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How Much are Tongues Worth?
chewedtoothpick asks: "How many of you have had dental work where they had to numb your tongue and everything? I did about six months ago and my tongue never became UN-numb. Aparently they hit a nerve, which seldom occurs and shouldn't happen according to a few dentists and a family member who is an oral surgeon. The dentist told me that it can take as long as six months to heal, but I have also heard from a few people which this has happened to; that if it's not normal within a couple of months that it will never come back. I know one lady who is a regular client at my shop who has had a numb tongue for almost 10 years! Luckily; in my case, this is only half of my tongue, so I am not completely impaired in speech or taste. What I do want to know is what would all or any of you do? Would you sue, and how much for? Would you demand a full refund for the dental work?"
Slashdot - News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters. Tongue prices.
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I need to have my wisdom teeth removed, and they showed me a video of what can potentially happen to you as a side-effect. If they have let you know that this is something that can affect you, they might be covered. At most you might be able to get them to pay to get you some kind of help to get your tounge back to normal.
What kind of procedure was this? A cleaning, a cavity filling, root canal, etc? This might help or hurt your case.
*whew* avoided all juvenile references and jokes relating to the topic.
Theriouthly, I would thue the cwap out of any dentitht that put a thot in my tongue and made it numb. Any thtupid thod that thought he could get away with that and not get thued, would be theriothly mithtaken.
All jesting aside, I would do some serieous research of PAST cases of this happening, because it may or may not be a matter of malpractice. You really need to talk to a lawyer about this, not slashdot.
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Several years ago, I was getting a cavity filled. The dentist started drilling, but I could feel them drilling, so I told him and he gave me a second shot of novacain (Or whatever it is they use). After the second shot, my whole jaw went numb for about a day, but after I got the feeling back everywhere else, I still had a numb spot about 2 inches in diameter on my chin. It lasted for about eight months before I finally got feeling back. So don't worry too much about it lasting over 6 months. Just when I thought I was never going to get feeling back in that part of my chin, I got it back.
IANAL. I seriously suggest you talk to a lawyer about this to determine the statute of limitations on such a case.
If it were me, I'd probably wait until close to the statue of limitations to see if my tongue returns to normal, but if not, then I'd develop my case.
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There are many occasions where you will find numb tongue to be a blessing. Like the mariad of occasions youre tongue will end up in peoples asses as you find your self propagating through the corporate food chain.
Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of State and corporate power.
This raises an interesting question in my mind: How many people who have received tongue piercings have had complications?
After all, you are punching a hole through a body part that spends all of its time in a wet place full of food and other items, plenty of bacteria, and that moves around enough to push all of that into the hole.
It's one thing to inject drugs into the tongue to numb it during required oral surgery, but to put a permanent hole in it for cosmetic and sexual reasons seems just a bit foolish to me.
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people look different on the outside - they're also different on the inside. depending on the dental work you're having done, a dentist will inject anesthesia into different parts of your mouth based on how *most* people are built.
sometimes they miss and sometimes your nerves are wired differently. that's why a dentist checks to see if a location is numb before working - even if they got it exactly spot on where they were taught to get it, that might not be the right spot for that patient.
so yeah, it's a bummer you have a numb tongue. that must really suck. but it is a possible side effect. if it was me i wouldn't sue, it's not really the guy's fault from what i've been told in the past.
note, i'm not a dentist, but i worked in a dental school and some of the students and the staff would explain how things worked.
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this is one of those "funny" April Fools stories, isn't it?
If all this should have a reason, we would be the last to know.
April fools aside seems like this really happens.
...*WORST* *POST* *EVER*
Good answer, well thought out, just what I was thinking myself. Every medical and surgical procedure has risks inherent to it, and individual differences in anatomy are just one part of it. There may be individual differences in the pharmacology or pharmacokinetics of the anesthetic agent (your body's receptors may be genetically different or the mechanisms for clearing out the local anesthetic may be altered, e.g. different binding in your liver enzymes), there could be an anomalous branch of a nerve nearby that got injured and injected into directly rather than right next to it. Maybe too much anesthetic agent was injected into it which may lead to irreparable harm from increased pressure within the nerve sheath.
The question is whether this really constitutes malpractice or is an accident. If this dentist does this consistently, maybe it's not so much of an accident. Maybe if your anatomy or physiology is different, there is no way that this could have been avoided. Maybe every dentist uses the same landmarks to target where to inject the anesthetic, and they would all have gone to the same place anyway. In that case, this truly is accidental and not malpractice. Tough call. But I'd also have to lean on the side of not suing.
Why is it people think it's ok to ask the general public for advice? Look, you're seriously better off asking a doctor/dentist who isn't affiliated to the dentist who did the work, AND a lawyer who specializes in malpractice.
If you think asking a general populice would help, it probably won't. You will get a mixture of rights, wrongs and half truths. Go to a certifible source and get a real answer.
Dude, I'd hella sue their ass...
fuck them, they make a shitload of money. To lose half your tongue - screw that...
...especially for these girls. ;-)~
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no. For me personally, I understand there is a certain amount of risk involved (with medical proceedures, etc) for a moderate level of, say...complications.
We are all (mostly all of us) human, and little shit happens. As you get older you will find all sorts of examples of your own body malfunctioning in new and anoying, surprising and embarasing ways.
How if you (1) were a public speaker and now could not; or (2) were "the" giggalo to hollywood starlets, I could see you having a case...maybe.
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Would you demand a full refund for the dental work?
I'd ask 'em for a mouth full of gold crowns if your tongue doesn't regain sensitivity in another month. If palladium, or a base-metal alloy (nickel or chromium) are more your style, those are availible too!
(pinky to corner of mouth)
a MILLION dollars!
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Cause there's always one round where you have to eat pig tripe or something.
We're neither dentists nor lawyers here. You might have much better luck posting on a site where most of the readers have a strong understanding of standard dentistry, medical malpractice law, and how this type of thing is handled in your state.
For example, you might want to try fark or msdn, since those sites seem to have better medical malpractice information than Slashdot does.
Slashdot is jumping the shark. I'm just driving the boat.
You could be looking at a big settlement if you sue. In addition to the loss of taste and speaking ability, you can claim significant emotional damages if your girlfriend leaves you because you can't *ahem* satisfy her needs anymore. Being a regular slashdot reader will prove -- beyond a shadow of a doubt -- that you need to do everything in your power to hold on to any girlfriend that you might obtain by chance. Thus, the loss of fine motor control of your tongue could banish you to a life of living in your mother's downstairs basement!
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watch this
I think a key to any case you would attempt against the dentist would depend on whether or how he explained the risks of the procedure to you before you consented. In order for you to make an "informed consent" to a procedure the practicioner must explain the major risks/poss. complications of a procedure. If he didn't do this than you will be able to argue that you may not have consented to the procedure had you been fully informed of the risks and in fact were not able to give "informed consent". The burden of ensuring consent is informed is on the dentist, not the patient. "Informed consent" is the legal standard required prior to any procedure, especially elective ones. This argument of course is usually facetious as most people would have consented even if the risks would have been explained (blah, blah, blah, sign the form, get it over with). All the same you should talk to a lawyer but you probably have a good case that'll never make it to court (they'll settle). On whether it was an honest mistake our bad practice would require some research. Go to a college library and look in some dental manuals, medical texts, journal articles, etc. and see if there was any way to prevent this and how often it happens. If it was an honest mistake that sometimes just happens you may think twice about suing, if the dentists was neglectful stick it to him.
STOP ROCK VIDEO
doh! danm those april fool's submissions. But if parrot was a joke that become reality, it's still possible for someone to ask the slashdot community about their tongue, and show up on the cnn site for winning millions of dollars from a dentist for malpractice.
As the plaintiff walks out of the court house, with the verdict in his favor, he screams out loud "yhes, reams weely cumm truuu" while splatting spit on the crowd.
I've had some nerve injuries that caused numbness and tingling in my feet that took the better part of a year to heal. (The causes were getting stomped by a horse and really bad snowboard boots.) I'd say hope is far from lost for your tongue.
But my weirdest nerve injury story was actually from one of my horses. She had a bunch of work done under heavy sedation. Evidently while she was doped up she leaned onto her halter and damaged the nerves in her face. The next day when I came out to ride her half of her face was drooping, like she was some sort of stroke victim. It was terrible looking! This may sound trivial but she was a very valuable show horse at the time so it was rather alarming. Her face eventually went back to normal, but not for many, many months.
I do think you should talk to the dentist about getting a refund, though. Filing suit seems like overkill, though.
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Re: NUMBNESS OF THE TONGUE
From: Dr. Tim Hart
Your dentist may have used an anesthetic called "articaine". While this anesthetic is extremely effective for infiltration injections, it is a bit risky for block anesthesia (i.e. lower injections for molars). Your prolonged anesthesia should, "eventually", disappear.
Standard Not a Doctor or Lawyer Disclaimer, so take above with a big grain of salt.
I've got this, but over my entire body. I was exposed to insecticide when I was 13 years old. Now I've lost 90% of the sensation in the skin over my entire body. The docter doesn't believe me, the neurologist thinks I'm a headcase, what am I to do?
However, the oral surgeon reccomended against having the wisdom teeth removed unless they were causing pain because the x-rays showed that a nerve that runs along the jaw was atypically close to where the wisdom teeth were in her jaw so there was a risk that he could damage it in the tooth extraction leaving her face numb for the rest of her life.
Since the wisdom teeth were not painful, she decided not to have the wisdom teeth removed.
I would say that as long as you were informed of the possible risks, then you can't expect SH*T never to happen, it does. But you should have at least been told of a risk if there was one. Of course some things that happen are completely unforseeable. Maybe the tongue thing is completely freaky and could not be expected. Anyhow, I would sue anyway because the guy has malpractice insurance and even if he did nothing wrong you should still claim your free money. I mean, if you don't have it his insurance company will. Wouldn't you rather have the dough than let his Ins company keep it? Get one of those TV lawyers that get paid when they win.
Of course that would drive up malpractice insurance rates slightly and that cost in turn would be passed on to patients through higher health insurance rates, but come on - If I can get ten grand for a numb tongue I don't give a tinker's damn about the 1/100 of a cent extra everyone else has to pay for health insurance, I'm getting my free Kia. I wouldn't expect anybody else to give up $10000 bucks for the 'cause of lower health insurance rates' and I certainly wouldn't give up $10000 easy bucks either.
Eat at Joe's.
You can inhale the wrong strain of Aspergillis ( bread mold ) and POOF! you have a deadly infection in your nose that forces doctors to remove your nose and sinuses and half your face. Mucor is another one. Frikken flesh eating bacteria too! They'll eat you alive for crissakes! And you want to put a hole in your tongue that could let them in???!!?!?!?!
On the otherhand, alot of guys appreciate a girl with a tongue ring iffya know what I mean..
Eat at Joe's.
They should still use CO-CAINE. What's with this Nova-Caine and Arti-Caine. Enough of this smoke from the leaves, for a toothache you need the juice from the root.
Eat at Joe's.
Although I'm sure that the dentist did not mean for this to happen, I believe you are entitled to compensation for the loss of feeling in your tongue if it ends up being permanent. I know I certainly wouldn't be happy losing feeling in my tongue for the rest of my life. Think of all the pleasurable experiences you'd miss out on!
Half of my tongue was numb for 9 month. It came back completely. BUT my dentist claimed that if the whole tongue goes numb then you may need surgery. On the other hand she also claimed that the numbness would leave in 3 month. In your case it would ask a second dentist/doctor. Good luck