Re: surgeon referral

[Guest guest]

I have heard that Dr Arnett in Santa Barbara is one of

the best. I live in Arizona my os said he has done like

1200 of these surgies and dr. arnett 4000. I would look to

him for a consult in my opinion. good luck

[Guest guest]

Regarding orthodontists, Dr. Alan Licht did a superlative job on my

sister in a reasonable amount of time and I knew a lot of classmates

that went to him when I was younger that came out with beautiful

teeth. The vast majority of the time he does a good job. However,

from what I know, I gather that I am one of the few that he could have

done a better job on. I've been in one orthodontic appliance or

another for ten years and I am in my fifth year of braces. My

treatment has been interminable. Four years ago I suddenly grew an

underbite in addition to a mild crossbite. It bothered me that I was

in headgear for years effectively pushing back my upper jaw while my

lower continued to grow.

Basically, I feel that he could have done more to nonsurgically

correct my bite. But, I don't know that for sure because Dr. Licht

has an irritating habit of heavily sugar coating the truth, twisting

his past words, and holding back detailed information unless pressed.

Further, about two years after my underbite appeared he told me out

of the blue that I should consider having surgery to fix my bite after

long implying that he was doing it with the braces alone. He likened

the surgery to a " nose job " which really pissed me off. I decided not

to have the surgery because my underbite wasn't that bad at the time,

Dr. Licht didn't say my jaws were still growing, and I didn't want to

go through the pain of the surgery if Dr. Licht could at least close

the gap between my upper and lower teeth which he said he could.

Fast forward two years and my underbite has become significantly worse

to the point it is clearly impossible for Dr. Licht to close the gap.

I asked him about it a month ago and he got huffy and basically said

" I told you so. The bite can't be fixed without surgery and I'm not

even going to try closing the gap. " Thus sending me on a mad scramble

for information about orthognathic surgery and a slapdash search for a

surgeon over my brief winter break.

It's not his extended treatment that bothers me so much as I think

he's evasive with information and conveniently forgets contradictory

things he's said in the past. I called him up the other day to tell

him that I have reconsidered and will have the surgery and I wanted to

talk so we could start planning and coordinating BEFORE my next

appointment because I go to school two hours away, can't drive, and

can't pop in any old time for xrays and various appointments. He blew

me off and had the receptionist tell me I'd be able to talk to him AT

my next appointment.

This is an opinion from only one dissatisfied patient so it should be

read as such, but maybe you'll get along better and have a better

experience than I did.

And I'm still looking for a good surgeon in the Los Angeles area as

well.

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>

> I have heard that Dr Arnett in Santa Barbara is one of

> the best. I live in Arizona my os said he has done like

> 1200 of these surgies and dr. arnett 4000. I would look to

> him for a consult in my opinion. good luck