On Sat, 17 Jan 2004 20:25:52 +1100, Poe Lim <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Best to follow your specialist's recommendation.

I have had consistent bad luck with MANY so-called "specialists"
I've encountered, in all areas of medicine, that I have acquired
the generic use of "Quack" for all of them until proven otherwise. :-))

Some of those horror stories had been told in Scuba-L and SE.

I had written Robert about my latest experience with these
route-canal, and endodontist specialists which I'll reproduce here:

===========>
>Speaking of root canals ... I had this ONE tooth, which had a CROWN
>put on.  When I got to Choo Choo, it appeared to have a slight
>infection, so my regular tooth Quack sent me to a Specialist Quack
>to do a root canal on it.  That was early last year.
>
>The same slight infection persisted, on and off.  Now the Specialist
>Root Canal Quack sent me to a Orthodontist surgeon to work on the
>GUM to eliminate some pocket that traps food.
>
>The Surgical Dentist Quack went through all the spiel about how he
>would have to remove one root, do some bone graft, etc., etc.,
>until he had me breathing the laughing gas ... I heard him talking
>to the nurse that there was a fracture in the tooth, and all he
>could do was to REMOVE it!!!
>
>I am going back Monday to have the stitches removed.   That's the
>most expensive MISSING tooth I've ever had.  If I just had it
>extracted in the first place, I could have taken several
>liveaboard trips on what all the specialist Quacks did on it,
>resulting in a toothless gap in the mouth next to the molar.
>
>I don't know what the moral of the story is.
>
>The tooth fairy has NOT been good to me.
============>

Now it's Poe talking,


>Most root canal procedures are usually at least two, sometimes
>three stages

Certainly true on my case!   :-)   End up with no root, no tooth! :-))


>(especially if there has been a lot of pain),

I had NO PAIN whatsoever except during the recovery day after the
surgery when I was prescribed 10 days worth of narcotic pain
killers (of which I took only ONE) and had plenty left over that
some folks would kill to get.  :-)   I read in a recent Choo Choo
news that some Quack got involved with a pain-killer-drug-addict,
traded pills for sex, until their relation went sour, and she
complained.  :-)))

>although some dentists and endodontists (particularly
>in the US) are moving to the one stage procedure.
>
>Cheers,
>Poe

Not those *I* encountered in the US.  :-)  The only Specialist
they left out was an Allergy Specialist to PROVE that I am
deathly allergic to aspirin (which is desirable for heart and
dental patients for medical reasons).  My Cardiologist Quack
sent me to a Allergy Specialist who charged $600 by making
me take 1/16, 1/8, and 1/4 tablets of aspirin in 15-mminute
intervals until in less than 1 aspirin tablet, my entire body
broke out in hives and bumps.

The worst part of it was that the Cardiac Quack (years of
experience, in South Carolina unfortunately, and is a Fellow
of the Cardiologist Assoc too) was WRONG about aspirin being
necessary for HIS intended anigoplasty and recovery maintenance!


That was what sent me to the REAL docs, at Emory, in ATL.

The head of the team of 40 Cardiac Specialists there gave me
the diagnostic tests and declared that I was in PERFECT shape,
need no angioplasty the Quack prescribed, and it was THEN
that I started taking Plavix for what was ASPIRIN was normally
taken by heart bypass patients for blood thinning (which I
was NOT prescribed to take since my surgery in 1992, until
then, 2002).  The research and clinical results about the
superiority of Plavix over Aspirin had been known during the
mid 1990s.  It was just that the SC Quack never heard of it!


I treat ALL recommendations of medical doctors (have two in my
immediate family too :-)) the same way I treat recommendations
of SCUBA (hey ob scuba!!!!!) Instructors, with GREAT CAUTION,
commonsense, and a large ROCK of salt.  :-)

Why?  Because there are so many Quacks amongst them.

-- Bob.