Can I sue my dentist?
Question by : Can I sue my dentist?
I’d been having mouth pain, so I went to a doctor. The doctor referred me to an oral surgeon, who said I had an abscessed tooth and referred me to an endodontist at about 4 pm on a Friday. The endodontist said I needed a root canal right then. He didn’t take my dental insurance so it cost me $ 850. He numbed me and did the root canal (during which I had pain despite the Novocaine). He gave me some antibiotics and sent me home. Over the weekend, my lip and gums started to swell and hurt a lot more (the pain was pretty unbearable). I called his office’s on call number, and he told me there wasn’t really anything he could do and that if I was still having pain in a couple of days I could come back to his office. I developed a fever and ended up in the emergency room. They gave me IV antibiotics and morphine (although my pain was so bad that it didn’t help) and referred me to another oral surgeon. Turns out during the root canal, the abscess that was in my tooth leaked out and infected my lip and gums. The new oral surgeon had to make an incision in my gums to drain the abscess. I’m still in a lot of pain (2 weeks later). I had a follow up appointment where I was told that my mouth isn’t healing as quickly as expected and I might have to have another, more invasive oral surgery called an apicoectomy. I’ve missed more than a week of work, and this has put me really behind in my school work (I’m a graduate student). I can’t eat very well and the pain is keeping me up at night. Is this something I could sue my dentist for? I’m not looking to make a lot of money off of this or anything like that, but I’m a graduate student with very little money and all these medical bills are something that I didn’t really have in my budget.
Best answer:
Answer by Hawkeyesrule
Unfortunately that is a risk of root canal and any surgery dealing with an infected tooth. It is a known risk and it just from your description doesn’t sound like anything the dentist or endodontist did was grossly negligent.
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