I think my dentist is shaking me down.

[Rick Lee]

I've posted about this before, but now it's involving pain and more $$. In fear for my job, insurance and flexible spending situations, I decided to have my five 28+ yr. old fillings replaced with the white composite ones a few weeks ago. $210 was my out of pocket. A dentist friend of mine said only one looked like it needed replacing, but again, they're pretty old and I can afford it now.

Well, one of the teeth is still sensitive. I went back to the dentist yesterday and he did some massaging of the filling and said it might be a fracture in my tooth and could require a crown before it gets to the point of a root canal. He said it was still too early to be sure and that my tooth could stay sensitive to cold and hard biting for a few more weeks. But while he was saying this, he was also telling his asst. to get me an estimate on a crown. My out of pocket for it would be $610. My tooth actually felt better last night and I'm able to chew on that side a little better now. But I'm concerned that every time I go in there, this guy is recommending some expensive procedure, when I felt fine beforehand. Have you ever dealt with this before?

[m21sniper]

A root canal is much cheaper than a crown (at least at my dentist it is- i have 12 crowns, so i would definitely know!). Just have him do the root canal.

[cgarr]

Thats why they call it a "practice"

My wife has a whole mouth of old silver, her dentist suggested only replacing them with the white when needed, nothing more. They were only $80.00 each without insurance. I had a chip fixed, 4 months later it fell out, it was in a bad spot, lower front tooth and he said so but replaced it without charge and its been good for 4 years now.

You might try getting someone else to take a look at them, with all the pictures they take now they should be able to nail it down and not guess, I would guess?

[Heel n Toe]

If you're not totally confident of your dentist in every way, I'd recommend changing to another one... much like you'd abandon a general practitioner if you felt like you were nothing more than a segment of his income.

I can ask my dentist anything and he takes his time and answers in a way I can understand. I asked him how it is determined when a filling redo isn't appropriate and it's time to go to a crown, and he explained it to my satisfaction. I can't remember the details, but basically it's something along the lines of "when 2/3rds or more of the tooth above a certain line is a filling and it fails or some decay gets under it, to remove the filling and drill out the bad stuff beneath the filling and put on another filling, you're endangering the rest of the tooth... it could crack in two."

I have had two or three crowns done, and my out-of-pocket on each one was $800-900. They just let me pay $75 a month until it was paid off. No interest.

From what I understand, a root canal is way more involved and expensive than a crown.

[mossguy]

Originally Posted by m21sniper

A root canal is much cheaper than a crown (at least at my dentist it is- i have 12 crowns, so i would definitely know!). Just have him do the root canal.

An extraction may be cheaper than a root canal.

Tom

[TerryH]

Isn't a crown required after a root canal? I have crowns on two teeth that have had root canals.

[Bill Douglas]

A crown is only to hold the tooth together. It tends to be used after a root canal as all the drilling weakens the tooth.

[rnln]

What you are describing doesn't sound so bad. I had destist charged my insurance $600 for cleaning 1/4 of my mouth. Why 1/4? Because I couldn't stand the pain.
Do you know there is another term people use for dentist? used car salesman.

Originally Posted by Rick Lee

I've posted about this before, but now it's involving pain and more $$. In fear for my job, insurance and flexible spending situations, I decided to have my five 28+ yr. old fillings replaced with the white composite ones a few weeks ago. $210 was my out of pocket. A dentist friend of mine said only one looked like it needed replacing, but again, they're pretty old and I can afford it now.

Well, one of the teeth is still sensitive. I went back to the dentist yesterday and he did some massaging of the filling and said it might be a fracture in my tooth and could require a crown before it gets to the point of a root canal. He said it was still too early to be sure and that my tooth could stay sensitive to cold and hard biting for a few more weeks. But while he was saying this, he was also telling his asst. to get me an estimate on a crown. My out of pocket for it would be $610. My tooth actually felt better last night and I'm able to chew on that side a little better now. But I'm concerned that every time I go in there, this guy is recommending some expensive procedure, when I felt fine beforehand. Have you ever dealt with this before?

[911Rob]

what we have no dentist here?

I would think a fracture in the tooth would show up on an Xray?
Imagine a 100 years ago.... the pain people must've gone through!
I hate tooth challenges.

5 kids, wife and I and no dental plan.... you wanna see a dental shake down?
worth every penny I spent though:
My youngest of 5 ladies....

[Heel n Toe]

Originally Posted by TerryH

Isn't a crown required after a root canal? I have crowns on two teeth that have had root canals.

A crown is also used wayyyy before you need a root canal... to put a new top on the tooth.

Originally Posted by Bill Douglas

A crown is only to hold the tooth together. It tends to be used after a root canal as all the drilling weakens the tooth.

I've never heard that. I don't think a crown could or would hold a tooth together if it was split or broken.

From the following, it looks like after a root canal is done, a crown is put on top to finish it off:

"Root canal is also a slang term for a dental operation i.e., endodontic therapy, wherein the pulp is cleaned out, the space disinfected and then filled."

"After receiving a root canal, the tooth should be protected with a crown that covers the cusps of the tooth. Otherwise, over the years the tooth will almost certainly fracture, since root canals remove tooth structure from the tooth and undermine the tooth's structural integrity."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endodontic_therapy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Root_canal

[tabs]

Let me see now...Since last April, when I cracked a tooth on a salad....I have had that tooth extracted (had to) and a previous tooth that was extracted ...had 2 Implants done...That was 4 hours under anesthesia and included a Sinus Lift (bone injected into the Sinus cavity to hold the implant screw..$1500). Actually no pain during the operation and no pain afterwards..the stiches got a little sore after about a week..the total was $6500.00. BTW Dental insurance does not cover Implants nor the Crowns...

Thennnn...a Crown that had a root canal needed replacing due to some decay near the bottom that was $982.00

Thennn...A tooth with a 41 year old silverfilling need replacing that was $160...there was a bit of decay under it as well but not bad.

Thennn....the 2 Implant Crowns for the Implants....have to wait for 6 months to let the screws in the bone heal....was $3300.00

Thennnn...A tooth that had a Crown started to hurt and needed a Root Canal..that was $1360.00..they saved the Crown and filled it.

ANDDDD on the way home fro finishing the Root Canal I got my FIRST traffic citation in 15 years....let us try $1700 because I didn't have the current Insurance Card in the truck..had the 3 old ones but not the new one (The Grand for that part of the ticket will be dismissed whern I show proof. of insurance)..But fking 600...hop I can go to traffic school and get most of that wiped away...AHHHHGGGG

Now before I signed my financial future away I called my previous Dentist in CA, who I know from other friends is reasonably priced compared to others in the area, that the prices I was quoted were on the money. The Dentist who did the Implants and Root Canal work are rated as being among the BEST IN LV..

I have heard horror stories about Implants before..about pain and even having them fall out of your mouth after they were done....So I would recommend that if it comes down to a few dollars extra to get the work done by someone who is very competent at what they do. There is nothing worse then having pain in the teeth...and BTW the pain might go away for awhile, BUT IT WILL BE BACK and usually with a vengence.

If you are experiencing pain in a tooth and the Dentist thinks it is a fractured tooth that needs a Crown with out a Root Canal....well that maybe but the Crown is only buying you some time before a Root Canal will be needed. You might get a coupla years out the Crown before the Root Canal is needed?

[widebody911]

I've had a couple dentists try to shake me down. I had chosen a new dentist when I changed plans, so I called and scheduled a cleaning. They took some x-rays, and within minutes had drawn up a comprehensive "treatment plan" that just happened to exhaust my coverage within about 6 months. They wanted to replace all my old fillings with gold, and they even had me watch an infomercial on the benefits of gold fillings while I was waiting. What kiboshed it for me was that they refused to do the cleaning on that visit - they wanted me to make another visit to do the actual cleaning!

[Gogar]

A crown can be used before a root canal, or after, or BOTH.

Rick, just wait it out for a while. If the tooth is fractured, you'll know soon enough.

$610 for a crown isn't too bad. If it's in the back and not too visible, get a GOLD one. Porcelain tends to crack and break with a lot of stress, and then you'll have to buy another one.

[Pazuzu]

Originally Posted by Heel n Toe

A crown is also used wayyyy before you need a root canal... to put a new top on the tooth.



I've never heard that. I don't think a crown could or would hold a tooth together if it was split or broken.

I just went through this on Friday. I had a farthest back molar that broke (about 1/3 missing) several years ago. It finally started to hurt. I was given the choice of extraction ($85 out of pocket) or a root canal, AND post, AND full crown, AND possible gum manipulation (cutting) to make the crown sit down to the gum line...$billion out of pocket or something similar.

If I just had the root canal to get rid of the pain, the tooth would have become brittle and weak, and started to shatter. The crown was required to keep (what was left of it) in one piece.

[Rick Lee]

To be fair, the pain and tenderness were subsiding as of yesterday morning, but I went ahead back to the dentist, since I had an appt. already. They didn't charge me for yesterday. I'm not eating jawbreakers or anything real hard, but just had lunch and chewing was no problem at all. I think I might have been premature on going back to the dentist and, to his credit, he did say it could be a few more weeks before all is back to normal. I am blessed with very good teeth and until two weeks ago, had not had anything other than regular cleanings done in the last 27 yrs. So I think I've been pretty lucky so far. I just don't want to exhaust my flexible spenidng account, which is $600 for 2009, in the first few mos. of the year and/or have things done unnecessarily. I actually like the pain of going to the dentist. Somehow I feel that much cleaner when it hurts. Though it never really hurts because I brush and floss religiously and always have.

[onewhippedpuppy]

I'm looking for a new dentist, my 3rd in 3 years. They seem to enjoy sucking you in with several great initial visits, then they crank up the selling. Dentists seem particularly bad about this. Over 6 months my 4 year old son has developed 7 (SEVEN) cavities, most too small to show up on pictures or x-rays. These are teeth that will be gone within a few years, and most other parents I talk to say their dentist never bothered with the little stuff in baby teeth. Sure they might be there, but do they NEED to be done?

[Porsche-O-Phile]

Dentists seem to epitomize the logic of "make sure they keep coming back". Yes, I'm all for having good teeth and oral hygiene, but there's no reason to have them keep fooling about with things that have already been fooled with. I go when there's a problem - that's it. And I tell them to fix the specific/immediate problem. My "preventive care" is my own business and responsibility.

Some universities have programs for student dentists where you can get the treatments at substantially reduced cost. This is what I've done the last few times. I have no problem with a student working on me, as everything is overseen by professors/practitioners probably with more care and attention to detail than they give to their own patients (because they're acting as evaluators/critics). The only downside I've found is that the treatments take a lot longer because the students will have to do such-and-such, stop, call over a professor to take a look, get their comments, do the next part, stop, etc... It ain't all that bad though. And the last student dentist I had was a very nice (and attractive) young lady who I ended up becoming friends with (I actually adopted one of my cats from her when she had to move). Something worth looking into - I bet ASU does it.

[cgarr]

Originally Posted by Porsche-O-Phile

Some universities have programs for student dentists where you can get the treatments at substantially reduced cost.

I used to get my hair cut at a tech school for 2 bucks.

[BrokeMyCar]

As I understand it, having work done on a tooth (i.e., replacing a filling) weakens it and makes it more susceptible to crack. And some cracks don't show up on x-rays, only in pain during chewing. A crown is a reasonable alternative to losing the tooth, and those prices seem in line with what I went through last year.

One way they check is by having you bite down on a small rubber piece. Certain angles of pressure cause pain by stressing the crack, lending credence to the possibility of a crack. It is a bit of a gamble, and if the crown doesn't work you may have to pay for a crown AND an extraction, but the choice should ultimately be yours.

Babak

[tabs]

In my life I have had 2 cavities, 5 teeth filled due to soft enamel, and one other tooth break.
The five teeth that were soft enamel all eventually went to root canal (wt one cracking to the root on an olive) after a period of 25 to 41 years. Of the other 2 one filling lasted 41 years..the other 37 years before being replaced with a composite....

The main failure for me was that the silver fillings over time get pressed down into the tooth causing it to crack. The other tooth as stated was broken on a fking salad...