes to pattern match you, which works for probably close to all the cases they see, until it doesn’t, and it’s you.
kelnos 3y ago
> I believe in modern medicine. It's completely reasonable to believe in modern medicine, but also to remember that humans are imperfect and have all sorts of biases and limitations when practicing modern medicine. Add on top of that how most health care systems make things much more difficult than they need to be, for both the doctor and the patient.
latexr 3y ago
> My feeling is that the nature of dentistry leaves a lot of room for subjectivity and COVID left a lot of dental chairs empty. It’s stated at the bottom that the original article is from 1997. COVID doesn’t factor into it.
atraac 3y ago
> I believe in modern medicine. But that experience shook me and forever changed my trust in the dental industry. This can be applied to almost everything. Looking at average software developers around, I see people with 10 years of experience who have no idea how anything works, they just copy paste the same CRUD APIs for their whole career, never really learning anything, trying to understand, just coasting through corporate life. Half of people are worse than 'average' person, this applies to everything and it's especially evident with doctors. They'll just tell you to wait and see, take vitamins or straight out ignore you. They might not know any better, or just think they know everything, you never know because you're not an expert. As an example of this I highly recommend reading Wired's article on Lee Holloway.
Fnoord 3y ago
In The Netherlands, going for a second opinion is a right (under insurance). And my experience with a dentist who wanted to suddenly remove a molar (without asking me, he already had the anesthetic ready) left me bewildered. Especially since it was a dentist organization for people with anxiety. NB: I have needle phobia, but not dentist phobia. Then he started to guilt trip me cause he already grabbed the anesthetic, but I said that didn't work on me. He threatened it'd be billed, not sure whether that happened in the end but if I was consciously aware of it I wouldn't have paid. Tho I'd just lost my father and got into a long term relationship as well, so my mind was elsewhere. Then I went to a different dentist (I had to cause I moved) and he had the wait and see approach. I didn't tell you yet that I had a chronic inflammation (abscess) under the molar. A year or so later, I finally went to the dental stomatologist and he suggested oxazepam. What an experience (both the drug and the removal of the inflammation). Then the healing process came. And I even had some stomach pains from all the ibuprofen (too long w/o stomach protector). Ever since that I always use a stomach protector with ibuprofen, just to be sure. No stomach protector, no ibuprofen. We were very happy with this dentist. Since it became a bit too impractical we now are at yet another dentist who's in our neighborhood and literally next to our kid's school. Very practical, but we were happier with the previous dentist. Now our 3 year old has damage on all 4 of his milk canines, having damaged tooth enamel. We don't know what or why, only difference I can tell with his older sister is he's been going on with breastfeeding longer, and he liked chewing on stuff more than her (his teeth and mouth also have a bit different form; more my wife's than mine). The rest seems fine. The dentist guilt tripped us into that I'd probably not been brushing his teeth well enough (because of COVID my wife was waiting with our daughter, she'd have given him a firm reply but I just listened and took it in), but I'm pretty sure we did this correct (perhaps too well?); twice a day since his first tooth showed up. So I'm considering going for a second opinion. The beauty is my kids are freely insured for teeth until their 18th in The Netherlands, after that they're on their own. But until then, the government takes care of their costs. I know it ain't like that in certain other (even rich) countries.
cramjabsyn 3y ago
Sadly there is no conspiracy needed. The for profit health care model is a significant contributor. Dentists are also business people, and there are strong monetary incentives for them to upsell. That's not to defend the behavior, but I think we should acknowledge the problem is systemic and that a non profit healthcare approach would be more appropriate for the vast majority of situations.
datavirtue 3y ago
I have had a lot of work done on my mouth. I consider all dentists as incompetent, swindling, quacks until they prove otherwise. My current dentist's niche is NOT performing anything that is unnecessary. A lot of people are taken aback when they say everything looks good. Makes for a great culture in his office.
supertofu 3y ago
Just wait until you hear about how the majority of gastroenterologists treat IBD.
joker_minmax 3y ago
I had a friend in 2014 who said her orthodontist wanted to pull 3 of her molars in order for her teeth to ever be straight. She went to another orthodontist who said "WTF, your condition doesn't even need metal braces, you can use the clear aligners", and was angry that the other one wanted to pull her teeth... Always get a second opinion.

nazka 3y ago

Thank you to share you story. Well no need to go into conspiracy it’s what is happening and you can see it in our field. Look at all the Oracle consultants out there. :) I would never recommend Oracle for anything. But how can a non tech guy know? All the non tech companies use it, even the top 500… So even more impossible to see that as a non tech guy. I am sure you came across many staff engineers with +10 years of exp that will give weird ideas too and architecture decisions, tech choice etc.. it’s everywhere not just for dentists.

xyzelement 3y ago

Good for you figuring this out. I always point out to my wife that an expert with a financial benefit in the advice they are giving you is potentially more dangerous than an amateur. If you are a dentist, "more dentistry" is likely to resonate with them as a solution, especially if that means they charge for doing the work. No different than if you ask a software developer if you should hire them to automate some process. A true pro may say "nah it's not worth it for you" but that's rare... It's fashionable to dunk on folks who "do their own research" but I admire that more than those who are proud of unquestionably taking direction from vested parties.

Waterluvian 3y ago
I think the “do your own research” label conflates two categories: people who are shopping for a comforting answer, and people who want to be informed and make conscious decisions. I don’t have to be a dental expert to know that something isn’t adding up and to seek a second opinion.
- hunson_abadeer 3y ago
  I think it's easy to come up with such delineation after the fact, but OP was looking for a more comforting answer. By the sound of it, they just didn't like the implications of the initial diagnosis. It wasn't about facts not adding up. The reality is that modern medicine is absolutely amazing, but there are also many interventions backed by shoddy science or no science at all. Sometimes, "doing your own research" exposes such lapses. Sometimes, it sends you off the deep end and you end up chasing ghosts. To allow the former, you need to tolerate some of the latter. And yeah, sometimes the shoddy science involves interventions so basic and so common that you'd think they're sorted out. Consider that Europe and the US take wildly divergent views on topics such as wisdom teeth, colonoscopies, or the value of flu vaccines. "Science literacy" doesn't shield you from being wrong. Maybe it helps, but there's no shortage of Nobel laureates who believe in conspiracy theories or promote dubious medical treatments. Talking about "science literacy" is usually just how geeks convince themselves that their beliefs can't be wrong.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - Waterluvian 3y ago
    It’s funny how every generation of modern medicine acts like this time they know 100% what the correct answers are while we all scoff at how wrong they got it just a few decades ago. Every generation the advice on which way to put your kid to sleep flip flops. It would be shamefully foolish to disregard all the incredible advances and technologies that modern medicine offers. It would be equally shamefully foolish to think it’s not still deeply flawed.

EGreg 3y ago

[flagged]

chpatrick 3y ago
What's the right level of diagnosis for these?
- Waterluvian 3y ago
  I think that’s part of the problem. Because of long-standing systemic issues with statistical medicine, it’s all but impossible to say “that number is too high or low.” The tail can wag the dog if it so chooses.
- EGreg 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - anonacct37 3y ago
    I found your comment a bit hard to follow. Did you just blame "ganst" (sic) rap for the increase in diagnosis of gender dysphoria? How does that work?
    - eropple 3y ago
      For those reading who may be unfamiliar, "gangsta rap/drill music" is a common conspiracy-theory shibboleth. Has been for the last ten (drill) to thirty (rap) years. Between that and the water-carrying for anti-trans bigots, this has no place here.
      - EGreg 3y ago
        On the contrary, discussing institutional dogma has a major place on HN because the hacker ethos is to question authority and the official narratives of the dominant system we are embedded in. Or at least it used to be… now a larger number of people on HN support centralized power in the form of corporations, state governments, CBDCs, etc. while also bitterly complaining about the downstream results of their exercise of that power. Just because people are being systematically squelched for questioning gangsta rap or giving amphetamines to kids doesn’t mean they are “bigots”. They may care more about individuals than the people who view the kids as just a cog in a machine, and the administrators who cover their butt and barely know anything about the kid. I believe that water-carrying is being done in the other direction far more — the capitalist industries that make a profit. Check out the following issues and ask yourself whether all they have in common is “conspiracy nuts”, or whether on the other side they have a highly organized cooperation to push a change through, and to deplatform and delegitimize anyone — even previously respected experts or people whose job it is to deal with these issues - who dares to make too much noise or criticize whatever agenda is pushed: Weapons industry / military industrial complex — the latest being the war in Ukraine, but previously in Iraq etc. Plastic - recycling (later revealed to be a scam) Depression - I saw lots of pushback right here on HN when questioning SSRIs and imbalance theory, but since the 2022 meta-study that died down Vaccines - we are all aware of how pervasive the push for censorship was, just look at the latest revelations out of FB, Twitter (CBDCs and National IDs - coming soon) Gangsta Rap - anyone speaking against it or its misogyny is attacked Trans activism - anyone voicing any concern for overdiagnosis, or the economic system that separates kids from both their parents, or even continues to use the psychiatric perspective of a disorder or dysphoria out of a concern for children, is shamed as “on the wrong side of history”. BLM - Anyone discussing any other killings other than by cops of unarmed Black men was systematically attacked MeToo - Men told to be quiet, listen and not be part of the conversation. Once again rape is very important topic, but the concept got “overdiagnosed” and stretched to the point where someone like Matt Damon making a nuanced distinction becomes persona non grata To be clear, a man disagreeing with the following tweet is not the same as normalizing rape, but look how quick one side (the water-carrying one, in my opinion) is to paint the other as an “antisemitic/racist/white supremacist/misogynist/putin-supporting/bigot” for merely speaking up and voicing different opinion: https://twitter.com/driverminnie/status/941905518284566528?s=46&t=cVnRCkZW6gXPEHY1gwe9dQ https://twitter.com/driverminnie/status/941905518284566528?s... There are groups who pounce on anyone attributing disparities in economic outcomes to any other factors than the one-dimensional explanation of systemic sexism, racism, etc. It is like when some Zionists explain criticism of Israel purely in terms of systemic antisemitism, or some anti-Zionists navel-gaze at Israel call it the world’s worst violator of human rights and hurl epithets at anyone who mildly disgrees. When you have an agenda you tend to do lots of adhominems. It shuts down the conversation and prevents real discussion exploring other factors. Because institutions have an agenda and they co-opt people into enforcing it. Whether it’s regular Han Chinese in China supporting the locking up of Uyghurs for the “greater good”. Or Sunni/Shiite proxy wars in Yemen. Their “solutions” are invariably worse than the problem, which in any case is upstream and probably due to the very institution and government working together to create it. The well-meaning activists who carry water for these industries and agendas do not engage in good faith. They are so convinced they are morally superior that they simply insinuate you’re a bad person and then respond in passive-aggressive one-liners!

seanmcdirmid 3y ago

Did you consider seeing a doctor? Dentists are sort of doctors, but MDs with teeth specialties could be better, I’m sure your GP could have given you a rec. (Edit: it turns out orthodontist is not like ophthalmologist).

calderwoodra 3y ago
Where did you hear that? Most Orthodontists do not have MDs... Did you mean an oral surgeon?
- seanmcdirmid 3y ago
  Ugh, probably.
joe5150 3y ago
All of the orthodontists I quickly searched in my area have DMDs from dental schools.

gitfan86 3y ago

90% of dentistry revenue is a scam. But at the same time it is very important to brush you teeth twice a day and floss weekly. You should also avoid sugary food as much as possible. Dentistry is much like Realtors, they like to take credit for very little actual work. "If I'm not here to confirm people are brushing regularly everyone would lose all their teeth" "I'm so glad I could sell your house for 500k. Without me you may have never sold it"

benjaminwootton 3y ago
Surely floss daily should be the advice? It only takes an extra minute when you are brushing so there’s no reason not to.
- jnwatson 3y ago
  For the same reason you don’t brush 10 times a day. It isn’t significantly more effective than once a week and we all have better things to do.
  - the-alchemist 3y ago
    Was wondering if you knew any RCTs or solid studies...
    - ProjectArcturis 3y ago
      Dentistry in general seems averse to doing RCTs.
smallerfish 3y ago
> floss weekly For me daily makes a big difference. If I leave it until weekly my gums will start to suffer for it. I use the little floss picks, as they're much easier to manage for me than floss, and - here's something - they're reusable. Rinse them off like you would your toothbrush and you can keep those suckers going for a long time. You can also get them made from bio-plastic, so that they'll degrade once they go to landfill.

throwaway290 3y ago

Once I had bad pain and went to a dentist, he pulled out a tooth. Later I heard it's absolutely last ditch and replacement teeth are finicky and will make your life much more problematic. Thankfully it's just enough to the side to not be visible so I am getting away without one. (Though I think it's also problematic long term, because remaining teeth would shift.) Never again to trust a dentist, no matter if it's a private clinic in developed country with supposedly great healthcare. Always talk, discuss and research and ask around enough to make own judgement...

nick__m 3y ago
Dental implant while costly are wonderful if you have sufficiently dense jawbone, they feel like a real teeth. My dentist also told me that tooth extraction is a last-ditch effort. But that come sooner than you would like; after one rounds of antibiotics, if the pain come back but there are no apparent mechanical defect in the tooth yet the roots are blurry on the x-rays, the probability that a root canal treatment would be successful is quite small and extraction followed by an implant is your best bet.
- throwaway290 3y ago
  Thank you for insight. Perhaps I heard or understood wrong. Almost sure I was not prescribed antibiotics before extraction that time but to be fair I may be forgetting, it was 4-5 years ago. I guess an implant becomes difficult after so long but I should look it up and see what dentists around say probably.
dawnerd 3y ago
I’m missing quite a few teeth not mostly biologically but had two that grew in weird and had to be extracted. Found an amazing dentist that’s on the local board and they’re not pushy about implants but does say don’t wait too long since it’ll end up costing more if the other teeth move. He’s also managed to save a tooth my last dentist absolutely demolished trying to put a crown on it. It’s hard to shop around for dentists but when you find a good one it’s life changing.

umvi 3y ago

It's not just the dental industry that's like this. A lot of medicine is subjective, and a lot of doctors have poor "debugging" skills and do the equivalent of print statements to try to diagnose an issue (guess and check).

benjaminwootton 3y ago
I also found this with accountants. My tax affairs are semi-complicated, and every accountant I speak with has a totally different approach and advice. I think if I went to see ten, none of the advice would overlap.
- GartzenDeHaes 3y ago
  I think that's more in the domain of tax attorneys than accountants.
heavenlyblue 3y ago
print statements are not a bad practice
- psd1 3y ago
  I might expect more when it comes to my health, though
darkerside 3y ago
Sometimes that's the best and cheapest way to diagnose.

kypro 3y ago

The same is true for healthcare generally in my experience. Very bad advice is often given. I can't really common about the US, but here in the UK the quality of healthcare is shocking bad. Although we may have the opposite problem, where instead of doing unnecessary procedures to increase costs, the NHS generally tries to avoid doing anything unless you're dying. I had some pain in my abdomen a few years back and had persistently elevated liver enzymes. My doctor told continuously told me not worry about it and would say the pain was probably because I was sitting funny and other nonsense. In their opinion I was too young to have liver problems so there was no point in doing any further tests. Fed up, I decided to do my own research and pay for my own tests. From this I found out that I have a fairly rare generic condition which makes me highly predisposed to liver disease and NAFLD. Certainly not the end of the world, but it pissed me off a bit because the disease could have progressed had I taken their advice and simply ignored it. Around this time I also had a family friend who was the same age as me. She went to the doctors repeatedly over the course of a year describing several symptoms she was experiencing just to be dismissed. Turns out she actually had cervical cancer, but they never ran any tests and kept telling her it was probably nothing to worry about. By the time she found out she had cancer it was stage four and she died a few weeks later. She was 28 and had two kids. Like you I believe in listening to experts. Most experts know what they're talking about and generally give good advice, but it's important to keep in mind the conditions experts operate in. Here in the UK the NHS has neither the time or money to give you high quality healthcare. It doesn't really matter if you see the best doctor in the world, if they can't spent the time and money running the tests you need you're not going to get a good diagnosis.

iancmceachern 3y ago
>The same is true for healthcare generally in my experience. Very bad advice is often given. I have seen this in my personal life time and again. I have seen it in my professional life time and again. The only way though the mine field is to take personal ownership over your Healthcare, you need to learn more about what ailes you than the doctors know. You need to be confident in this knowledge enough to challenge them and walk out to receive better care at any moment. This is why people say that healthcare us such a trap in the US particularly. If you are injured and incapacitated you can't advocate for yourself, and if you don't have the support infrastructure in place in your personal life we are just one medical event away from financial and physical ruin.

2-718-281-828 3y ago

> I’m not a conspiracy nut where would be the conspiracy in your experience anyway? > But that experience shook me and forever changed my trust in the dental industry. don't trust any industry. industry is always about making money and keeping a comfortable status quo. sometimes this is achieved through conspiracies.

read_if_gay_ 3y ago
[dead]

lowkey 3y ago

> I’m not a conspiracy nut I think that term has lost all meaning. A more appropriate term for someone who no longer blindly trusts expert consensus without question is an inquisitive skeptic who takes in expert opinions and applies reason, judgement, analysis and data to determine a course of action. It’s becoming more and more recognized that expert consensus has become highly politicized and that the problem with blindly following the science is that science often follows the money.

phpisthebest 3y ago

>>I believe in listening to experts (but ultimately making an informed decision). The problem for the most part in all industries is we have moved from a system of experts to a system of credentials. Now one would say that in order to get a credential in something one must be an "expert" but this is far far from the truth, there are all kinds of competing incentives to ensure an ever increasing supply of "credentialed" professionals that have nothing to do with validation of their expertise in a given field or subject. It does not matter if it something like an electrician, or brain surgeon, from teaching, to physics, and everything in between including medicine, we favor credentials now not expertise Largely the consumer public simply looks to see if this person as the correct credential. license, etc for the given job... Consumers often lack the resources, information, or decisions tree in most instances to look for any indicators of actual knowledge in the field beyond that credential

tomsmeding 3y ago
> Consumers often lack the resources, information, or decisions tree in most instances to look for any indicators of actual knowledge in the field beyond that credential This is true. I have no clue how to check the expertise of my dentist, apart from using my own mental bullshit detector (of limited use here) and reading reviews by others (also of questionable use, because who reviews their dentist? And where?). The analogous problem exists for certain kinds of expensive products with the property that they usually work well, but sometimes become flaky. Think a washing machine. Who posts a review about their washing machine four years post-date that it's still going strong? And absence of base rate information makes absolute numbers of bad reviews mostly meaningless.
- phpisthebest 3y ago
  >>expensive products with the property that they usually work well, but sometimes become flaky. Think a washing machine. that is a different problem, consumerism killed that. There used to be several media companies that focused on long term durability of "durable goods" like washing machines and such But today most people buy new appliances not when they fail but when they need to upgrade to the latest technology, or because new government regulations makes them unfeasible to use / service, or because the Calendar function on their smart fridge does not work with google cloud anymore (true story), etc...

basisword 3y ago

>> I’m not a conspiracy nut. I believe in listening to experts (but ultimately making an informed decision). I believe in modern medicine. But that experience shook me and forever changed my trust in the dental industry. Ask anybody who’s experienced a “chronic” illness about the “experts” and they’ll tell you a tale or two. The experts are great until they have a case that is unusual. The don’t have the time or knowledge to treat you properly. You get passed from “expert” to “expert” each time having your hopes dashed. You start feeling like a conspiracy nut chatting with other patients online sharing what’s anecdotally helped. After running into this issue more than once I’ve lost all blind trust in medical experts. I’ll verify what they tell me as best I can and get second opinions if necessary. In one case I was passed up the chain of experts until I finally found the right one myself after a year, and it still blows my mind that this wasn’t the first referral. The system is at the same time incredible and awful.

chrismarlow9 3y ago
Same experience here. My analysis is it's a money milking scheme between groups of doctors. Pass you around so everyone gets a cut and they cross refer people to scratch each other's backs. Surgeon refers you to pain management and pain management refers you to surgeon. Add in a physical therapist, testing facility, and chiropractor and you got a pretty lucrative meshnet of referrals going.
- basisword 3y ago
  Tbf in my case this was NHS so no money to be made by referrals afaik. It mostly seems to be a lack of up-to date knowledge paired with a reluctance to take the initiative and research the latest information for a specific case. As a substitute they refer you up the chain where the same problem also exists.
  - wizofaus 3y ago
    > NHS so no money to be made by referrals afaik I wouldn't assume that - just because the money isn't coming from your pocket directly, it's inevitable there are doctors that milk the system. But you'd think bureaucrats whose job it is to assess the legitimacy of requests to the NHS (or equivalent institution in your own country) for payment might be harder to swindle than your typical patient.

NullPrefix 3y ago

>For the first time ever I did the “call in a personal favour” thing and asked my dad to reach out a family friend, a former cosmetic dentist and former head of the province’s dental association for a second opinion. Why aren't you using connections on a daily basis to get reliable services?

varjag 3y ago

D students have to work somewhere too.

ArisakaDJB 3y ago

I'm not from the U.S. but I was that kid. I broke my teeth when I was 6. My dad took me to the local dentist who told me to "leave him as it is" for a decade. Except my teeth were my second teeth, and they were half broken. I was walking around with half-blackened by the rot teeth, which caused all sorts of health problems on top of all the bullying and the first kiss kids tend to take came to me after I fixed the teeth. And don't get me started with my chronic illness that I've been looking for diagnosis for the last 10+ years.

cies 3y ago
I have a tooth with a root-canal treatment that I dont trust. But several dentists say all is fine.
redeeman 3y ago
the dentist regularly examined you and doubled down on "leave him as it is" thoughout a decade? while a dentist should of course make sure to double check if its the permanent teeth and all that, I feel that your dad did not really fulfill his role as a proper parent here

slim 3y ago

the whole discipline is based on interpretation of symptoms. the job of a doctor is exactly like debugging a live system except when it crashes you don't get to restart it. they actually investigate by testing their suspected diagnostic on you. they literally give you a medicine and don't know if it will work. that's their normal process. I think what happened to that dentist is he changed his diagnostic because of an external factor, like realising that removing the teeth is less risky with regards to getting sued by you.

selfmodruntime 3y ago

Similar story here. I went to a dentist, who with a sad look told me that all my wisdom teeth needed pulling. She recommended me to an oral surgeon who agreed and wanted to do the surgery, but not without first handing me a letter to sign which stated that I would not sue her if I lost feelings in my face or developed some kind of permanent pain. Seemed fine to me, but my father insisted to ask a friend of his who is a dentist. Turns out my wisdom teeth were completely fine and none needed pulling. My pain just stemmed from me grinding my teeth at night.

cies 3y ago
> grinding my teeth For which magnesium (try different types of Mg-salts) helps many! (never heard that from a dentist, again, possssibllyy because the solution is not sold in their shop)

svara 3y ago

> I’m not a conspiracy nut. I believe in listening to experts (but ultimately making an informed decision). I believe in modern medicine. But that experience shook me and forever changed my trust in the dental industry. To be fair, in your story the "former head of the province’s dental association" apparently did know his craft, indicating that competence is rewarded in dentistry also... There are a lot of doctors and dentists, and as in any field, mastership of a profession is rare. So you did the obvious and correct thing of finding someone more competent when you had doubts. That would honestly have reinforced my trust in medicine more than do the opposite...

wouldbecouldbe 3y ago

I have learned from personal experience to never take healthcare medicals for their words. Always do your own research. Ask them consequences and how sure they are. And take into consideration the impact of treatments and diagnosis to the life quality of yourself or loved ones. At times can be hard for doctors and others to look beyond their own worldview. Personally I’ve had this eczema where I found the correct cream by reading the research on it, and later found out this is also the official advice. Most doctors here just prescribe an old cream out of habit, that contains hormones and often creates worse side effects. But a bigger diagnosis mistake was a close family member diagnosed with a very bad gen defect that would cause liver failure within a few years. He wanted the kid to start taking unpleasant medicines to be sure. He told us to get bloodwork done (without mentioning the costs) but in the end couldn’t find enough genes that had the mistakes. He wanted to do even more bloodwork being convinced there needed to be 2 genes with the defect, but I clearly told him he was going in uncharted territory, after doing the extra bloodwork he had to come back and agree he was wrong. One defect gene was found and in extreme health circumstances liver values were found that matched the pattern of a certain disease. Which is why he was convinced it was wrong. He was a well intentioned doctor, but these academics doctors get obsessed with analysing and diagnosis without always understanding the costs for the patients. Although they try to. In the meantime our family thought the kid was going to die for months and made significant unnecessary costs.

NovaDudely 3y ago
Oh yeah I had really bad skin flaking, they would orescibe all kinds of hormone or steroid based creams that would next to nothing. One search on Reddit and many people just said to use petrolium gel. Bam fixed it up in two days! Costs me about $3 a year to control this now.
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  petrolatum is underappreciated as a moisturizer imo. Too cheap for a good marketing budget. Most of the expensive moisturizers is going to be 80-90% petrolatum and a bunch of crap that's more likely to irritate than help (but smells nice!). Don't get me started on "non-greasy" formulations... it's the greasiness that makes it work! Pro-tip: put your moisturizer on just after washing. You want to trap in all that water!

dublo7 3y ago

My kids had insurance through their mom, because she made shitty pay, but good benefits. She lost her job and put them on state medicaid plan. Suddenly my son who has never had a cavity in his life needed 6 fillings. I took him to my dentist who found a single tooth that may have a cavity but it's too early to be sure. A year later he's had one filling. And that one was not any of the teeth the other dentist wanted to drill. He flosses in public bathrooms. They obviously was a cash grab and were going to just drill the fuck out of his mouth to maximize medicaid payments.

whynotminot 3y ago
Was military in the past, so on tricare. Base dentist was busy so they referred me off base to a local dental clinic for my regular cleaning. That local dentist I guess saw a blank check when I walked in the door and tried to convince me I had 5 cavities that needed filling. I told him to finish just the cleaning and I’d check back in with my military dentist. Military dentist later looked me over again and said I had one slowly developing potential cavity to keep an eye on. That’s it. A lot of dentists are apparently unethical hack shops.

ornornor 3y ago

I feel like dentistry in particular is one of the least rigorous of medical sciences. From my point of view (patient), I feels like dentists base their treatment recommendations on how much kickback they’re getting from medical corporations (Invisalign anyone?) and biased papers. I wonder why dentistry is so far removed from the rest of the medical profession on this. Not that MDs are immune to the above but it feels to me like it’s not as bad as in dentistry.

gochi 3y ago
I don't feel the same, a lot of other medical professions are very similar to dentistry. Deal with a chronic plantar fasciitis and you'll see exactly what I mean, clueless experts everywhere with nowhere near the amount of rigor you would expect. Anyways beyond that, dentistry sits in a very interesting position where there isn't a whole lot that can be done (without major breakthrough). It's why so much is based on preventative measure. It's also why the field feels "antiquated" in a way, we're still using simple instruments to scrape the teeth (or inside the tooth when it comes to root canals), or yanking the entire tooth out. We haven't got much farther than cavemen using stones to clean plaque in that way, besides the pain mitigation. It's the one field that is ripe for revolutionary improvements if it weren't for corporations constantly pushing their garbage studies.
goostavos 3y ago
Invisalign works pretty well, though. I'm pretty pleased it was "pushed" on me. I had some messed up teeth. 12 months of trays later and I my teeth are more or less in the right place now.
- ornornor 3y ago
  What bothers me is that it’s a commercial product that is pushed very hard and where dentists have a financial incentive in you getting the treatment they’re recommending. It might work, but the conflict of interest is there and you’ll never know if there wasn’t a superior/cheaper/more suitable alternative. Ditto Oral B toothbrushes. Or Pedigree Pal at vets.

dsugarman 3y ago

I think in general it's safe to take a cynical view on every vendors aptitude. Many, if not most, people are terrible at their jobs and it's your job to find the good ones and hold onto them

AQuantized 3y ago

I saw a private dentist for the first time roughly a year ago. I was under the impression that I had 10+ fillings, and prior to lockdowns a dentist had told me I needed at least 2 more, which I assumed would still be the case. He said he could see no indication of decay that would need treatment, and all the 'fillings' I had were more like sealants in the enamel, none of which reached the dentin, and any of them could have been avoided by a more wait and see approach. I saw 5+ dentists on the public health system that all had the same cavalier approach, and it's hard to assume it wasn't to line their own pockets.

jokethrowaway 3y ago

My son had cavities at 3, likely resulting from a lack of minerals and breastfeeding until 3. UK NHS diagnosis was to pull 4 front top teeth out. I asked a relative (a doctor working in a public hospital but not a dentist) who advised to absolutely don't do that without even seeing him in person (COVID lockdown BS). A local private dentist agreed and wanted 5k to fix his teeth (remove cavities, put fillings under general anesthetics). In the end we went to Russia and got it done for 1k. That's public healthcare for you! His teeth have been fine for years, not long until he loses them naturally.

manicennui 3y ago

Believing that absolutely everything in the US, including medicine and food, is negatively impacted by the drive for more profit, does not make you a conspiracy nut; it is the defining characteristic of the US economy.

megablast 3y ago

How did he eat with bent teeth?

rmbyrro 3y ago

> COVID left a lot of dental chairs empty Why?

ekianjo 3y ago

> I’m not a conspiracy nut. I believe in listening to experts (but ultimately making an informed decision). I believe in modern medicine. But that experience shook me and forever changed my trust in the dental industry. This is the same thing with doctors for any difficult disease to treat. You will tons of different opinions based on the same facts that are available to them. It makes you seriously wonder what kind of expertise is that in the end?

janmo 3y ago

Same experience when I was a kid. I fell and had a milk teeth that was completely lose. The dentist just said to leave it as is. It fixed itself as well.

neycoda 3y ago

Seems like the dentist could have just searched Google for how bent teeth work.

matheusmoreira 3y ago

> I believe in listening to experts (but ultimately making an informed decision). The whole point of consulting a professional is so they can provide you with the necessary information to make important decisions. It's up to them to explain things to you so that you understand well enough to make an informed decision. Unsatisfactory, meandering answers means you aren't getting the information you need to decide and you should absolutely seek another professional until you find one you trust. In fact, when we don't know something, the professional thing to do is to admit it and refer you to another professional who does.

dham 3y ago

Everyone made fun of people that said, "I did my own research" during Covid, but if you've been failed by the medical system once, you're used to this.

gcanyon 3y ago

I was probably four when I fell against the sandbox in the playground and knocked one of my top front teeth right out. I carried it inside to the teacher, who had me bite on a paper towel to stop the bleeding and sent me home with the tooth wrapped in another paper towel in my pocket. About a week later I fell against a large wooden block in the classroom and knocked the other top front tooth clean out. I went for something over a year without top front teeth, but my adult teeth came in early, so it wasn't 2 or 3 years like it might have been. This was a long time ago, and I still have both the adult teeth, although one of them died when I got hit in the face with a football in the third grade. All to say that n=1 but it likely wouldn't have been the worst thing if the two teeth had come out.

sensanaty 3y ago
My friend it seems to me like you should be wearing mouthguards more often, with how often you seem to get your front teeth hit somehow!
guythedudebro 3y ago
You need a mouth guard
- gcanyon 3y ago
  It was worse than that -- the football thing happened when I had old-school braces, and my lips were literally smashed onto the railroad tracks, so much so that I had to walk to the drinking fountain and pry/peel my lips off the braces, with an accompanying rush of blood. Good times! I'm a grown-ass adult now, and I haven't had issues like this since my late teens.

steeve 3y ago

Exactly my own experience with a Guillain Barré syndrome. Went full engineer and finally met the right people. Medicine is a marvel, but it’s a opportunity cost. You meet with people who have 10 minutes to pattern match you, which works for probably close to all the cases they see, until it doesn’t, and it’s you.

kelnos 3y ago

> I believe in modern medicine. It's completely reasonable to believe in modern medicine, but also to remember that humans are imperfect and have all sorts of biases and limitations when practicing modern medicine. Add on top of that how most health care systems make things much more difficult than they need to be, for both the doctor and the patient.

latexr 3y ago

> My feeling is that the nature of dentistry leaves a lot of room for subjectivity and COVID left a lot of dental chairs empty. It’s stated at the bottom that the original article is from 1997. COVID doesn’t factor into it.

atraac 3y ago

> I believe in modern medicine. But that experience shook me and forever changed my trust in the dental industry. This can be applied to almost everything. Looking at average software developers around, I see people with 10 years of experience who have no idea how anything works, they just copy paste the same CRUD APIs for their whole career, never really learning anything, trying to understand, just coasting through corporate life. Half of people are worse than 'average' person, this applies to everything and it's especially evident with doctors. They'll just tell you to wait and see, take vitamins or straight out ignore you. They might not know any better, or just think they know everything, you never know because you're not an expert. As an example of this I highly recommend reading Wired's article on Lee Holloway.

Fnoord 3y ago

In The Netherlands, going for a second opinion is a right (under insurance). And my experience with a dentist who wanted to suddenly remove a molar (without asking me, he already had the anesthetic ready) left me bewildered. Especially since it was a dentist organization for people with anxiety. NB: I have needle phobia, but not dentist phobia. Then he started to guilt trip me cause he already grabbed the anesthetic, but I said that didn't work on me. He threatened it'd be billed, not sure whether that happened in the end but if I was consciously aware of it I wouldn't have paid. Tho I'd just lost my father and got into a long term relationship as well, so my mind was elsewhere. Then I went to a different dentist (I had to cause I moved) and he had the wait and see approach. I didn't tell you yet that I had a chronic inflammation (abscess) under the molar. A year or so later, I finally went to the dental stomatologist and he suggested oxazepam. What an experience (both the drug and the removal of the inflammation). Then the healing process came. And I even had some stomach pains from all the ibuprofen (too long w/o stomach protector). Ever since that I always use a stomach protector with ibuprofen, just to be sure. No stomach protector, no ibuprofen. We were very happy with this dentist. Since it became a bit too impractical we now are at yet another dentist who's in our neighborhood and literally next to our kid's school. Very practical, but we were happier with the previous dentist. Now our 3 year old has damage on all 4 of his milk canines, having damaged tooth enamel. We don't know what or why, only difference I can tell with his older sister is he's been going on with breastfeeding longer, and he liked chewing on stuff more than her (his teeth and mouth also have a bit different form; more my wife's than mine). The rest seems fine. The dentist guilt tripped us into that I'd probably not been brushing his teeth well enough (because of COVID my wife was waiting with our daughter, she'd have given him a firm reply but I just listened and took it in), but I'm pretty sure we did this correct (perhaps too well?); twice a day since his first tooth showed up. So I'm considering going for a second opinion. The beauty is my kids are freely insured for teeth until their 18th in The Netherlands, after that they're on their own. But until then, the government takes care of their costs. I know it ain't like that in certain other (even rich) countries.

cramjabsyn 3y ago

Sadly there is no conspiracy needed. The for profit health care model is a significant contributor. Dentists are also business people, and there are strong monetary incentives for them to upsell. That's not to defend the behavior, but I think we should acknowledge the problem is systemic and that a non profit healthcare approach would be more appropriate for the vast majority of situations.

datavirtue 3y ago

I have had a lot of work done on my mouth. I consider all dentists as incompetent, swindling, quacks until they prove otherwise. My current dentist's niche is NOT performing anything that is unnecessary. A lot of people are taken aback when they say everything looks good. Makes for a great culture in his office.

supertofu 3y ago

Just wait until you hear about how the majority of gastroenterologists treat IBD.

joker_minmax 3y ago

I had a friend in 2014 who said her orthodontist wanted to pull 3 of her molars in order for her teeth to ever be straight. She went to another orthodontist who said "WTF, your condition doesn't even need metal braces, you can use the clear aligners", and was angry that the other one wanted to pull her teeth... Always get a second opinion.