Dr. Hall,
I took my 12-year-old daughter to the dentist, and wanted to fix the slight discoloration in her two front teeth. The dentist put composite on the teeth and they were yellow. Yes, she has two yellow front teeth. I went back and told her I couldn’t accept this and she needed to fix it, she shaved off some of the bonding and composite and applied more and again, it’s yellow. It’s peeling off to a certain degree. What can I do, I am scared that this dentist isn’t qualified to correct this problem and now, I’m scared that they won’t be able to fix them. She told me that she may have to do a veener, isn’t she to young for this? What options do I have? Can you simply remove what was put on there? And will the dentist have to pay to correct this problem?
Thanks,
Carol in North Carolina
Carol,
I think you’re on the right track–you need to get another dentist to do this for you, and I would try to get the dentist to pay to correct this problem. But legally you may not be able to force the dentist to do that–you’ll likely have to use whatever persuasion will work for her–sweet talk, a threat of going to a lawyer, whatever you think she’ll respond to.
Direct tooth bonding is an art, and you really need an artist/dentist, as you’ve been learning the hard way. I’d recommend, with the age of your daughter, that you stick with direct bonding. Another dentist should be able to take off the bonding that’s there and fix this right. But, you need an artist.
Don’t let this dentist do porcelain veneers on your daughter. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to have porcelain veneers. If they are done ultra-thin, that could work. But I’m confident this dentist doesn’t know how to do beautiful porcelain veneers either.
You see, most dentists take up the profession because they like to fix things. 95% of them aren’t artistic. And on top of that, the training we get in these artistic areas, particularly with color, just isn’t very good. And, to make it worse, even of the maybe 5% who are artistic, most of them don’t bother to get the advanced training they need to be really good at cosmetic dentistry. To protect the public, cosmetic dentistry should be a specialty. But, in order for that to happen it would have to be voted on by the profession. And since the vast majority of dentists think that cosmetic dentistry is no big deal (because they have NO artistic sensitivity), that will never happen. So you have a situation where maybe 1-2% of the dentists can do this work and have it look beautiful.
Check our recommended list of cosmetic dentists close to you. They should all know how to take care of this. And don’t rely on advertising to pick a cosmetic dentist. A lot of dentists will advertise that they do cosmetic dentistry, because it’s a very lucrative portion of the business. But they aren’t artists. True cosmetic dentists are rare, and that’s what you need.
Good luck,
Dr. Hall
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About David A. Hall
Dr. David A. Hall was one of the first 40 accredited cosmetic dentists in the world. He practiced cosmetic dentistry in Iowa, and in 1990 earned his accreditation with the American Academy of Cosmetic Dentistry. He is now president of Infinity Dental Web, a company in Mesa, Arizona that does advanced internet marketing for dentists.
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