I think Dr. Altomare is the worst dentist I have ever seen…read more
He told me that I had 3 areas of concern for cavities, so I went ahead and let him work on those. The result was that for those 3 spots, I had trouble getting my dental floss through those teeth (and I use very thin Oral-B Glide dental floss). Two of those teeth are on the molars, one of them is not. For the one that is not, it's painful to pull the floss out.
I've had a lot of cavities done over the years, and never had this problem for even one tooth - with Dr. Altmore, he managed to create this issue flossing for all 3 teeth he did.
For the molar that was farthest back, I simply could not get the dental floss through without ripping it. So I went in to talk to him. His response: "Well, better that the teeth are too close than too far apart, otherwise you get lots of food stuck in there."
Doctor, I beg to differ - because if it's too close together, then when food does get stuck in there, you can't get it out with dental floss. And good dentists know how to do fillings so that they are the right distance - neither too close nor too far apart.
Anyways, he said he would shave off a little of that tooth so the dental floss could get through. It helped a little bit - dental floss still tears slightly, but at least I can get it through now. However, for that tooth, the cold/hot sensation is terrible: I can't even chew a piece of fruit from the refrigerator on that side of my mouth, otherwise pain shoots through my jaw. So I have to put all my fruit in warm water. Ice cream? Not a chance. It has even hurt a few times when I was out exercising and came back to drink room-temperature water. And more recently, it hurts even when chewing harder foods, like nuts.
I am not someone to leave negative reviews. If service was poor at a place, I just forgive and forget and decide not to go back to that place. The problem with Dr. Altomare is, I am reminded of his mistake every day when I eat, so it's hard to not write a negative review.
I think there are several weaknesses that Dr. Altmore needs to address.
(1) Time. Dr. Altmore does tooth cleanings for patients himself (not an assistant). At first, I was impressed by this and told him so. The problem is that we all have limited time. So because he does tooth cleanings, he has less time for other things, like fixing cavities. When he told me that he would do all 3 teeth in one session, I asked him if that was enough time, and he said: "I just need 45 minutes." That's 15 minutes per tooth, less including the time for numbing. I think the doctor needs to slow down. Because he goes fast, there are a few things that get missed:
(2) He needs to floss after doing a filling. He's the first dentist I've encountered who doesn't test out the dental floss after doing a cavity. This would have prevented my issue.
(3) My previous dentist had a detector dye that would show color on old fillings, but be colorless on your actual tooth. So while cutting away an old filling, she would keep checking until she had just removed exactly the old filling, but almost none of the tooth, and then she would do the new filling. Dr. Altmore doesn't have time for this. He just eyeballs things. So he ends up cutting away more of your actual tooth.
(4) There is a layer that dentists can apply while doing cavities that offers protection against the hot/cold sensation. Adding this layer adds time as well. Based on my experience with the severe pain, I would guess that Dr. Altmore did not apply this layer.
Besides this, note that Dr. Altomare's schedule is super packed. So each time I wanted to see him, the front desk lady told me: either take this one specific time 2 days from now, or wait 1-1.5 months. So if I happened to just not be available at that exact time in 2 days, I would have to wait a month or more.
I saw Dr. Altmore initially because he had great reviews. But I guess this experience goes to show that everyone has a different experience, and you can't base your choice solely on reviews, especially when someone has as few reviews as Dr. Altomare. It's unfortunate, since I hoped things would work out, but I'll need to find a new dentist.
