i am sure that dentistry is a bit of a scam. im sure of this as much as im sure of anything in my life. something in my past hides a deep resentment and mistrust for the men and women who work on our teeth. it begun when i was a child and since bringing my own child to these crooks, it has only strengthened my belief. 

growing up i loved to eat candy, i still do, but one visit to the dentist resulted in the dentist telling my parents that i needed 22 cavities to be filled, and like many, they trusted him. so at the age of 14, when all my adult teeth had just come into life, for six months our dentist proceeded to drill the cavities out of my teeth and put in fillings, the silver type, and told my mom that they were saving their childs teeth. sometimes four cavities to one teeth, shots, drills and some product called mercurty that they dont use any more for fillings. and of course, after a number of years, cavities began to form around and underneath the fillings, resulting in a further invasive procedures that to this day i feel was not to my benefit or the benefit of my health.

there are not many other fields that require you to visit twice a year, for cleanings, while the dentist goes through a series of x-rays to see if there is any trouble spots. and of course, seemingly in my case and now my childs, there are areas they desperately need to repair. if not, and they say this over and over, a root canal or loss of the teeth is imminent.

i have found a way around this for my son, instead of x-rays i have the dentist just examine the current teeth, looking for holes or decay, and when i moved to this method, i was surprised to hear that instead of multiple fillings, the dentist would give my son a clean bill of health and tell me his teeth are fine.

here is a great article that spells out what dentist do way more often then not regarding making money off their patients, in particular they mention:

The diagnosis of nonexistent cavities is one of the most common scams in the business. This is where second and third opinions can be very useful, especially if your dentist says you suddenly have multiple cavities. If you have no pain and can’t see any evidence of a problem, don’t let a dentist pressure you into getting the fillings done right away. Dentists also tend to fail to counsel patients on the benefits and risks of different types of fillings, some of which contain mercury.

give a man an opportunity to make money, and he will. ask an exterminator or a plumber over to your house twice a year for an inspection, and corrosion and bugs will be the things they find. you can always improve everything, the thing is if you just leave the things alone, many times they will be fine. no need to spray an entire house for a few roaches and there is no need to drill a childs teeth if there is simply a small grey area in an x-ray that one of their assistants just learned to use.
i have a good friend who has a family dentist that told him, 15 years ago, that if he did not drill and have a root canal on his tooth immediately, his trip to asia would be full of regret and pain. my friend, due to his lack of time only, ignored the dentist and that tooth is fine even today.
fuck these guys and the misery they are causing the children and adults of today. i think they need to be heavily regulated and i am thinking of ways to make this information known to as many as possible.

i write all this as i spent the day again in the dental chair, where even now, i feel i am being taken on a ride as i go about fixing what went wrong years ago. i still eat candy, and occasionally do have real problems, but much rarer then what actually these liars are saying.
the guardian had a great story about this where the government actually went after these fraudulant dentist:

Lord Hunt, the Minister responsible for dentists, has promised to introduce a system whereby dentists would audit each other’s work and to bring the profession under closer scrutiny. He said: ‘I am concerned about the variations in the quality of work.’ Poor performers would have to be retrained, he said, and regional health authorities, which currently largely ignore dentists, would be responsible for monitoring them closely. The full reforms will be announced in July.
In a passionate plea to clean up the profession, one dentist wrote to The Observer, claiming that most of his colleagues were boosting their earnings by making false claims for NHS payments: ‘I estimate that 10 per cent of the profession are blatantly fraudulent, with another 15 per cent working in the “grey areas”. Add to that a further 30 per cent who are chancing it occasionally, and you have a majority of the profession who are committing some degree of fraud.’
Frauds include overcharging patients, claiming fees for work that wasn’t done, and doing cheap treatments but claiming fees for expensive ones. The dentist concluded: ‘Sadly, dentistry is a very dirty/shady profession, in dire need of exposure. There are many deeply caring and hard-working dentists out there who are being let down by the cowboys … it is a profession that is slowly sliding into the mire.’

there are many others that have stories to tell, i will work on doing what i can, but i know that karma is a bitch and i hope all these men and women that offered bad diagnosis in the past will end up tied to a chair in hell and have hot probes shoved into their mouth for 8-hours a day for eternity.

postnote:

if you happen to be a kind and gentle dentist, who does not invasively screw with their patients teeth in order to beef up their own business, i somewhat apologise. i was taught not to judge an entire race or group of people.