A second medical opinion should be the first decision!
Wish I would've known
One year before I met my husband, I must've spent over $7 thousand on my mouth. I had excellent dental insurance, and visited a dentist near my office. My dentist recommended a few root canals and crowns along with some other treatments. I went in for my scheduled appointments and had everything done. I was satisifed with his work, I must've referred him 7 patients from the company i worked for.
After marrying my husband, he decided to clean my teeth and do a complete examination, x-rays and all. His jaw dropped when he saw that I had 3 root canals in row, he asked me why I have so many root canals, my reply was "I don't know, the dentist said I needed them". What i found to be satisfactory in the crowns I got, he found to be unacceptable due to bad margins, "you know, that grey line you see at the edge!".
Having worked with my husband for 4 years now, dealing with patients on a regular basis and listening to the horror stories they've had to deal with. It's quite unfortunate that we look at someone like a dentist or a medical doctor as if they have the answer to everything, and you have to wonder sometimes what the intentions are behind their decisions.
Double and triple check a diagnosis
First, do your homework and know what defines a good dentist, you see, I had 3 root canals done in teeth that never gave me any trouble, no pain or anything, I decided to call the office I visited years ago and ask why I had these root canals done. I kind of already knew but I wanted to hear it from them. I was told that because we were doing crowns on all 3 teeth and as preventative measure to not feel pain from all the drilling, the doctor feels it's safer to do a root canal. What?, wait a minute, I really didn't need to those root canals, but they were done because they might have needed to be done after the crowns, so just to be safe, we'll do them first! wow.
Now, that I've worked in a dental office and know that it's very important for anyone to keep their god given nerve and natural teeth, I'm quite angry at my original dentist, and even more at my self for trusting and not asking for a second opinion. This lesson I learned has saved me from a bigger surgery I recently was told I needed and i got 3 second opinions and saved myself from getting a surgery I didn't need. It's a whole article in itself. Please, please, get a second opinion. It doesn't matter who the authority figure is. If they are good at what they do, the second opinion will confirm what they recommend and you can always go back to them.
