Kathleen,
I am not aware of any dental procedure or dental prosthesis being outlawed in any state. Hearing you tell me what your dentist and the dental school said about the Nesbit partial, I thought I would check the most recent version of Pennsylvania’s dental practice act. Not only did I see no mention of Nesbit partials, but I saw no section of the law where any particular dental procedure or device was outlawed. Several years ago I received a report from a patient in Oregon who said her dentist told her that Nesbits were illegal in Oregon, and I remain skeptical about that also.

Now maybe the Pennsylvania Dental Board has passed some rule on this, but I am highly skeptical. What could be the case, giving your dentist and the dental school the benefit of the doubt, is that there was some lawsuit in Pennsylvania where the dentist gave a patient a Nesbit partial and was successfully sued, but I think there would have to be some negligence on the part of the dentist for that suit to be successful—a failure to warn the patient of the risks of such a partial. Or maybe what is going on is that the dental school and your dentist are so adamant about the risks of this small partial that they are exaggerating the situation.

So if you’re really determined to get another Nesbit partial, I would start by asking around to other dentists in Pittsburgh. If other dentists confirm that it is illegal, then I’m pretty confident that you could go across the border into Ohio or West Virginia with no problem and find a dentist to do this.

Having said that, I think you would be better off listening to their strong discouragement on this and getting some other type of tooth replacement—a flipper partial for example. A Nesbit partial is extremely easy to swallow if it comes loose and could easily puncture your esophagus or intestine causing serious medical issues. I had an experience in my practice when I was just out of dental school where I made one of these partials for a patient. He came in later saying that he had lost it. On quizzing I learned that it disappeared overnight, and I warned him that he could have swallowed it in his sleep and urged him to get x-rayed. He wasn’t interested in doing that. And then, when it was time for his next 6-month checkup, I learned that he had died. That story from then afterward spooked me about these Nesbit partials and I didn’t do any more of them. Instead, I would make larger flipper partials that were just as inexpensive.
– Dr. Hall

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