I need some help and advice. I had 20-year-old porcelain veneers I wanted to replace. My dentist decided my bite needed to be opened up as well so people could see my teeth so in addition to 8 veneers he added two dental bridges to the mix. The whole time I was in temporaries I was miserable. I would literally call every couple of days to tell them how much pain I was in. I felt like they weren’t taking me seriously. Then the day came for the permanent ones and he placed them in under an hour. They felt as bad as the temporaries. All the dentist will say is all his checkpoints are textbook and it is just a matter of me adjusting to the open bite. Aside from the pain, my mouth is so dry my lips are sticking to my teeth. I’ve been sucking on popsicles and drinking water and soda all day long just to keep my mouth moist. I’m miserable. What do I do?
Lydia
Dear Lydia,

This is an absolute disaster and none of it is your fault. Let’s start with the fact that he wanted to open your bite. The only way to properly do that is to crown at least every tooth on one arch, so he’s already going about it wrong. While he did do temporaries, which is good and necessary, the purpose of them is to make sure the teeth occlude properly and the patient is comfortable, which by definition includes pain-free.
He didn’t pay attention to one of your complaints and based on your description, you brought your pain to their attention quite a bit and he plowed right onto the permanent restorations without any regard to what you were experiencing.
It is obvious that he opened your bite too much, which is why you are facing all these issues with dry mouth. All his guff about meeting the checkpoints is nonsense. A key checkpoint is that your mouth closes naturally when at rest. If yours were doing that you wouldn’t be having these dry mouth issues. So he’s not being honest there.
On the note of your dry mouth. Please don’t eat popsicles and drink soda to keep your mouth moist. This is decay waiting to happen. The water is okay.
What to Do Next
He’s caused serious damage to your bite. While bad news, it is also good news. Because your case lacks proper form and function, you are entitled to a refund. However, what I’d like you to do is ask for him to pay for the repairs with a dentist of your choosing.
You need a highly skilled dentist in both occlusion and cosmetics to make this right, especially with the damage he did. The top cosmetic dentists are AACD accredited. For the occlusion of your teeth, I’d look at someone with significant TMJ training.
This blog is brought to you by Salem, MA Dentist Dr. Randall Burba.