[color="#1c2837"]No, I didn't see the x-rays myself.

[color="#1c2837"]Should I legitimately be worried about being ripped off? The second dentist was recommended to me by a friend and has had his private practice here for years. Well, I'm not sure what to think. The first dentist is getting old, he's planning on retiring, and he doesn't seem like he cares anymore. He was even canceling some of my appointments--at least twice he canceled. The second dentist definitely did not come off as shady.

I'm not insinuating he is ripping you off (which he may be), but everyone has different personalities. He may see a microscopic dot on your xray and freak out that you have a cavity whereas someone else might wait till the next appointment to see what the status is.

I'm thinking there's a middle ground between your 1st and 2nd dentist.

Was it this guy?

Someone gave you -1 for one of the best dentist references in pop culture

IMO yes. In all honesty, and in my experience, dentists tend to be incompetent and desirous of giving you more treatment than is necessary in order to make more money. I've even known them to damage people's teeth and give bad advice so that they can prescribe more treatment in the future. Also I've known them to give "oh you definately need lots of treatment" statements to people they thought were on a private healthcare scheme and then on finding out that they were on public healthcare change to a "oh your teeth are fine, you don't need treatment" statement. Given you were having no problams with your teeth before and and given your previous dentist was obviously not trying to rip you off I'd be more inclined to trust the previous dentist.

This is a problem with the US medical system, not just dentists. They are just a susceptible to malpractice suits as any other doctor, and the US malpractice system favors the patients so much that it is in every doctor's best interest to over treat people lest they get sued and have their license brought into question. More times than not the malpractice suits are brought up by private insurance companies, not the patients, and that is why they tend to over treat insured people, because they are riskier not to treat.

And the dude pointed out earlier that he was worried about his dental health as a non-professional. I'd say that is enough to warrant favoring the latter dentist. Dental health is probably one place where I'd be more inclined to over treat anyway if you can afford it. It's pretty shitty trying to schedule emergency dental surgery on a weekend while also trying to figure out how to eat anything and resist the urge to pull your tooth out of your skull with a pair of needle nose pliers to make the pain stop.

Jeez, I thought this thread was about a novel game idea.

First-person driller? Role-playing? Buccal tactics? ASCII roguelike probequest?

It had possibilities for a moment.

Toejam & Earl?

I looked into getting a third opinion but haven't been able to get anything scheduled soon enough, as I am going on a long two-month trip tomorrow in fact. The new dentist was willing to get me in this week, though, so I decided to go in and have them do what they considered most major.

I'm increasingly on the fence over this. I need to get a third opinion and probably will in time when I can. Every time I've went into the new dentits's office they've asked me, sometimes more than once, if I have dental insurance, even though I've filled out numerous forms, answered the question several times, and even went in there a few months ahead of the first appointment and filled out all those forms then as well.

I'm not fond of the way dentist's offices work anymore. I don't like that the dentist himself doesn't give me any advice, only his assistants who do little more than put napkins on my chest and suction saliva out of my mouth. The dental assistants wanted me to buy a toothbrush from them today. I asked them how long these cavities had been there, and one of the assistants said "from the x-rays, probably six months." It's weird that I evidently went years without any cavities, yet in the last six months eleven popped up and she's warning me that "these are the only teeth you'll get." Maybe it's all true and dental health is just far more finicky that I thought. On the other hand, their obsession with insurance makes me think they are trying to schedule every little trick they can. (For the record, I do *not* have dental insurance right now, but given how confused they have been over it, I'm seriously not convinced the dentist himself knows that. The worst part is that during my last visit I didn't even get a chance to talk to him, because by the time he showed up in the room, there was a gas mask on my face and multiple sticks in my mouth.)

I'm just tired of the mixed messages. I'd be inclined to just return to my regular dentist if he wasn't in the process of retiring, but recently he was canceling my appointments almost as often as I was calling to make them, which is one of the factors that led me to consult a new dentist in the first place.

Regardless, I'm going to take very good care of my teeth from now on, so this is not all bad, but it is very confusing.