March 29, 2021
WARNING: If you value your teeth, DO NOT see this person.
I made a mistake. I trusted this periodontist. There was something wrong with him, but I trusted him because I was referred to him by my regular, trustworthy dentist.
I first met Dr. Robert Burns on Oct 15, 2020 about a gum infection and a loose front tooth.
I was shown an x-ray which I thought was the tooth that I was concerned about, and soon after had splinted in order to stabilize it. I was given a prescription for an antibiotic to treat the abcess.
I was munching on peanut butter pretzles earlier this month, careful not to use the splinted tooth, or the equivalent tooth on the other side. The next day there was pain, and something was wrong. Another tooth was loose. I had to wait a couple of weeks to get an appointment to see Dr. Robert Burns, the periodontist, who had told me the reasons why my front tooth was loose. I remember how he brought me to another room, so that we could have a "serious" conversation. He showed me an x-ray of some of my teeth and pointed out the difference between the teeth roots. One of the roots was half the size of the others. The teeth didn't look like the one that I came in to have checked, the one that I later had splinted, but I thought it was because I didn't know how to read an x-ray.
Last Tuesday, Mar 23, 2021, I went back to Dr. Burns for some answers. This was my third visit with him, and I was upset. Why didn't he warn me about this tooth?? Dr. Burns told me that he did tell me about the two teeth that I needed to be concerned about. He tried to show me his notes, as if I couldn't remember what he told me. Why was he showing me his notes? I wasn't questioning his notes. I told him that I misunderstood which tooth I was looking at when he showed me the x-ray. The tooth in the x-ray was not the tooth that I had had splinted, nor the symmetric tooth on the other side. It was the tooth behind the symmetric tooth on the other side. This tooth was asymptomatic five months ago. It was not loose, not infected, and there was no pain. So after I had gotten my front tooth splinted, I tended to use the asymptomatic tooth in order to spare the one that I had recently had splinted. I remembered how Dr. Burns tried to be "sympathetic" as he told me the bad news. But it was an act. Now he was trying to show me his notes, to show me, or remind me of what we had "discussed". But I didn't need to see his notes, and I didn't need to be reminded. I told him what he had told me five months earlier: That I needed to worry about the "symmetric" tooth on the other side of the one that I had had splinted, shortly after seeing him for the first time. This time he said: "Well, almost symmetric." What?!?!?!????!!!!! He doesn't know what the word "symmetric" means??????
He then said: "I didn't think you were emotionally ready.". "Emotionally ready" for what?
He didn't think that I was "emotionally ready" to know which tooth I was looking at?
And I knew he was going after my "over-emotional" reaction because he knew from my intake file that I was on Prozac and Wellbutrin, for depression. It's an old tactic that inadequate doctors use all the time. Then he said: "You said that you wanted to do everything you could to save your tooth (teeth)." I had nothing to say to that. It's probably exactly what I said. I just thought: Isn't that what most people would say?
I asked him what I should do now. In a shockingly unsympathetic tone of voice, he said: "I think you should have it removed." And right after that, he said: "Nine out of ten periodontists would tell you the same thing." But I wasn't seeing any other periodontists. I wasn't looking for another opinion. Then, thinking that all of this mess could have been prevented, I asked him: "If I had had the nightguard earlier, could this have been prevented?". Then he very bluntly said: "I don't know. I would have had to see you earlier." This is another thing that doctors commonly say, maybe because they want to save themselves some time on a lengthy explanation. Five months earlier, he had told me exactly what had caused these problems. He had told me that it resulted from my grinding my teeth at night, in addition to having an orthodontic retainer that only exacerbated the side-to-side grinding movement of my teeth. I already knew the answer to my question, I just wanted to hear it again, but he couldn't even be bothered with that.
So I got up to leave. As I stood up, Dr. Burns said: "Let's take another x-ray to see if your other teeth are strong enough to support a bridge." Who said anything about a bridge? Isn't that a cosmetic thing? Doesn't that involve doing things to the remaining teeth? Did he think that I would allow him to remove the damaged tooth or do anything to the remaining teeth? At that point I said: "I want to go home." I said: "Thank you.", and walked to the read more