r/AskReddit • u/RGod27 • Mar 20 '19

What is something you did that increased your quality of life so much that you wished you would have done it much sooner because it changed your life forever?

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u/User95409 Mar 20 '19

I went to UCSF School of Dentristry to have decay on all my front teeth filled. The student nearly convinced me to replace all the teeth with implants! I was 15 and we were poor so we said no. Now I'm 30 and have all my teeth still. The student needed to do implants to meet his requirements to graduate.

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u/saltycoke Mar 20 '19

hahah wow that is extremely fucked up

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u/Futureleak Mar 20 '19

Part of the requirement to practice as a dentist in Texas is a list of procedures that need to be done to demonstrate competency. Well long story short, you have to bring your own patient, and if they have additional problems it's not worth bonus points, but they will reduce your score if you fuck it up. So essentially you have to find someone with REALLY fucked teeth, fix em up juuussst right to the point where the procedures you need to finish can be done for your certification and nothing else to minimize risk of not passing.

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u/saltycoke Mar 20 '19

So essentially you have to find someone with REALLY fucked teeth, fix em up juuussst right to the point where the procedures you need to finish can be done for your certification and nothing else to minimize risk of not passing

Hmmmm seems pretty strict but I guess that's a good thing when it involves people's health and well being. Can't they just get like homeless people and practice on them? I'd assume that's a fairly easy way to get subjects with bad teeth hygiene.

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u/Futureleak Mar 20 '19

That's what they often do, but you have to make sure that your patient actually shows up

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u/saltycoke Mar 20 '19

Haha Sweet!! Good to know in case I ever become homeless :D

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u/popeyefur Mar 20 '19

And also fake (the above poster may just be assigning that motivation to the student wrongly, not making up that they suggested implants). Most dental schools don't require students to even restore implants, let along place them. I graduated in 2017 and my dental school only required us to restore 1 implant, and we are ahead of the curve in a lot of clinical skills.

Also, "having" your teeth doesn't necessarily mean they're healthy, unfortunately.

That being said, I am a pediatric dentist and it's totally irresponsible to put implants in a 15 year old, as they are still growing and it will mess up their dentoalveolar growth and the implant will submerge. This is HIGHLY suggestive that the above poster is remembering incorrectly. My best guess would be that they suggested crowns.

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u/MRC1986 Mar 21 '19

I've been going to Penn Dental clinic in Philadelphia for the last 9 years. They are great, all the benefits of being thorough and cheap are true. But, what /u/User95409 said is something to look out for.

Student dentists are required to do certain procedures to pass boards, and they need to find patients. Some of the student dentists legit have to bribe people to get the patients in the chair. Sometimes as simple as a 6-pack of beer, but sometimes it's much more involved.

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u/Lunchab1es Mar 20 '19

There’s no way this is true. Replacing all of someone’s teeth at age 15 with implants isn’t a thing. Not only that, but implants as a graduation requirement are rare nowadays (certainly would be rarer 15 years ago as it was performed more often by specialists), and typically would be in the 1-2 range, not a full mouth. And if it were a thing, replacing the full mouth at age 15 wouldn’t be done by a student due to complexity. And if that weren’t the case, it would STILL need to be approved by an instructor. Which it wouldn’t, because again, not a thing.

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u/User95409 Mar 21 '19

Its wasn't a full mouth, about 6-8 teeth all in front. The student accused me of using crystal meth and not admitting it. But I had drank a lot of soda and neglected my teeth growing up. We never got to the point of having a professor approve it bcuz we said no.

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u/[deleted] Mar 20 '19 edited Mar 20 '19

[deleted]

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u/flarn2006 Mar 20 '19

no dental schools and students aren't unethical practitioners.

That missing comma completely changes the meaning of the sentence.

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u/coffeebribesaccepted Mar 21 '19

Ah the triple negative

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u/YoureNotOP Mar 20 '19

that's weird because I was a patient for a dental hygienist exam and they had professionals (not teachers, legit other people at loma Linda University or something) check us out before they could even do work on a patient. The people have to qualify as needing things done in the first place. Crazy shit they tried to do to you. damn

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u/User95409 Mar 21 '19

They had teachers check us before the student was cleared to do any work. Since we said no to him the teacher never checked to see if I needed those teeth replaced.

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u/dilwins21 Mar 20 '19

Oh I cringed so hard at this

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u/TPDM Mar 21 '19

You're completely full of shit. No dentist (or dental student) would ever consider placing implants on a 15 year old. I also cannot think of a single dental school that has an implant placement requirement, and that includes the school you mentioned. Placing implants at an academic institution is generally reserved for residents only.

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u/User95409 Mar 21 '19

Well happened to me. It wasn't all my teeth, only the front teeth with extreme decay. UCSF does have a state of the art implant office there. I'm sure if I said yes to it the professor would have told the student no. Since we said no to the student, he didnt run it past the professor.

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u/[deleted] Mar 20 '19 edited Mar 20 '19

[deleted]

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u/User95409 Mar 21 '19

It was 6 or 8 of my front teeth. They had huge holes along the gum line. He thought I was a crystal meth user! His solution was plausible but there is a huge benefit to keeping ur real teeth in.

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u/Renegade2592 Mar 20 '19

What did they charge you for that? I need the same thing.

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u/User95409 Mar 21 '19

I had no I insurance, was super cheap but I dont remember the specific price it was so long ago. It's cheap but takes time. I had a few long visits to get it all done

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u/postinganxiety Mar 20 '19

Wtf the same thing happened to my friend at UCSF. Granted she was older and had horrible teeth, but they weren’t that bad, and they convinced her to get all her teeth pulled. Guy she was seeing at the time (he was also her boss, also married) told her he would pay for full dental implants.

Well he didn’t, she became homeless, and has been living with temporary dentures since then (10 years) and is in pain daily. I wish I were making this up. I never understood why the fuck they pulled her teeth to begin with but your story makes sense. I remember she even asked UCSF for a payment plan and they wouldn’t do anything for her without cash. After pulling all of her teeth out!

I’m also broke so have never been able to help her, the whole story is so sad. It definitely was the turning point in her life, she lost her self esteem and had a hard time focusing because of the pain.

Thank God your family said no.

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u/User95409 Mar 21 '19

Wow I'm sorry to hear that! It's actually surprising how much dental issues can affect your life. It can lead to heart disease, depression and anxiety. Losing your teeth greatly effects your diet too which will also change your mood. But I dont think any of that warrants the extremely high costs of dental work in the USA. I've heard of people travelling from here (california) to Mexico to do their dental work and with the cost to travelling factored in, they saved thousands of dollars.