Dr. Hall,
Last July I bit into a sandwich and cracked #12 tooth (upper left first premolar). My dentist of three years said it could not be saved, so he pulled it. He gave me many novocaine shots & one felt like it went to my brain. I left feeling a burning/tingling on my tongue and palate in my mouth. He proceeded with a tooth implant process and every time I was in his chair I complained about the burning in my mouth. He said I had thrush and prescribed medicated mouth rinse & said burning would go away. Three months later (October), he said I was ready for implant crown. It hurt so bad when he was trying to install/screw the crown onto the implant, so he stopped and gave me more novocaine shots.
Then on December 3rd, while I was in Arizona for the winter, the crown fell off. I still had burning mouth syndrome. I went to a dentist there and he said that the implant was infected and needed to come out. That required surgery with incision from bottom to top/front. He did more bone grafting but I said no more tooth implants. I got home from Arizona in April and in June my husband’s dentist put in a 3-tooth bridge. This dentist said it should never hurt for the final install of a tooth crown. I tried contacting three attorney’s offices but they say a dental lawsuit is hard to win. I’d like my original dentist to refund what I paid for the implant, plus the surgery to take out the infected implant and then get the bridge. Pain and suffering would be a nice bonus. I’ve been in a dentist chair 22 times since last July. I still have burning mouth syndrome. Is there any way I can make the original dentist pay for all of this damage to my mouth?
– Gladys from Colorado
I Googled How to ask for a refund from your dentist for a failed tooth implant.
(See Dr. Hall’s answer below.)
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Gladys,
You have quite the story!
The reason you were hard to get numb is because of the high level of anxiety you had during this appointment. That could also explains the burning you felt. Burning mouth syndrome, while the cause is officially unknown, does seem to have an association with traumatic dental experiences. Your dentist blaming that on thrush makes me chuckle a little. Since this never went away, you must have figured out that diagnosis was wrong.
While not every dental implant failure is caused by improper procedure, a lot of them are. Placing an implant is a very demanding procedure, and many dentists don’t have adequate training for that. And what you have told me about your dental care leads me to be very suspicious of the dentist who placed the implant. He was probably at fault. We have the thrush misdiagnosis, and we have the crown coming off the implant besides the implant then failing. It doesn’t look good for him. But to prove that he was at fault, we would need another dentist who examined you to say that he was at fault.
The problem with bringing a lawsuit, besides needing an expert witness, is that dental malpractice cases don’t pay well. So that could be part of your problem in getting a lawyer. You could go to small claims court without a lawyer, but your would still need a dentist to testify that your first dentist was at fault.
And I do have a question about the dentist in Arizona. You didn’t say anything about the implant being loose. If it was infected it would be at least a little loose. I hope that was the case. From your description of how the first dentist put the crown on the implant, with the pain that caused, makes me guess that he put too much force on the implant. If he did, that could have damaged the bond between the implant and the surrounding bone, leading to later implant failure.
What can you do besides that? You can threaten reporting him to the dental board. If there was any dental insurance involved, you could threaten reporting him to the insurer. But I would scale back your demands to a partial refund, because it would be very easy for the dentist to claim that there was some other reason the implant failed. The crown coming off the implant and the thrush misdiagnosis are more easily provable errors.
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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.
Thank you for answering my questions. Your blog has very interesting and eye-opening information. I’m still not sure what direction I will take, but am leaning toward asking original dentist to pay for refund, surgery to take out implant pin and also the 3 tooth bridge. I’d always had a good relationship with him, but I think he was over his head. I should have asked him how many implants he had done and not trusted so much.
One dentist I spoke to recently used to teach dental classes at a local college. He said they had to part ways last year because they didn’t want him to be “too negative” toward the students who were not learning quickly. The college wanted him to hold their hands and tell them how great they were doing, even though they were failing the class. He said most were a bunch of namby pambies who wanted the certificate, but did not want to put in the hard work. Our neighbor, who is a United pilot says the same about trying to teach those newbies who want to be pilots. They just don’t want to work too hard and don’t understand why they just can’t put a plane on auto pilot. Scary world to come.
Again, thank you so much for your help. It helped that you listened, gave me great feedback and I feel validated in my extremely expensive and painful journey. I will continue to pray that this burning sensation will go away someday.
Gladys