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This dentist used to be located at Ukay Centre, but they moved to Doctors Park after Ukay Centre was demolished. I don't want my worst enemy to suffer what I have had to suffer two years ago, & I am writing down everything I have learned in the hope that it'll help other people.
The best defense against quacks is knowledge. You must know what a root canal is, when you need it &, most importantly, how to determine if something has gone wrong — you must learn how to read an X-Ray yourself. When doctors, especially in the 3rd world, mess up, they will not tell you — it has to do with a culture of saving face (this can be fatal when they try to hide a serious problem); instead they will shift the blame to you & your unique anatomy or even their instruments!
A root canal is supposed to remove the *entire* infected dental pulp from the infected tooth — this means that a dentist must clean all the way the bottom of the infected tooth. If the infection from the infected dental pulp is not removed, it's pushed down into the surrounding jawbone. This infection will never ever go away (antibiotics will never eliminate it) &, in time, this infection will cause an abscess in the jawbone — this is called an "Incomplete Root Canal" (Google search & find out the dangers of an Incomplete Root Canal). An incomplete root canal is a ticking time bomb & will always lead to complications. This may happen after a few months/years of having the botched procedure. After a root canal has been completed successfully & the *entire* infected dental pulp has been removed, it must be reevaluated periodically, usually at the 3 & 6 month mark, to ensure that the *entire* infected dental pulp was removed — THIS MEANS X-RAYS!
Incomplete Root Canals cause chronic infections, & most of the time there are no symptoms until an abscess forms. The lack of pain is because the dental pulp was removed &/or killed of by the infection, leaving a dead tooth.
When you have a tooth infection, time is of the essence: An Infection leads to an abscess which destroys connective-tissue — periodontal ligament — around the neighboring teeth & eats away at the surrounding jawbone. & as the infection from the abscess spreads to other sites in the body, it'll cause a life-threatening complication called sepsis, this includes heart complications, brain abscess & death. AN INFECTED TOOTH WILL NEVER SETTLE DOWN, it'll ONLY GET WORSE!
A X-Ray was not done *before* the drilling started &, in retrospect, I don't think that my tooth even needed a root canal. it's only after a fair bit of drilling that he told me that my root is bent & that he cannot reach the bottom because his instruments are straight. Think about the absurdity of this statement: In 200 years of dentistry, don't you think someone would have thought about this problem & come up with "Ultrasonic Endodontic Kits" or even curved/flexible "Endodontic Files & Reamers" for different situations? Now, consider signing up for a job, then telling your employer a lame excuse so that you only get to do 20% of the job (even that 20% was botched) because the job you signed up for takes too long!
My root canal was incomplete, most of the dental pulp remained & tooth became badly infected after a few months of having the botched procedure. I went to a new dentist who did a X-Ray & a CT-Scan that revealed arbitrary holes were drilled in my tooth & passed off as a root canal. He told me that my root is only *slightly bent* — most people have roots that are far more bent — & no one has a perfectly straight, symmetrical root. When I told him about the "straight instruments cannot navigate bent roots" claim, he laughed & said that my former dentist obviously didn't take me seriously!
The new dentist also told me that it just takes a little bit of time & patience to do a root canal properly. & it's much easier to do a root canal correctly in the first place than to rectify a botched one. The new attempt at a root canal usually turns out to be an effort in hopeless futility, wasting precious time during which the infection gets the upper hand.
