Kids dentist in Singapore Part 2

Today we took my little darling back to GPA Dental to see Dr Jason because I felt that the abscess was returning. Despite the fact that Dr Shafiq from Q&M told us that it's ok and the medicine he put in the tooth would make it better over time. I am super glad to have listened to my Mother.s instinct or intuition. For days I had kept on checking her tooth and I really didn't feel right about it. Dr Shafiq had assured us that it'd be ok till after our two week Holiday. When we saw Dr Jason we found out what a botched up job Dr Shafiq did. Not only was my little one traumatised by his very bad treatment of the situation and what I can only perceive as inexperience, but upon further checking, Dr Jason said there didn't seem to be any medicine inside the tooth that was supposed to treat the infection!! WTH! I couldn't believe it and it also turns out that the pulp wasn't cleaned properly during the so called baby root canal! To add further disbelief, we were really shocked to find out that a stainless steel crown isn't necessary on her since the tooth isn't damaged!! How could Dr Shafiq have been so wrong in his approach to her case??? You should've seen the look my husband and I shot each other, it was shock, disbelief and relief. I really really thank God. Maybe in some way through C's ordeal, we were able to find the best treatment for our child. God knows how everything would have turned out had we let him continue treating C. It makes me so mad to know that medical professionals whom we put our trust in actually in the end can't be trusted. How are we supposed to be able to discern what is right or wrong? So here's a warning to other parents looking for a good dentist for the kids. Do not go to Dr Shafiq at Q&M city square. Go to GPA Dental, it's worth the extra penny you pay. Money you can always earn but the trust of a child can be crushed with just one visit to an inexperienced dentist and may take many years to rebuild.

Kids Dentist In Singapore

As if being a parent isn't hard enough, bringing your kid to the dentist and being told she needs this and this work done just adds more to your feelings of inadequacy at being a parent. So I just wanted to share my experiences with all of you on bringing your child to the dentist, from finding a suitable one, to our experiences with them. And if you're like me, who obsess over things that's beyond your control, and research after research just to prepare yourself and to make you feel better, than I hope this posting can help in some way.

My daughter who is now 5 years old has always had a lot of teeth problems, and no she doesn't eat sweet stuff or drink from a bottle. But when she was younger she hated brushing her teeth (still does now but is more strictly enforced). So as a consequence she had lots of cavities on her teeth and I can tell you that sometimes dentists can make you feel horrible about yourself and what a terrible job you did as a parent in taking care of your child's teeth. So if anyone's feeling down about what the dentist has said to you, I know how it feels.

The first time we brought her to the dentist was because she chipped her front tooth when she fell down. For a while we actually left it thinking it would just fall off eventually anyay since it was a baby tooth. But we were wrong, the tooth started showing signs of decay so we no choice had to bring her to the dentist.

Finding the right dentist that suits yours and your child's needs is basically trial and error. We visited DP Dental at Kovan because it was close to our place and also because I visited them before too and thought overall it was a good professional practice. Generally, and not because I'm up myself, I avoid going to dentists located underneath HDBs that look a little too run down for me to be convinced that they'd have adequate modern equipment. Perhaps i'm swayed by the nice facade of modern dentists in the malls. The first visit to patch up the tooth was fine and went smoothly. We went back again a year or two later when the patch on the tooth fell off. That was when a big cavity was discovered. But unfortunately the dentist wasn't competent enough to deal with my kid when it came time to drill because she kept saying her tongue was in the way. And you could tell she was getting exasperated. So they said they can refer us to a pediatric dentist. But I didnt think it was necessary to go through pediatric dentist, thinking of how much the costs would be, consultation alone with a specialist would be like $80. Plus I had called up a couple and their appointments were booked up usually for several weeks.

After much research we went to GPA @United Square because it had a kids room. I can say that I'm satisfied with GPA only because I think the dentists are very professional and experienced in dealing with kids and that their consultation fees is reasonably (around $35). They knew how to handle them, talk to them nicely to put them at ease and they are able to complete the jobs quite fast (compared to our experience at DP Dental). Also the equipment they use are scaled down to children's size, including the seats. There's also a tv overhead that the children can watch while work is getting done on their teeth. But on the downside they are on the expensive side if you can't use CDA account to pay. One filling was $120 not including gst!

On a recent visit to get fillings, it was discovered that she had a swelling on her gum right underneath her molar. This is called an Abscess and is basically a pocket of pus from an infection in the tooth or root of the tooth. Usually it's accompanied by pain, but my girl didn't feel any pain at all. Worst thing was when the dentist asked, did the previous Dr drill very deep into the tooth last time. How are we supposed to know, it was done at your clinic...so are you saying your Dr caused this, I wanted to say. Anyway, to treat it they gave a course of antibiotics to see if the swelling would go down and if not then she would have to do a root canal. A root canal on a 5 year old! Extraction isn't recommended if the tooth can be saved because she won't be losing the tooth naturally till she's 12. Apparently this is quite common (though we'd never heard of it).

So we went for a second opinion at Q&M at City Square (also based on the fact they had a kids room). The dentist also confirmed she needed a baby root canal. I figured ok since we were there already might as well get it done there and probably cheaper too. They quoted $300 for the root canal and $300 for the stainless steel crown to be done in a second procedure. Price wise I figured it would probably be cheaper than GPA. But after it was done, I really regretted going there. The Dr was insensitive to my child's needs, when she cried halfway because she said she felt pain from the drilling, he kept saying she shouldn't feel any pain as the tooth is dead and rather sternly said to her Why you crying?! I know for a fact that kind of talking doesn't work on my child. It was very heartbreaking. How does he know her surrounding teeth don't feel the pain? After a week, we came back to have the tooth patched and crown put on it. But because the swelling hadn't fully subsided he wanted to take out the temporary medicine filling in the tooth, which meant drilling the tooth again. My child was already traumatised the first time and cried immediately and said NO and refused to open her mouth and said she wanted to go to the other dentist. I tried to persuade her as best as I could while the Dr looked on and glanced at his watch. After about 20mins it was concluded that he won't be able to do it in this state and that was that. What annoyed me was they still charged us $50 for consultation fee! Just for him to watch me for 20mins trying to calm my child down! All in all, I was really disappointed with them. For DP Dental and GPA, both took photos of her teeth before and after the procedures for record keeping. I felt like they were better equipped with good technology and showed us her teeth on the computer screen before proceeding with any procedures. On hindsight this was probably a red flag I should have picked up when the Dr at Q&M didn't do any of that.

So although I can pretty much guarantee we will end up paying much more in the end at GPA dental, I think they are the best for us. Had we not been so concerned about finding a cheaper dentist, we could have saved ourselves a bunch of trauma and heartache. Now I can only hope that when we go back to GPA, she will cooperate and not cry......I'm scared she's so traumatised that we'll have no option but to put her under.....