Common sense says there’s something amiss with an orthodontia story about an Oregon man who is suing his dentist after 11 years of wearing braces.
As reported by CBS News and the Oregonian, former orthodontia patient, Devin Bost, is suing orthodontist Dr. Brad Chvatal of Oregon-based Chvatal Orthodontics for $185,000 for allegedly allowing him to wear his braces from ages 7 to 18.
Bost says that he began seeing Dr. Chvatal in August 1997 when he lived in the Eugene, Oregon area.
Bost claims in his lawsuit against the orthodontist that he has suffered serious tooth decay and periodontal disease from all of the years his teeth were covered by braces.
But here’s where the story gets more strange, Dr. Chvatal has asserted that he couldn’t have treated Bost the entire time because he only became licensed as an orthodontist in 2002. The orthodontist really can’t divulge any more than this fact due to patient/doctor privacy laws.
According to news sources, Bost admits that he didn’t visit the orthodontist as often as he should, but that he did go from time to time.
But what constitutes “from time to time”? Every 2 years? Every 5 years?
Bost claims that the orthodontist didn’t do anything about the removal of his braces until June 2008 when he “received an urgent phone call from the orthodontist office that he needed to have the braces removed immediately.”
David Hollander, the attorney representing Bost in the lawsuit, told The Oregonian, “Some of Bost’s teeth will need to be yanked out and replaced with implants, but that may not be possible in some areas of his mouth because the teeth have rotted through to the jaw. He has racked up more than $35,000 in dental bills so far. He had to seek the expertise of one of the nation’s top dentists in Boston because the damage is so extensive.”
But if this story isn’t strange enough on its own, Bost’s mother is a medical doctor. Wouldn’t she have noticed something was amiss with her son’s teeth?
What are your thoughts as to what really happened?
For more on this story see: Rotten Teeth, After 11 Years in Braces, Lead Oregon Man to Sue for $185,100
