I Wish I Knew Then What I Know Now
Six years ago, we had a female patient in her late 20s who wanted to have a dental implant done. We told her she needed a sinus lift for her body to really accept the implant, otherwise, we could very easily perforate her sinus with the implant.
She kept saying no to it even after we explained everything to her. We eventually draw up the consent form and said we needed her to sign.
She would basically agree to let us perform the procedure against her best interests. In addition, if any problems arose in the future, we would still be able to help her, but we would not be liable in any way, shape, or form.
After a bit, she ended up signing the document and even took a picture of it. We did the surgery. It was just one implant, so it was a 30-minute job for us to do, not a big deal.
I wish I knew then what I know now. It was a successful operation and initial stability was achieved with no perforation of the sinus membrane.
A healing cap was placed on it to prevent her from playing with it, and she was required to take antibiotics for two weeks as well as maintain her dental hygiene before she returned in six months.
A month later, she called us up and said she was having a really sore throbbing pain on her cheek, which either meant a pinched nerve or a serious infection.
We prescribed amoxicillin. Two months later, she called back and said that her implant fell off and she was intending to sue.
Apparently, greenish-yellow pus was oozing out of the failure site, which indicated peri-implantitis as the cause. Still, the infection should have ceased by now. At this point, we started to get suspicious, so we got the dental association involved.
Nonetheless, we offered to treat her infection for free and replace the implant for free, but she didn’t reply. Three months after her scheduled appointment, we finally heard from her again. I’d never been so horrified.
She called back crying after she heard the news from her ophthalmologist that she was now at risk of going blind in one eye.
Another physician said she had a major infection along all the major nerves on one side of her face, a massive amount of pus in her nasal and optical sinus, pus squirting out of the corners of her eye, and possibly even an infection at the lower parts of her brain.
That’s when she confessed everything. She admitted to us that she never bought any of the prescriptions. She regretted all of it, and couldn’t stop crying over the phone.
We wanted to help her still, but she hung up and we couldn’t call back. We don’t know what happened to her, but we hope to this day that she’s OK. renogaza