ORTHODONTIST

I just have to post about my recent orthodontist woes! Something I want to forget, but should remember.

My first two kids had very small mouths, so much so that it was obvious that they would have severe problems with their teeth if I did not do something. Begin "Phase I". Phase I involved an orthodontic appliance that was meant to apply constant outward pressure to their teeth while their mouths are still growing to make them grow more than what they normally would. We survived Phase I and have now entered Phase II. Braces. Now that we've spent all the time and money to make their mouths bigger I've been informed that two of their top teeth are too small and in order to make the top teeth and bottom teeth line up in a perfect bite, they will need to leave spaces around these two teeth and then build them up using veneers....sigh. This is the case for both kids.

I began to ask myself if this would be the wisest choice. I have a veneer and know that they don't last forever. How important is a perfect bite? Is it worth the life long hassle of maintaining veneers? Just how bad would their bite be? These are questions that I decided to pose to my orthodontist (Dr. R). Simple enough. Well, the first time I brought it up he said thank you and wrote in my sons chart that I did not want to go with veneers and made me sign below that note. I guess I was signing to be responsible for those possible "dental problems" he would have in "50 years" caused by on imperfect bite??!! Not very much discussion. Me, I need to talk, discuss, beat a subject to death. So I decided at the next visit I would ask for the other orthodontist's opinion (Dr. E) and at the same time get a couple of new questions that I had answered.

This is where things began to fall apart. I requested that Dr. E see Thomas first because his chart had the note in it, then we would apply our decision to Erin if appropriate. We had just gotten to the point where Dr. E was going to tell me just how bad Thomas's bite would be when Dr. R interrupted to tell her to work on the patient next to us. He told the technician what needed to be done on Erin. So, while Erin was being worked on, I worked on closing my mouth because my jaw had dropped open when he had redirected Dr. E in the middle of my converstation with her. Once I got my jaw under control, I decided to use it to pick up my unfinished discussion with Dr. R since he was the one now working on Thomas. He started to get annoyed at me and said "you can't have it both ways, you can't close those spaces up and get a perfect bite at the same time". I told him that I didn't want it both ways, I just wanted to know if I was making a terrible decision. If the veneers are mostly for a good cosmetic look I don't want to do them. I just want to know how important the perfect bite is. He was still annoyed and said he would never let me make a really bad decision. I started to tell him that I didn't get that feeling when he had made me sign the note in Thomas's chart. He tried to interrupt me part way through until I said "I'm trying to tell you how I felt when I left last time". I think it may have been at this point that he stood up as if he was going to walk off and said "fine". I looked him in the eye and said "I feel like you are shutting me out right at this moment". Somehow I managed to get him to sit down and hopefully he decided to listen to my concerns. I ended up feeling about 90 percent certain that my decision is the right one but unfortunately, because of the tone of the entire discussion I'm not sure that he's telling me the truth. I'm afraid its possible that he is just telling me what he thinks I want to hear to shut me up.

I'm not sure at what point I realized that everyone in the room was lurking in the background watching this circus. I wasn't yelling, but you could definitely describe our discussion as "heated". In light of the fact that I still needed my questions answered, I persevered. My visit lasted about an hour so obviously I've only covered the main points in this post.

This has nothing to do with anything, but I needed to look up persevered to make sure of the spelling and saw "persnickety" and it directs you to "pernickety" and it means having extremely exacting standards. Neat word.

I think one problem lies in the fact that Dr. R opened the practice and hired Dr. E later on. I think he still sees her as just an employee although she has worked there for a few years now. She is opening her own practice and only works at his office one day a week. I doubt I will ever be able to get her professional opinion on anything.

Fortunately, at this point I still feel that the treatment that they have received has been fine and nothing has been done that's wrong or harmful. The only problem I have experienced is this one and I see it as a personality conflict that I've dealt with to the best of my ability. Unfortunately, I've paid for their braces and am sort of stuck with Dr. R. I know that I could leave and lose some money but I don't think the situation is that bad. The good thing is that if this is the wrong decision it is something that can be fixed easily with braces later on.

My kids had a valuable lesson in standing up for yourself. On the funny side Thomas must have been feeling my pain during the situation because at one point he blurted out "your doing great mom!" I love that kid! Its nice that they are getting old enough to understand what's going on and give me their perspective on the situation. Its validating to know that I wasn't imagining things or overreacting to what I was experiencing. Erin said she couldn't believe how rude he was being to me. Thomas confirmed that he was just yessing me to death at first but then finally started to tell me the truth. Thomas said that he felt that I would never be able to trust what Dr. R said totally but most of what he ended up telling me was probably true. The next day Thomas said that while he was laying in bed that night he realized just how hard that confrontation must have been for me. I told him I was glad that he appreciated my efforts and that one day I hoped he would be able to do the same for himself.