A masked figure looms over your recumbent body, wielding power tools and sharp metal instruments, doing things to your mouth you cannot see. Altogether, the work cost her about $70,000. He also chiseled out her bridge, replacing it with two new ones that left a conspicuous gap in her front teeth. Over the course of a decade, Lund gave Cordi 10 root canals and 10 crowns. Lund was insistent, so she agreed to the procedures. As a doctor’s daughter, Cordi had been raised with an especially respectful view of medical professionals. Her gums were receding, which had resulted in tooth decay, he explained during another visit. The cavity on this tooth was in the wrong position to treat with a typical filling, he told her on one occasion. Why the sudden need for so many procedures after decades of good dental health? When she expressed uncertainty, she says, Lund always had an answer ready. Within a year, Lund was questioning the resilience of her bridge and telling her she needed root canals and crowns.Ĭordi was somewhat perplexed. To the best of her knowledge her teeth were perfectly healthy, although she’d had a small dental bridge installed to fix a rare congenital anomaly (she was born with one tooth trapped inside another and had had them extracted). When she visited Lund for the first time, in 1999, she had never had so much as a cavity. She remembers the service giving him an excellent rating. Joyce Cordi, a businesswoman in her 50s, had learned of Lund through 1-800-DENTIST.
Meanwhile, another of Lund’s patients was going through a similar experience. He figured that if he needed the treatments, then he might as well get them before things grew worse. The payments were spread out over a relatively long period of time. He had no idea that it was unusual to undergo so many root canals-he thought they were just as common as fillings. The number and cost of the treatments did not trouble him. Mitchell’s insurance covered only a small portion of each procedure, so he paid a total of about $50,000 out of pocket. In the space of seven years, Lund gave Mitchell nine root canals and just as many crowns. A typical person might get one or two root canals in a lifetime. He never had any pain or new complaints, but Lund encouraged many additional treatments nonetheless. Lund extracted the wisdom tooth with no complications, and Mitchell began seeing him regularly.
#DUNE 2000 MONEY CHEAT FULL#
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