When you take your child to the dentist, you expect the dentist to be honest with you and treat your child right. What you don’t expect is to be lied to about the amount of dental work that is needed. One mom took her daughter to the dentist and didn’t like what she was hearing.
She posted her story online and found that many other parents had similar experiences.
Marina Looyen explained:
“Your typical dental hygiene routine with a 4-year-old and she does pretty well. She got her teeth cleaned, everything was fine.”
Then, the dentist, Dr. Deanna Alevizos, told Marina that her daughter was going to need to come back for a lot of dental work. Marina had always taken very good care of her daughter’s teeth, so she was surprised when she heard about all the problems. She said:
“I was like, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s no way that she could have nine cavities!’”
Her husband, Matt, was just as shocked.
He said Marina felt awful about the news and started thinking of ways to help improve her daughter’s dental hygiene. Matt felt that they already did everything they could to keep her teeth healthy. He explained:
“Marina said ‘No more candy, no more sweets. We got to make sure she brushes every night and every morning,’ and I’m like, ‘We already do!’”
The more Marina and Matt thought about the dentist’s finding, the more they felt that something wasn’t right about it.
Marina decided to take her daughter to another dentist for a second opinion. This doctor had some different results. Marina explained:
“He retook her X-rays and looked in her mouth, and he looked at me and he’s like, ‘No Marina … she’s got three cavities and one of them is a watch. … They’re tiny cavities I can fix without even Novocain.’”
Matt and Marina are relieved that the other dentist was able to treat their daughter so easily, but they wonder what the first dentist would have done.
They are afraid that he would have ruined their daughter’s teeth at a young age.
Matt said:
“Would they have drilled into the safe teeth, or would they just have not treated them? Which either on a 4-year-old is ridiculous.”
Marina decided that she wanted to warn other parents about what happened in case they were ever in a similar situation. She posted about the experience on a mom’s Facebook group. She was surprised at the response. She said:
“I couldn’t believe my phone was just going off and off and off. There are 121 posts.”
As it turned out, other parents had a similar experience with the same dentist.
Courtney Lamprecht was one of them. Her young son’s previous dentist had given him a clean bill of health, but when they saw Alevizos, they got a different story. She said:
“We then found out she needed four fillings and six crowns. My husband was giving me the eyes of, ‘We’re getting a second opinion!’ Something wrong is happening there. Something isn’t right that there’s such a difference in opinions.”
According to pediatric dentist Dr. Teresa Fong, some doctors make commission. Therefore, the more work they do, the more they get paid. She explained:
“There really has to be trust. You need to trust your providers. If you get two very different opinions, then you do want to question, you know, well exactly where do you see these cavities? And can you show me on an X-ray where these cavities are?”
The moms who read Marina’s post are all relieved that they know what to watch for at the dentist now, and many of them have filed complaints against Alevizos.
Marina said that she is surprised by how many people had similar stories, and she hopes she can help other people avoid the same situation.
“How many more people does she see that are not in this group that are not aware of this? And how many people just go with the flow and just believe what she has to say, never knowing any different?”
Hopefully, this will help other parents learn that it’s OK to question dentists and doctors when it comes to their children and the procedures that are suggested. In most cases, healthcare professionals will be honest, but it’s always better to be safe than sorry.
Watch her story below.
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