Better to do nothing than cheap cosmetic dentistry

Dear Dr. Hall,
I reside in Henderson, NV. I have four porcelain fused to metal crowns on my front teeth since I was 24 yrs old. In 2015, I wanted to update dental work, I ‘Kör whitened‘ my teeth, which made those crowns look bad. I visited a cosmetic dentist, Dr. Featherstone who you have listed on your website. At that time, my paltry insurance would not co-operate, so I didn’t stay with Featherstone. His billing assistant actually had a credit application there to apply for a loan. Plus, she said, we had to pay in advance, and if there were money left over at the end, they’d refund it. My husband & I slunk out of there, glad to be free of that.

Next, I visited Dr. Michael Wilson, the only other one on your Nevada list. He would not do four, only eight, saying about four, “You won’t like it.” At first I agreed to do it, right then and there, he measured for a laboratory wax-up version, $800. I backed out the next morning, and a week later went and picked up the model. He was decent about it, and we left the door open.

Well, from there, I went to my general dentist, Dr. F. Those original crowns from when I was young were big and long and gave me a big smile, in every picture all my life. Now, Dr. F’s version are short, greenish (I picked the wrong shade). His words were, “I’ll make sure you get the teeth that you want.” But, he couldn’t please me, and ended up giving it to his assistant. I mean, it was excruciating, going over it again and again. You finally just settle. These teeth are too short, when I wake up in the morning with mouth agape, you can’t even see any teeth (thus, it makes you look like an old person). She remarked, “Oh, you probably are looking on the internet, and expect these perfect teeth.” Yes, exactly. I had your examples and pictures in hand.

Anyway, here I am, three years later, still not sure where to turn. Thank you for letting me vent. I live with this. My husband raises his voice at just the very mention of it.

Thank you very much.
– LaRae from Nevada

LaRae,
Quite the story you have.

I’m confident that either Dr. Featherstone or Dr. Wilson would have done a beautiful job for you. I’ve seen work from both of them and have interviewed them both. It’s too bad that they were too expensive for you. Your case illustrates a point I often make—if you can’t afford quality cosmetic dentistry, it’s better to do nothing and save up to have it done right than to go cheap. If the first dentist who did the Kör bleaching knew what he was doing and was honest with you, he would have told you that the crowns wouldn’t bleach and the results would commit you to re-doing the crowns. It would have been good to have had a complete plan from an expert cosmetic dentist from the start.

About Dr. Wilson wanting to do 8 crowns instead of 4—we see this where good cosmetic dentists will disagree on how to proceed with a case and in some cases will turn down a case unless they can do it the way they think will turn out the best. When I was practicing, I was more like Dr. Featherstone where I might compromise on a case because a patient didn’t want to spend more to get the “perfect” result.

– Dr. Hall

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