I am no stranger to dental visits and when you encounter a dental practice that goes above and beyond, I felt compelled to tell my story about Dr. Chelsea Longlet, DDS and her staff at Mill Point. In my 68 years, I've been under the care of many different dental professionals (general, orthodontic, and endodontic). My frequent encounters with dental professionals is due to a freak accident that happened almost 20 years ago. Let me briefly explain, while staying at a hotel in Scotland, I had the misfortune of having a heavy wooden valance mounted above the hotel bed fall from the ceiling directly onto my face while I was sleeping that resulted in a detached lip and several broken, fractured and missing teeth. Since that accident, I had a lot of dental work - fractured teeth, root canals, crowns, braces, and a permanent retainer. As a result I have been seen by many different dental practitioners over the years. We are not new to Bend, my wife and I moved to Bend in 2013, however because we travel back and forth to California we simply have used our dentists in CA. However, that was until recently when I woke one morning and my #9 upper incisor with a crown and metal post had spontaneously rotated counterclockwise making it difficult to eat with the risk that it would crack or fall out. Being away from our dentists and a vacation to Europe the following week, there was some urgency in getting this corrected. We had no provider for a referral and needed to find someone urgently. After a quick search for orthodontists and dentists posted on "NextDoor", my wife and I decided to contact Struble Orthodontics since we thought the tooth moving was an orthodontic issue since my permanent retainer bar had shifted prior. Fortunately, there was a cancellation and Dr. Struble in Redmond and saw me the next day. After a very thorough exam by Dr. Struble, she concluded my retainer shifting had nothing to do with the incisor crown moving and she referred me to Mill-Point Dental in Bend, but could I get an appointment and have it fixed in a week? Dr. Struble said she would see what she could do to get me an appointment asap. Fortunately, Mill-Point had a cancellation and Dr. Chelsea Longlet, DDS was able to squeeze me in for an assessment that SAME day. Her diagnosis was that the crown and metal post would need to be removed to determine the cause and they would again squeeze me in around there very busy schedule the next day 8 AM. I cannot say how professional Dr. Longlet and her staff, associate technician Kristen and hygienist Cassandra. The dental issue turned out not to be trivial. They removed my crown, but were not able to remove the mental post since it had somehow bent inside the root canal (which was the cause of the shift). Wanting to avoid wearing a temporary tray with a fake tooth during my vacation, she and her staff worked on getting this stubbornly stuck metal post for the next ~ 6 hrs. After a consultation from a local endodontic, they recommended applying sonication to the metal post. Dr.Longlet was eventually able to remove the post, put a new synthetic one in and mill a new crown (all in their office and that SAME day in 1 hr). While no one would want to voluntarily spend this much time at the dentist the same day, I think some dentists would have easily given up, but not Dr. Longlet. The outcome avoided the worse case scenario and was above and beyond what I could have expected. There was never any pain or discomfort involved and I was quite comfortable the whole time. They all were very friendly and highly skilled dental professionals with an excellent technical and office staff, (Joy and Sara) and state of the art dental equipment. As I mentioned before, I would know since I have been to many dental offices over the years. The most impressive part is that they really cared for me the patient and went the extra mile to resolve my problem. I cannot think of a way to express how much I appreciated the expert care they provided me and how they dealt with it in an urgent manner. From now on Mill-Point Dental will be me and my wife's primary dental providers and I will be seeing them soon for further assessments and cleanings. -- Ken B
Thank You Mill-Point Dental! ***** read more
