Im writing this review to simply be a guiding light to other parents that are in a similar situation we were in with our 2 year old son. Unfortunately my son's 4 front teeth decayed. We brought him in to Dr. Whittemore, who was great and applied a treatment onto his teeth to arrest the decaying process. This treatment was only a temporary fix. As we knew his decay would eventually cause infection. So, time was definitely of the essence. This is where things got tricky, months later. We had an O. R. Appointment scheduled for surgery with dr whitmore to remove or put caps on his teeth (if the decay hadnt gone to his roots). Unfortunately i didnt answer my phone a couple times they called (my son had pneumonia in the hospital) and our spot was given to another child who needed an OR surgery. Basically; the only other OR surgery availability that Dr whitmore had was in February of 2022. This was way too far out and we didnt have that time so Dr Whittemore was extremely adamant on pulling out his four teeth IN his dentist office only using novacane. They were going to wrap him up in a "burrito" and pull the four teeth out. This sounded traumatic and i was very hesitant but yet everyone in that office was pressuring me to QUICKLY get this done. I definitely appreciated DrWhittemore's push to prevent infection. But In the back of my head, i kept asking myself "why cant he just call around to other dentists he knew that DID have OR time." Especially in our case when our appt was given to someone else.. I figured that was my job. And accepted that. Obviously dr whitmore pulls a lot of teeth and he felt our son could of handled this process. But i felt it was too much, and luckily, i spoke to a relative anesthesiologist about this in office event and he strongly advised against it bec novacane was painful in itself and it was just too traumatic for four teeth. It was better to do it in a hospital. So my relative gave me the name of a pediatric dentist who frequents the Hospital he works at often. Called and met this dentist, who said he believed we did have a little time (it wasnt as urgent as Whitmore's opinion). We got an appt in the OR for October. What's bothersome to me, is when we called to tell Whittemore's office that we were not going to go through with the in office pulling of teeth, they said they were worried about our son and they wanted to refer us to (the same dentist we just made an appt with!!!). Their concern was way too late. Again, They were wanting to pull my sons teeth out a long while before this call. They never even offered "maybe this dental place can do it". Again, I had been stalling with whitmores office bec it didnt feel right to me. So their concern felt upsetting. The best thing about this story and the thing i want to emphasize is that my son's roots werent decayed at all. This dentist was able to give my son caps. So he didnt have to be front of mouth toothless for the next 6 years of his life. This wouldnt of been possible had Dr. Whitmore simply pulled them out in his office. I also want to mention that in-office sedation can be dangerous too. Dr whitmore never offered that, but many dentists do. So, moral to the story- if it doesnt feel right to you, dont do it and look around. Thank god my relative helped get me this appt with this dentist. read more
