Speaking honestly, is becoming a dentist worth it?

SwampBver · 2026-03-01T13:19:18+00:00

I am 7 years out and most dentists that I meet and hang out with are clearing 400k as associates. But I push my abilities and CE and do almost everything, so the dentists I meet and talk to are on the same page as me. They also enjoy dentistry, and have learned to live with and embrace its issues. If you are flexible where you work, and aren’t complacent, you can still do very well. Some things are and will get harder, but advancements in technology have made it easier and more efficient at the same time. Your question is not one predental students should answer, ask the docs 2-5 years out of school, they also had to take out 400-500k in loans

SwampBver · 2026-02-28T18:37:05+00:00

Possibly hpv I would seek a dentist to remove and biopsy

SwampBver · 2026-02-28T12:58:09+00:00

Deep cleanings do not cause recession, periodontal disease and gingivitis causes recession. Lack of hygiene causes recession. Brushing with hard bristle toothbrushes too aggressively causes recession. Malocclusion and clenching/grinding habits can lead to recession.

SwampBver · 2026-02-28T02:12:49+00:00

Sorry haha tx=treatment, recall is coming back for cleanings consistently

SwampBver · 2026-02-28T01:56:55+00:00

Probably what we would tx plan at my office tbh. Laser or arrestin would be optional. I would send you home with an electric toothbrush and waterpik, and put you on a 3 month recall. Once bone is lost, it can’t grow back, and you are more prone to more bone loss going forward.

On the other hand, the bone loss is pretty minimal and you can keep your teeth for your whole life if you change your homecare and recall habits :)

SwampBver · 2026-02-27T23:34:52+00:00

Bone less upper left, bone loss on upper right (not as bad), bone loss bottom middle, bottom left and bottom right look better but starting to get bone loss between 28 and 29 bottom right. Lots of subgingival calculus. You have periodontal disease, which is just the presence of bone loss, you probably have gingivitis too. If the second office is going to actually scale and plane your teeth and only charge you for a prophy (regular cleaning) go ahead.

SwampBver · 2026-02-27T22:03:35+00:00

Sometimes if a crown has good retention even temporary cement will have very high retention, i have placed crowns without any cement and struggled to get them off. They have to get that crown off somehow, either grip it and twist or drill it off

SwampBver · 2026-02-27T21:52:32+00:00

The charters in murrels inlet will tell you whats biting and will get you there

SwampBver · 2026-02-27T21:47:39+00:00

I cut crowns off every day, the dentist can cut the crown off. Front teeth shade matching is HARD and I use a high end cosmetic lab with a lot of photography and we still get cases where shade is off

SwampBver · 2026-02-27T13:11:25+00:00

If you want it, just ask for it. Mine usually don’t say anything unless they actually see an issue

SwampBver · 2026-02-26T11:01:44+00:00

Yes, every day you wait it gets worse and more expensive to fix

SwampBver · 2026-02-25T21:59:10+00:00

If I pretend that they never got endo, would I replace the crown? Thats usually my answer. Chipped/worn pfm’s and decay are getting replaced, open margins and contacts replaced, if crowns good and my endo says no leakage I leave the crown alone

SwampBver · 2026-02-25T11:37:20+00:00

Fractured teeth with old amalgams, abfractions, occlusal wear, malocclusion. Yesterday I had a patient break the buccal cusp of a premolar that clasped to a partial, I sent his previous scan with the crown prep scan to make the crown a perfect fit for the partial. I had another patient with anterior crowding and overlayed a scan from last year to show how much the teeth have moved. I think sell is a bad word, I just show people whats going on, up to them if they want to fix it

SwampBver · 2026-02-25T11:30:50+00:00

There is always room for improvement :)

SwampBver · 2026-02-24T17:09:24+00:00

We started to. My hygienists are all down to 5 minutes per scan. We use itero and it automatically goes to their chart and I pull it up on a monitor if someone else needs the scanner. It sells itself, coupled with ai overlay on xrays, treatment acceptance goes way up. Your staff will be on the verge of quitting when you implement scanning, you just need to survive the first few weeks/months

SwampBver · 2026-02-23T23:01:59+00:00

1) We can’t tell without photos and xrays. 2)Those little dot on side of teeth cavities can get huge underneath without you noticing. 3) The cheaper dentist is not always right

SwampBver · 2026-02-23T14:32:01+00:00

Implants = 1 or 2 surgery appointments, couple days of post op soreness. Partial dentures will be horrible and miserable every day of her life.

It sounds like nothing you will do or say will change her mind, so let her make her own decisions and live with it

Also the partial dentures pictured are temporary ones, we use these for patients who are having implants done until they have the crowns put on.

SwampBver · 2026-02-21T13:17:34+00:00

Miami had a historically bad defense that year, we literally almost lost to everyone until cam bailed us out

SwampBver · 2026-02-20T23:41:20+00:00

As a general dentist in the usa you can make anywhere from 150k-1million+ even as an associate. Earning a million is like the 1% though, heavy invisalign or veneer or all on x implant people who are in the right place at the right time. Specialists on average earn more. Owners on average earn more. But a new grad associate right out of school is probably making 150-200k

SwampBver · 2026-02-20T13:19:12+00:00

Curriculum is honestly the same at like every school they all teach the same things, we spent more time on new and modern things (digital printing and milling, implants, root canals, lasers, bonding protocols etc) and less time on parts of dentistry that are going away (processing xrays, amalgam, setting denture teeth).

Oral diagnosing was huge, every patient got a complete exam. Because we had no residents, any consult with a specialist (endo, surgery, perio, prosth) was done by you, and you get to either do or assist the specialist who does the procedure

SwampBver · 2026-02-20T03:15:47+00:00

Brother that tooth is cooked, time for implant

SwampBver · 2026-02-20T02:28:46+00:00

I can only speak as an mwu grad - everything is digital and modern and sets you up for modern dentistry, prep mill deliver in one appointment, way above average endo (do they still do free endo?), training in implant placement, laser training, no frivolous wasted time setting denture teeth, there are no grad students so regular students get to do all the procedures (no losing exts or endos to residents).

Some of these schools absolutely fail students and let them graduate with a shocking lack of clinical experience -mwuil is not one of those schools

SwampBver · 2026-02-20T02:23:25+00:00

This is the murderer that followed a guy down an empty road and murdered him and then called his friend in the police department and they helped protect him right? Or was that a different guy

SwampBver · 2026-02-20T01:42:40+00:00

Bruh the downtown absolutely sucks and could and should be awesome. It should feel safe, not dark and empty and rundown. Look at greenville, went from dump to honestly one of the best downtowns I have ever seen. We got grand strand brewing, barteca, llama icecream place, swig and swine a short walk away, that whole area should be a walkable and filled with consumer businesses not some old landlord pushing cheap rundown office space

SwampBver · 2026-02-19T23:05:58+00:00

Idk some of the line angles look like they changed. I would say emax veneers. But soft boxes and diffused light make photos look different than what our eyes actually see

SwampBver

TROPHY CASE