We got there and had our cleaning. The place was almost empty, but we still had a bit of a wait. After DS had his x-rays done, we met with the dentist. His assessment, based on DS's x-rays, was that DS needs caps placed on two teeth. He didn't say anything further. Nothing about the procedure, nothing about options, nothing.
We went to check out, and as I was discussing this with the nurse, she said they prefer to do these sorts of things in separate appointments because getting it all done at once is hard on kids. She described the procedure, getting a needle after being numbed, getting the caps placed... It sounded frightening, to tell the truth. I was afraid for the little man. I hated thinking he'd have to go through that.
So I texted a friend who is a dentist (wish to god she lived here!) and I asked if she would recommend something so drastic for a 5-year old. I emailed her the x-rays. Here they are:
Now, I don't know the first thing about reading x-rays, so listening to that dentist tell me his feelings and then scheduling appointments following his recommendations was a leap of faith. I trusted him. So when my friend saw the x-rays and expressed her complete disagreement with his assessment, I was definitely upset. Her feeling is that fillings should be adequate. I decided to go to a different local dentist with the intentions of getting fillings, as opposed to getting caps.
Today, I drove to the dentist that my little ones used to see (knowing we'd have to pay out of pocket, and being completely okay with that). I requested to make an appointment, but he was able to see us immediately. So, we went back and he examined DS's teeth and x-rays.
He asked me if I really wanted to know what his recommendation was. I told him yes, of course! He said his recommendation was to do absolutely nothing. He said that the cavities that my son has are so small they haven't even penetrated the enamel fully. He said my son has wonderful teeth. And, he pointed out that they weren't planning on just capping two teeth, but also filling 3 others completely unnecessarily. (I not only brought him the x-rays, but the sheet indicating Kool Smiles' plan for treatment, which is written in all abbreviations that I honestly don't understand at all.) Kool Smiles mentioned nothing to me about doing the other three teeth.
He also told me that I'm not the first to come forward for a second opinion for the exact same thing. He and another local pediatric dentist have been seeing patients frequently for the exact same reason that I was there. This is a recurring theme with Kool Smiles.
Obviously, I canceled the appointments we have with Kool Smiles. Before starting to write this blog entry, I googled "Kool Smiles scam" and found some articles that upset me enough that I had to stop reading. These people are aggressively targeting underprivileged children, doing excessive and completely unnecessary procedures on them to make money. They don't use anesthesia and they literally strap them down routinely to do dental work. Meanwhile, they try their best to keep parents out of the treatment rooms during these procedures.
All I can think to myself is I almost put my son through this. It is my duty as his mom to never put him in a situation where I tell him he can trust someone who actually hurts him. I almost breached that trust. I almost placed my son in the care of someone who was just looking at him as a payout opportunity.
How many parents go through this, actually TRUSTING these dentists to be gentle and good to their children? How many children get hurt by these doctors? You shouldn't HAVE to protect your child from being hurt by vultures like this. I thought doctors were supposed to protect and heal, not harm.
I'm just in shock over this. I'm appalled. I'm also contacting the state about this. I hope they do a good, thorough review of this office's records and find enough to stop these people.
In the meantime, I'll be sharing this story every opportunity I get to help other moms and dads steer clear of these people. Kool Smiles should be stopped!
