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REPORT: Woman Goes In For Routine Dental Visit, Ends Up In Hospital For Eight Days

Traci Parker, a patient, sobbing while speaking to CBS 8 about her dental crown procedure gone wrong. [Screenshot/CBS 8]

Traci Parker, a patient, sobbing while speaking to CBS 8 about her dental crown procedure gone wrong. [Screenshot/CBS 8]

John Oyewale Contributor
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A California woman endured an eight-day-long stay in a hospital that ended Tuesday for an acute infection from a dental treatment gone awry, according to a local report.

Traci Parker underwent a routine dental crown procedure Aug. 3 but the pain that followed grew worse with each passing day and her dentist allegedly misdiagnosed the condition, CBS 8 reported Tuesday. “I called the following week [the 16th] and said, ‘Yeah my pain’s getting worse. I feel like it’s infected. I feel like there’s something else going on besides just the crown pain.’ And she said, ‘You probably just need a bite adjustment,'” Parker told CBS 8.

The dentist’s adjustment of Parker’s crown reportedly did not help. Parker then believed that the pain could be due to an infection.

“I said, Can I please maybe get some antibiotics? I feel like there’s something else going on. She declined and gave me some Tylenol cream instead,” Parker said.

The pain reportedly progressed and by August 20 her entire face hurt. Parker reached out to the dental office’s answering service but got no response, the report noted. Parker then left a negative review on the office’s website and only then was she referred to a third-party specialist who reportedly told her, “You need to go to the ER immediately.”

Parker spent eight days at Sharp Memorial Hospital in San Diego, going under the knife for the infection. It was all avoidable if her dentist had listened to her, she told CBS 8. (RELATED: Jury Finds Dentist Guilty Of Murdering Girlfriend With Anesthetics)

“It’s been really hard,” Parker said, sobbing. “If I had not gotten treated when I did, I could’ve gotten septic.”

“[M]isdiagnosis or missed diagnosis is one of the leading causes of medical errors in this country,” Carmen Balber, executive director of Consumer Watchdog, a nonprofit consumer advocacy organization, told CBS 8. Patients should seek a second and third opinion and be prepared with clear questions for their doctors, Balber advised.

Parker, who has a background in nursing, advised doctors to listen to their patients. She is contemplating suing the dentist, CBS 8 noted.