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A new dental scam is to pull healthy teeth to sell you expensive fake ones

arstechnica.com

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Re: A new dental scam is to pull healthy teeth to sell you expensive fake ones

#341

Post by missjuliekay »

Suppafly wrote: post #156
ilc wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Odd, my dentist's hygenist complains that people who have their wisdom teeth suck at taking care of them in general. Mine got pulled for good reason. They were severely impacted, and pushing other teeth out of alignment. (I can still feel that I have out of alignment teeth in the far back of my mouth.) Not everyone should "keep their wisdom teeth." Sometimes... they gotta go.

>Odd, my dentist's hygenist complains that people who have their wisdom teeth suck at taking care of them in general. Mine complains about having to clean them since they have to reach way in there to get at them, but it always pleasantly surprised how well I keep them clean.

Aha! So they don't like the extra work. I wonder if that is part of the problem! These teeth are a pain to deal with. I wish they would be more impressed with your ability to clean them rather than complain.

Re: A new dental scam is to pull healthy teeth to sell you expensive fake ones

#342

Post by missjuliekay »

pests wrote: post #163
mwigdahl wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a similar experience -- went to a new dentist, they found two "cavities", tried to hard-sell me into getting them filled right then. I declined, never went back to that practice, and 10 years later my teeth are perfectly fine. #notalldentists, of course, but there are certainly unscrupulous ones out there, and not just a few.

I had a rougher life in my 20s. I once went to a dentist and they told me they want to pull 13 of my teeth and give me dentures. I knew they were in bad shape but this absolutely freightened me. Four of them were my wisdom teeth but I still thought it was nuts. 15 years later, I still have all of the 13 they wanted to pull. I did lose two unrelated molars and the matching wisdom teeth basically slid into place replac…

This is fascinating!!

So the molars are a back up replacement system?

Re: A new dental scam is to pull healthy teeth to sell you expensive fake ones

#343

Post by pests »

missjuliekay wrote: post #342
pests wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had a rougher life in my 20s. I once went to a dentist and they told me they want to pull 13 of my teeth and give me dentures. I knew they were in bad shape but this absolutely freightened me. Four of them were my wisdom teeth but I still thought it was nuts. 15 years later, I still have all of the 13 they wanted to pull. I did lose two unrelated molars and the matching wisdom teeth basically slid into place replac…

This is fascinating!! So the molars are a back up replacement system?

That was apparently their purpose back when we lost teeth more regularly - it's only with modern dentistry that they become a problem for being "extra"

It was not an intentional replacement or anything the dentist did. I had my back molars pulled and then a few years later while trying to start flossing again I noticed they were back and basically in the same position. I doubted myself for a moment if my memory was failing. Just such a slow long process.

Re: A new dental scam is to pull healthy teeth to sell you expensive fake ones

#344

Post by pests »

omoikane wrote: post #216
pests wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an article that's a few years old of a guy going to ~60 different dentists to see what variety of services he's offered. I remember he went to his original dentist to get a baseline and it was just a cavity. He was suggested all the way up to full denture replacement, IIRC. I do remember him making a connection to the office nicenwss.

Was it this one? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37022911 - I went to 50 different dentists: almost all gave a different diagnosis (1997)

Holy, that's from 1997!?!?!

I see it was updated in 2022 so that's probably when I saw it making the rounds but wow.

Re: A new dental scam is to pull healthy teeth to sell you expensive fake ones

#345

Post by Suppafly »

missjuliekay wrote: post #341
Suppafly wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Odd, my dentist's hygenist complains that people who have their wisdom teeth suck at taking care of them in general. Mine complains about having to clean them since they have to reach way in there to get at them, but it always pleasantly surprised how well I keep them clean.

Aha! So they don't like the extra work. I wonder if that is part of the problem! These teeth are a pain to deal with. I wish they would be more impressed with your ability to clean them rather than complain.

I think the issue is that a lot of times they get impacted, where they are basically sideways cramming into another tooth, and it's a lot easier to remove them before that happens than afterwards, which means dentists tend to be really aggressive about suggesting they get removed. One of those situations where you see the problem a lot so you think it's a bigger deal than it actually is. Like someone that works at a car dealer saying that every Whatever is crap because that's all the work on, despite it statistically not being worse than any other model.

Re: A new dental scam is to pull healthy teeth to sell you expensive fake ones

#346

Post by jollyllama »

Suppafly wrote: post #152
jollyllama wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

She's going in for cleanings. If she's not experiencing problems, what does that tell you about the prognoses she's receiving?

>If she's not experiencing problems Subjectively not experiencing problems isn't really in indication of good health though.

For teeth, over a long enough timeline, it is. If nothing starts hurting, the tooth is fine.

Re: A new dental scam is to pull healthy teeth to sell you expensive fake ones

#347

Post by wing-_-nuts »

knowitnone wrote: post #72
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #2

I went to a new dentist when I was 18 because my other dentist was unavailable. He declares that I have two cavities and fills one, but doesn't use enough anesthetic. Given my bad exp with him I went back to my other dentist who's flabbergasted that there was supposedly a cavity on the other tooth. No sign of any decay. These kind of experiences are why I try to vet a new dentist very hard before trusting them, even…

you must have loads of money to be going around getting multiple opinions

It's cheaper than getting an unnecessary filling that will have to eventually be redone.

Re: A new dental scam is to pull healthy teeth to sell you expensive fake ones

#348

Post by fennecfoxy »

heavensteeth wrote: post #314
diogenescynic wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is really common in health care. I want to clarify it's only common is US healthcare. We're rally the only country in the world paying exorbitant prices AND getting low quality care. For instance, I once hit my head on a train while in France and had to get stitches. I was rushed to the emergency room in an ambulance, 2 nurses and a doctor immediately started helping clean the wound and stitching it up. I was i…

Can you really extrapolate those two experiences across every other country in the world?

I think for many countries it's more "they would if they could" and it's lack of resources that means that a lower standard of medical care is provided. But American healthcare is unique amongst 1st world countries.

Though tbf in the UK the NHS has been allowed to fester with overpaid middle management and corrupt supply chains designed to siphon money off wherever possible, it's something that the government needs to address very badly.

Because public healthcare _always_ works, it's when private businesses (supply chains, agencies, contractors, etc) get involved that things get expensive for the taxpayer.

Re: A new dental scam is to pull healthy teeth to sell you expensive fake ones

#349

Post by fennecfoxy »

elif wrote: post #220
IncreasePosts wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, how much did it cost, and how much time did it take? If I could pop in for 20 minutes for a professional cleaning and it was under $50 I might do that 4x/yr.

4x cleanings and 2x cleanings are really not much different. Within 4-8 days of cleaning, plaque bacteria will be back at their healthy population levels. You really need to attack them on a 12 hour timeline to keep populations in check.

Going to the hygienist is more to strip the tartar off tbf, as well as a general check/look around your mouth.

It takes time for tartar to build up, atm my dentist recommends I go at minimum once a year, preferably twice (so I'm going twice).

Re: A new dental scam is to pull healthy teeth to sell you expensive fake ones

#350

Post by mariushn »

bsder wrote: post #291
mmooss wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> we find significantly fewer overtreatment recommendations for patients with higher socio-economic status compared with lower socio-economic status for standard visits Very interesting: You'd think they'd go for the deeper pockets, but something overrides that.

A lot of it is an assumption that patient at some point won't follow up for some reason (generally money). So, the dentist is more likely to prioritize completeable treatment over wait and see. Due to my mouth and jaw shape, I put a lot of pressure on two of my lower teeth. They have abfractions and they are going to crack at some point. Being north of middle aged, none of my options to change things are great (norma…

Wouldn't braces solve this, by moving all teeth towards the back in 1-2 years?
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