I'm hoping someone can give me an idea of the standard response to a dental emergency. We've been with our current pediatric dentist for 3 1/2 years and I've always been happy with him. But we just had our first dental emergency, and I'm not happy with him at all. I need someone to tell me if my anger is justified or if I just need to simmer down because this is just how it is in the dental field.
Shortened version of the story: My 3 year old daughter fell and hurt her mouth on Sunday night. The urgent care center patched up her cuts and told me to follow up with our dentist ASAP. She has an intrusion injury and one of the worries was the proximity of the jammed tooth to the permanent teeth. Our dentist doesn't have office hours on Monday, but he has an emergency phone number, so I started paging him at 7:30 Monday morning. He finally responded after I paged him 3 times (waiting an hour between pages) and told me that he couldn't see my daughter until Friday. I hadn't expected him to go into the office on a non-office day, but I had expected him to say something along the lines of "If you come first thing on Tuesday, you may have to wait awhile, but I'll squeeze her in." I agreed to Friday since I didn't have much choice (I had already called several other dentists and they either weren't in the office, were booked up and wouldn't see a new patient, or wouldn't see someone as young as my daughter.)
Yesterday, my girl was in even more pain than the day before (even with the pain relievers) and she wasn't eating or drinking. So I called my pediatrician's office. They made a few calls and found a dentist to see her immediately -- she got "sqeezed in." They took xrays and determined that they didn't need to pull any teeth (the permanent teeth weren't in danger), but she may lose 4 teeth. I know they didn't do more than would have been done on Friday, but they did relieve the main worry about the permanent teeth and the dentist talked to my daughter about the importance of eating and drinking (she was on the verge of hospitalization and IVs). My daughter responded to their caring (she had been asking to go have her teeth fixed because they hurt so much) and started drinking last night.
So back to my question. Is it considered "normal" for a dentist to make a 3-year old in pain wait for several days? Again, I realize that waiting wouldn't have made a difference in treatment, but we didn't know that until a dentist actually saw my daughter. I'm tempted to leave our previous practice for the new one, but I also know that I'm too upset to make a decision about that right now. Any input from people who know about this stuff would be greatly appreciated.
Tara
Shortened version of the story: My 3 year old daughter fell and hurt her mouth on Sunday night. The urgent care center patched up her cuts and told me to follow up with our dentist ASAP. She has an intrusion injury and one of the worries was the proximity of the jammed tooth to the permanent teeth. Our dentist doesn't have office hours on Monday, but he has an emergency phone number, so I started paging him at 7:30 Monday morning. He finally responded after I paged him 3 times (waiting an hour between pages) and told me that he couldn't see my daughter until Friday. I hadn't expected him to go into the office on a non-office day, but I had expected him to say something along the lines of "If you come first thing on Tuesday, you may have to wait awhile, but I'll squeeze her in." I agreed to Friday since I didn't have much choice (I had already called several other dentists and they either weren't in the office, were booked up and wouldn't see a new patient, or wouldn't see someone as young as my daughter.)
Yesterday, my girl was in even more pain than the day before (even with the pain relievers) and she wasn't eating or drinking. So I called my pediatrician's office. They made a few calls and found a dentist to see her immediately -- she got "sqeezed in." They took xrays and determined that they didn't need to pull any teeth (the permanent teeth weren't in danger), but she may lose 4 teeth. I know they didn't do more than would have been done on Friday, but they did relieve the main worry about the permanent teeth and the dentist talked to my daughter about the importance of eating and drinking (she was on the verge of hospitalization and IVs). My daughter responded to their caring (she had been asking to go have her teeth fixed because they hurt so much) and started drinking last night.
So back to my question. Is it considered "normal" for a dentist to make a 3-year old in pain wait for several days? Again, I realize that waiting wouldn't have made a difference in treatment, but we didn't know that until a dentist actually saw my daughter. I'm tempted to leave our previous practice for the new one, but I also know that I'm too upset to make a decision about that right now. Any input from people who know about this stuff would be greatly appreciated.
Tara
: I wouldn't even consider it "normal" for a dentist to make an adult wait in pain for several days! My husband is a dentist (general - not specifically peds) and even if he is not in the office he answers his pager immediately and responds to emergencies fast. He'll be shocked when I share your story with him. Your poor little one - I'm glad you bypassed the dentist and went to your ped. If you do switch practices (I know I would) you may want to consider a group practice - that way someone is always available to come in for emergencies.
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