I just discovered this video on YouTube, published by a YouTube person who calls herself Rosie Posie. Her original video is 6 1/2 minutes long, so we created a shortened version of it to be able to comment on it.
Here’s the background. She is just finishing her SmileDirectClub treatment. She is entering her sixth month. On camera, she takes out her new set of aligners to put them in, and it’s a major struggle. In the end, after more than 20 minutes of trying to get these aligners to fit, she gives up in frustration. Here’s the video:
(Update – I see that this video is no longer available. I’ll confess that I’m suspicious about how that happened. See my post on SmileDirectClub suppressing negative reviews for some perspective on how they operate. Meanwhile, I’ll give a summary below of what she said in the video.)
We thank our advertisers who help fund this site.
Rosie Posie posted this video in December, 2018. In February she posted a follow-up video where she hints a little about what went wrong and this time successfully puts the new set of aligners in. What happened is that SmileDirectClub had shipped her month 5 aligners in month 4, and then shipped the month 4 aligners in month 5. So when she tried to put in the month 6 aligners, she had in reality just finished the month 4, and there was too much of discrepancy between the sets, so they didn’t fit.
This is a mistake not unlike getting the x-rays of two different patients mixed up leading to doing a filling on a perfectly healthy tooth of one patient because you thought it had a cavity, and not fixing the tooth on the other patient because you thought it was fine. You don’t make mistakes like that in health care. This is not an innocent, no-consequence mistake. When Rosie Posie went from her month 3 aligners directly to month 5, that would put an inordinate amount of stress on the teeth, risking root resorption. Then she went back to month 4, further stressing the teeth by going backwards in treatment. I’d like to see the before-and-after x-rays of the roots of these teeth to see if there was any root resorption or other damage.
My further concern here is that Rosie Posie is left to figure this out. The video attracted the attention of the people at SmileDirectClub, and my guess would be that they got in touch with each other and worked to figure this out. But if she hadn’t published this on YouTube, what would have happened? Would she have figured it out? She has no dental training, and to me it is very irresponsible for the dentists at SmileDirectClub to leave patients without any in-person supervision. Furthermore, to read many of the online reviews (see my previous post, SmileDirectClub – a warning) patients have not been very impressed with the follow-up care and customer service at SmileDirectClub. In this case the problem was fixed. Was that just because this went public?
– Dr. Hall
Do you have a comment or anything else to add? We’d love to hear from you. Enter your comment below. Or click here to ask Dr. Hall a question.
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.
Leave a Reply