I’d like to talk about unnecessary medical procedures, done either by coercion or without one’s knowledge.I was subjected to dental care recently that was so weird I can only call it psychotic.  And it relates to some previous treatment done without warning that I will call the same.

A friend told me, “You’re the third person I’ve heard in two days with a horrific story about that place.”

I will mention no names, but I’d like to at least put out this warning:

If you have doubts about your dental or medical care, please DO NOT fall into the cultural trap of “Obey the Doctor” programming. PLEASE take a friend with you to the dentist and/or doctor. Trust yourself more than the doctor or dentist. Give yourself permission to wait and seek other advice. Find good alternative health care, and take care of yourself naturally.

End of warning.

Personal story beginning, for those who are curious, and for me to make a public statement (and maybe to encourage everyone to not let this stuff go by quietly):

I’ve been extremely cautious of doctors for decades, but for some reason I got lured into treatment that is nothing short of psychotic. For those interested, here is the story:

Two years ago, I went in for a tooth cleaning and was surprised by the arrival of the dentist there instead of the dental hygienist.  He used a high-powered spray to remove plaque (the coral-like material that harbors bacteria) but he aimed it up under my gums!  The pain was so extreme that I stopped him, and when I thought I’d regained my composure, I questioned him, but he was a good salesman (and somewhat of a friend) and convinced me to endure.

If I had really regained my composure, I would have told him that it was stupid to aim the stream under my gums, because then I’d have a bacteria collector lodged somewhere it could never be removed and where it would threaten the roots of my teeth, not to mention his shredding the tender tissue that connects the living tooth to the gum.

But “Obey the Doctor” programming (the cultural kind at least, if not more serious programming) prevailed, and I let him continue, much to my horror later.  I learned he was fired about a week later, and I hope it was because of this.

Two years later, I got a cavity under the gum and, since that doctor was no longer there, I returned to the same establishment to have it filled.  A day or two after it was filled, I discovered a hole drilled right next to the filling, under my gum line!  I could push down my gum and put a toothpick in the hole and twirl it easily with nothing dragging on any rough edges — it was not an overlooked caries, but a neatly drilled hole! at least 3/16″ deep, right next to the filling he’d just done.

Under my gum line, I assume he thought I wouldn’t notice it until it had degraded into a serious caries, but just in case, he warned me to “not poke any toothpicks around there.”  Well, I did, and I discovered this perfect hole immediately adjacent to his filling job.

If I was willing to go into debt, I’d have gone to another dentist, at least for documentation of this bizarre situation, but I didn’t want to go into debt and I knew that the dentist who’d done this was a resident who had already returned to his home in Mesa, Arizona, so I made an appointment where I could “afford” the care.  [Bang head on table.]  (Waiting for the appointment, I kept the hole clean with a hypodermic syringe and hydrogen peroxide.)

The regular dentist who saw me next was nearly speechless at what he saw, and he did not correct me when I said it seemed to be a perfectly drilled hole.  He assured me the other doctor was “a good doctor” (interesting that he thought he needed to assure me of that), and he didn’t know what else to say but that the hole needed to be filled or the tooth removed.

I felt I was in a no-win situation.  If he didn’t clean it perfectly, it would eventually be lost.  If he drilled it out to clean it, he might inadvertently drill too near the side of the root and break it, and it would be lost.  Feeling hopeless and abused, I let the tooth be removed.  It required surgery.  Silent horror, and pain.

I’ve been recovering from that trauma, as well as the grief that the tooth is lost, and those next to it and opposite it are now weaker, but – more than that – the horror that I was the victim again of a psychopath working as a doctor.

If you haven’t read the book CIA Control of Candy Jones, she was also programmed to go to her dentist continually and submit to painful procedures and surgeries.

I thought I was doing a better job than this of avoiding them.  So I’m writing to warn others and to wake myself up to what I thought I already knew.