I had a very horrible and humiliating experience with Dr.Benson, doing treatment with him was the worst and most damaging thing which happened in my life. To me he represents the worst in a doctor, I do not even consider him a doctor anymore.
Treatment lasted three years from Dec,2011 to Dec,2014 and was a disaster to me.
I had NO complains about my bite three+ years ago, when I first came to see him, I just needed to make six new crowns after Orthodontics and planned Implantation, yet he convinced me that I needed special extra treatment to adjust my bite.
He asked a hefty fee of ~$17,000 total. It was not clear at all to me why he wanted to charge twice as much as other dentists in the area, when I just needed six crowns, but I had to agree as he was referred to me by a surgeon doing implants for me. I really wanted to work with that surgeon and I thought the most difficult work which needs to be done is by surgeon only, crowns can be done in a matter of days/weeks by anyone.
It really sounded like Benson sells me something I do not need, but I thought he cannot make anything worse so I just accepted it as a premium I have to pay for his work.
Three years later I had to leave Dr.Benson with temporary crowns and a REAL bite problems, problems I could never imagine three years ago, way worse bite when I could not even chew properly, requiring help of highly trained and expensive dentists. Suddenly I needed to spend another 35K just to recover from all the mess into which I was put in.
In Dec,2013 he made a major change, which felt horrible, so I begged him many times to change it back, I kept telling him about those symptoms, yet he did not revert it and I had to suffer with it for more than a year. I reported that it is unbearable within the first week, and then kept reporting the problem for many more months without a resolution or reversal from him? To make things even worse he convinced me that we should just do final crowns and he can fix it all on final crowns. He knew that I am not happy with the way the bite feels yet he put the finals on. Those crowns were a complete misfit and required a lot of adjustments. His explanation was that lab technician likely improperly placed the models in articulator. What? Dr. Benson explained it before that his crowns are so much more expensive because he is using very skilled lab technicians who are like jewelers. It all felt humiliating, I felt like I am dealing with sneaky used cars salesman that moment and in many other moments during the treatment.
Once I started working with new dentists, they started with full diagnostics and occlusal splints, and the very first version of the splint addressed the symptoms of unbalanced bite, It only needed one week, yet Dr Benson did not resolve it in a year, besides he was the one who introduced the change which made it to feel so unbalanced.
It took me a while to find a new dentist, nobody wanted to just remove these crowns and bear responsibility further. They all prepared me for a possibly long and expensive treatment since all the references are completely lost. That was one of the reasons I delayed changing the doctor: suddenly new doctors asked for 30K+ treatment plans minimum and 4-6 months minimum. I could not accept it. How is it possible? Three years ago I did not even know such words as occlusion or gnathologist or "bad bite" and now after spending so much money and time I must spend even more.
As one well known dentist said to me, that if dentist does not have much experience in occlusal problems and starts changing the bite, he may just destroy the person and that is exactly what I feel : Dr. Benson simply ruined years of my life and put an emotional trauma for life, and he got paid for that. read more