I'm sorry, this will be a very long post. This happened a few years ago so it’s too late to seek justice, although I tried at the time. However, it is the most violating thing anyone has done to me and still affects me every day.
I saw an orthodontist for advice about my bite which was uncomfortable after treatment with braces elsewhere. An upper canine was in an awkward position and hitting hard against my lower teeth. My retainer was very painful to wear and I wanted to get a new one, but also wanted to ask if the canine could be moved to a more comfortable position. He told me that this would be resolved by shaving off a “minimal” amount of my enamel. I didn’t like the sound of it so I said no, but I asked him to make me a replacement retainer. He brought it up a couple more times and I kept saying no. We agreed that I would come back for the impressions to be taken, and while I was leaving he mentioned that he’d clean some glue left from a previous fixed retainer at the back of my teeth. I had told him I’d had a retainer which was removed and so was the glue, but I thought he meant there was a speck left or something.
I ignored the red flags – he was dismissive, borderline rude and kept insisting that my tooth should be shaved. But I thought nothing bad could happen by just getting a new retainer. I thought I was safe because he was a director at a practice owned by a well-known brand. I’m quite naïve and I always assume that people are honest and can’t imagine why they’d lie.
At the next appointment he said he’d have to first remove glue from the backs of my teeth. I said I didn’t want any of my enamel to be removed. He said, “No enamel will be removed. I’ll use a tool that can’t remove any enamel”. I’d had glue removed from my teeth several times before and there’s never been any issues so I agreed. He started from the opposite canine to the one that was causing me problems. Halfway through I thought this didn’t feel right because he was moving the drill up and down the whole backs of my teeth, not just in a specific place where there could have been a bit of glue left. I just stared at him, I didn’t know what to do. When he got to the problematic canine he pressed hard, making 3-4 vertical lines top to bottom, then a horizontal slash at the end of my tooth. Only then did I realise he was drilling into my teeth but it was too late. When I felt the backs of my teeth they were no longer smooth, they were all scratched and the canine had deep cuts into it and was thinner and shorter than before. I told him, you removed my enamel, he said no enamel was removed, there was a lot of glue there. I told him he had no right to do this but he kept denying. I realised that the dental nurse had spent the whole appointment with her back turned to me. I was shocked and didn’t know what to do, I also had to go back to work.
The next day I called my dentist and they gave me an appointment that morning. It was a new dentist that I didn’t know. She took photos of the backs of my teeth then pointed at the yellow lines on them and said that that’s where enamel had been removed. I was still very upset and blurted out something like, “send me a copy of these photos, I’m going to sue him”. She looked taken aback, she said, “But it’s nothing, just a bit of enamel”. When I finally got the photos they were so blurry that none of the damage could be seen, and only less than half of the canine was shown. I guess no amount of blurring could hide the damage so they had to crop the picture there.
I filed a complaint to the orthodontic practice which started a long email chain between me and the man who assaulted me. He changed his story, first claiming that a tiny amount of enamel may have been removed but he hadn’t noticed it. Then he insisted that no enamel could have been removed and that he must have not removed all of the glue and I should go back to him so he can remove the rest of the glue and prove it to me. He said I could go to any of his colleagues to do that if I preferred. He contradicted himself in other ways. He also included a one-page essay on how common and benign it was to remove enamel and how he’s done it to thousands of people on hundreds of thousands of teeth.
I then reported the orthodontist to the General Dental Council who regulate dentists in the UK. They got “independent” clinical opinion, which just completely sided with the orthodontist. They stated that he had used the correct instrument – no information given how they concluded that. They said that I had consented to my enamel being removed because I had consented to the removal of glue and that had the risk of removing some enamel. But the amounts were so small that he didn’t have to ask me for my consent. They closed the case and ignored my emails asking how they came to their conclusions.
I’ve spent thousands on therapy since then and I’m still not ok. It’s ruined my self-confidence, sense of safety and trust in people, especially doctors. It feels very isolating, I wish there was a support group for what I experienced but I haven’t been able to find one. The damaged areas of my teeth are still sensitive every day, I can also feel their uneven surface and that’s all very triggering. I now avoid dentists, having previously always gone twice a year and been a very calm patient. I now make myself go once a year but I have anxiety for weeks ahead of the appointment.
Thank you for taking the time to those who read the whole thing. I’d be grateful for any advice on how to heal or how to trust dentists again.