We left at 11am, me on the bike and Leona and Amanda on the scooter and went to the Chung Yo Dept. Store area to see the dentist at Dr. Wells Clinic. Once again, before we went to Sitou, my cap fell out, then, because of the space it left between, the implant behind the cap got loose. After the dentist tightened the implant, he told Leona the reason the cap fell out was because the implant got loose but I think it was the other way around. ‘Saving face’ is very important. It is true however that my first trip to the dentist in Taiwan was because the implant came loose. Nothing was done to remedy the situation. Now, the dentist will ‘do research’ to find a longer stem for my obsolete short ten-year-old design implant that Dr. Benjamin installed five years ago.
Leona defended the dentist again when I questioned why he has to do ‘research’ about getting a longer screw for my implant; he blames the ‘too short screw’ for the loose cap he made on the tooth in front of it. I suggested he write directly to the company that makes the screws instead of, what Leona said he’d do, ask around other dentists in Taiwan to see if they have it. She said he was saving us money by doing so
I think that you handled this the right way. Had you confronted or blamed the dentist, it could have made for a very uncomfortable situation in the chair when he makes the repair. By allowing the dentist to save face, you handled it like a professional and you will eventually get the result that you want.
ReplyDeleteThere is nothing worse than a toothache. I can't even imagine being in a foreign land dealing with the local dentists about a tooth problem and knowing more about the remedy than he does. I want to say "hang in there" but when it comes to toothaches I think it's more "grin and bear it" until you can find a dentist.
ReplyDeleteDear Freddie and Quinn:
ReplyDeleteJust this very day I returned to the same dental office and the same dentist. It was to deaden a tooth that he had placed a cap on in June. In June the tooth, which had been sensitive since early May, was still sensitive but, at the advice of the dentist and a second opinion, I agreed to live with the sensitivity, brush regularly with special toothpaste, and see what happened. What happened was that a week ago, the sensitivity became worse. For three nights, it became excruciating after 9 pm; once the busy day left me time to feel the pain. When I lay down to sleep, not ten minutes later, I bolted up and found a sip of room temperature water leaving a pool around the tooth, seemed to make the throb stop, but ten minutes later, I was startled up again; this went on all night long until I finally fell asleep out of fatigue.
Dr. Chen not being in until Wednesday, I visited a third local dentist who refused to mess with another dentist's work, even if it was to relieve my pain, and instead gave me a prescription for pain killers and antibiotics with an admonition to return to the source.
It has been a divine comedy of saving face with this dentist from the start as yesterday's timely and ironic comments from Freddie Gray and Quinn Kimbrough provoked my memory. The toothache from rotting teeth and receding gums began in April this year. When I had pain initially, I was going to a local dentist with a sincere veteran dentist instead of Dr. Well's office to see the dentist who did my implant, but my wife erroneously tipped off the office and I had to turn my change of dentist into a 'second opinion' so I could still get another implant without making Mr. Chen lose face. He put on a temporary cap with super glue because I was to go to the Stares for my daughter's wedding. Anyway, to make a too long story a little shorter, Dr. Chen took me in at my wife's insistence, drilled a hole in the porcelain cap he had recently put on, cut the rotting nerve that was causing all the pain, and set me up to get a root canal and new cap in two months time when my tooth is strong enough to bear the stress.