2021-05-1 First consultation
My wife first came to visit Masato Ikeda’s dental clinic on 2021-05-01 seeking opinion if she could have dental implant performed at UL2 position, and also if the remainder of her occlusion treatment could be finished up with a tangible timeline.
Masato Ikeda spent X minutes on visual examination and x-ray. Masato Ikeda replied to my wife as follows:
- dental implant could be performed at UL2 position without any problem.
- there was “sufficient bone” for the dental implant at UL2.
- the remainder of the occlusion treatment could be finished up by the end of the year.
- he would finalize her occlusion treatment by increasing the crown height by a little bit on the UL6 and UL7 positions.
- he assured my wife that almost certain there would be no need to wear a night guard upon completion of the occlusion treatment.
- he assured my wife there would be no need to grind and crown natural teeth of UL4, UL5, UR4 and UL5.
Masato Ikeda did not provide time for my wife to explain her dental history and to ask questions, instead, he had his staff to do most of the talk, which was mainly of a marketing and publicity nature. you may refer to this page for details: The clinic’s sales pitch
2021-5-xx sign contract, pay lumpsum
xxxxx
2021-5-xx extraction of the root of UL2 tooth
brief on how he proceed his treatment: patient seated to wait, ikeda come and hygienist immediately cover eyes and ikeda start procedure without any explanation, nor give time to patient to ask questions. finished off and hurriedly go away. (>to elaborate and comment)
2021-06-22 Masato Ikeda reassured solid, sufficient bone
Its 1 month after extraction of the root of UL2 tooth. CT taken. Masato Ikeda reiterated to my wife that bone was sufficient and solid, that doing an implant was no problem at all. (>comment on his timing of such observation/judgement)
No explanation was ever given to my wife as to how the implant would be done.
2021-07-22 Masato Ikeda’s secretive implant perforation
On 2021-07-22 the implant was placed (>comment if too early to implant). However, you didn’t take a CT afterward (given that the implant has about 50% fenestration, and by your much belated revelation many months later, such fenestration was intended). You also did not prepare any temporary crown for occlusal tuning, prior to placing the permanent crown. Instead, you only provided her a snap-on plastic tooth facade which, you also knew, was so poorly made that it didn’t even fit at all and she couldn’t even use it. For the many months after the implant was placed, my wife experienced persistent pain at the implant site. However many times she reported to you the persistent pain, you either dismissed it as “no problem”, “no need to worry”, “pain would subside after a while”. Yon never tried to find out the cause of pain. Later on, you altogether ignored my wife’s complaints of the persistent pain.
As pain worsened soon after the crowning of UL2 implant in Oct 2021, my wife reported the condition to you. You again, still did not make any attempt to find out the cause of pain. You again, just told my wife, pain would subside after a while.
With your inappropriate crowning of her LR4567 and LL4567, my wife started to experience new symptoms of pain with all those molar teeth. Days after the final crowning on 2022-02-09 of UL67 and UR67, the various symptoms of pain became extremely unbearable to my wife and she was very frightened. With my wife’s insistence to take CT on 2022-02-16, the secret of implant piercing through the bone was eventually uncovered. CT revealed almost 50% of the implant was outside the alveolar ridge. This was shocking and devastating to my wife. However, it seemed that you were equally surprised at that moment: you were telling my wife, upon seeing the CT, you came to realize the cause of her implant pain was because of the implant fenestration.
20220521_185128 CT by otaku croped.jpg
Inexplicably though, you quickly switched to the version that implant fenestration was actually intended. You told her the implant had to be in such extreme angulation in order to prevent the crown from protruding outward.
Well, was the implant fenestration a careless mistake that also surprised you too? Or was it actually a premeditated plan? And that you had been trying to hide this secret from my wife? Which version is real?
Seems there is an answer to why you kept dismissing and disregarding my wife’s repeated report of the pain ever since the implant was placed on 2021-07-22, and why you never care to look into the cause of pain. Because you all along knew the pain was due to your extreme implant fenestration of 50%, and you needed to keep this appalling secret from my wife.
Then why did you during the early stage, on repeated occasions, assure my wife that she had “sufficient bone”? You later argued that, by saying “sufficient bone” you meant 70% of the implant is inside the bone. You later switched your argument by saying as long as the implant is completely surrounded by bone at the opening end, that means “sufficient bone”. What an abhorrent sophistry. Blatant lies one after the other. And you were insulting my wife.
On one occasion, you told my wife the reason why you did not inform her of the planned implant fenestration beforehand was that “you did not want to freak her out”. What made you think you could get away from that forever? What if she discovers this appalling secret later on, would that not freak her out? Now that my wife is devastated because of implant fenestration, and fenestration to such an extreme extent, and, it is irreversible. My wife is infuriated because she felt cheated. You as a dental surgeon betrayed the trust that a patient has built on you. You as a dental surgeon failed badly at the very basic duty to inform the patient. By telling lies to cover up, your behavior is morally deplorable.
During the 2022-03-04 visit, you reiterated to my wife the same twisted logic: “since it will not cause any problems, patients need not to know about implant fenestration”. What kind of logic is that? By not fulfilling your duty to inform, you deprived my wife the right of choice. You violently took away her right to opt out from such an extreme implant fenestration.
You told my wife – or perhaps you lied to my wife – that you had done so many cases on implant fenestration on your patients. You said none had a problem, all were fine, so implant fenestration on my wife must be fine and no problem. What a bloody illogic statement. How blatant your ego and pride. Can’t imagine any prudent and professional dental surgeon would say such rubbish. Where is the scientific proof that such implant fenestration is problem-free? What are your empirical statistics from your treatment history?
During the 2022-03-18 visit, you admitted that the kind of implant fenestration you have done on my wife was not an established method, and was highly controversial in the field of dentistry. Dental clinic at Kyushu University Hospital that my wife visited on 2022-04-27 for 2nd opinion also confirmed that they would never undertake such an abnormal implant for my wife.
The only sensible inference that you recklessly did such an unestablished, highly controversial, and extreme (50% outside bone) implant fenestration on my wife without her knowing, is that you were totally driven by greed. You knew my wife would decline the implant treatment if she was duly informed in advance, and she would also call off the occlusion treatment as well. Altogether 1 implant plus 12 ceramic crowns, too good business to lose.
I demand that you provide me, within 3 days of this letter, with scientific proof, such as peer-reviewed research paper published in journal of dentistry, supporting your assertion that implant fenestration is as safe, problem-free and durable as normal implant without fenestration. Without such, then what you have done to my wife is plainly medical recklessness.
Come to think of it, my wife’s implant has as much as 50% fenestration. Was there a chance you did it by gross negligence? Such as NOT using surgical guide when performing implantation. I demand that you provide me, within 3 days of this letter, with the surgical guide that you used on my wife’s implantation.
Your occlusion treatment blunder
You commenced with the occlusion treatment in August 2021, but you never explained to my wife about your treatment plan – perhaps you didn’t have a plan. During the whole few months of replacing resin/previous crowns to your ceramic crowns on LL4567, LR4567, UL67 and UR67, you never gave any explanation to my wife what you had done on the occlusal adjustment, nor any update about how the work was going.
The placing of ceramic crowns was done very unprofessionally. As you removed the temporary resin crowns, and before putting on ceramic crowns, you didn’t perform the necessary cleaning and drying routine. Such reckless omission of proper procedure put my wife’s reshaped natural teeth at risk of decay in the future.
With reference to the medical record, you raised the bite of LL45 and LR567. As usual you did not inform my wife of this. Based on what assessment did you do this? Or were you doing this haphazardly or by mistake? No wonder when new symptoms of pain occur after putting on ceramic crowns, you dare not to look into the cause of her pain.
On 2022-02-09 you put on 4 ceramic crowns in one go: UL67 and UR67, and you told my wife since all crowns have been attached and therefore the whole treatment has been done and completed, and you told my wife if she still has any pain or occlusion symptom she must go to pain clinic or go to consult a psychosomatic therapist.
Days after the final crowning on 2022-02-09 of UL67 and UR67, there was unbearable pain on UL67 and other molar teeth, plus excruciating tinnitus. So, on the 2022-02-16 visit, my wife reported to you all these new symptoms after you put on the ceramic crowns, as duly documented on the medical record. Albeit your reluctance, my wife insisted that a CT be taken. This CT revealed the appalling secret that you have been keeping from her: the extreme implant fenestration. You said there was nothing you could do, as all pains are non-dental problems and it must be a trigger pain.
You resorted to making a soft night guard hoping it would alleviate the pain. However, as you know that very well, night guards did not work well. Wearing the night guard brought about a new whole set of symptoms: unbearable jaw pain, which also translated into sore facial muscle, headache, plus very bad neck and shoulder pain.
Every night, my wife has to deal with the dilemma of whether or not to wear a night guard. Wearing it seemed to help alleviate implant pain but it brought about a whole new set of painful symptoms.
All these new symptoms, for many days until now, have gravely disrupted my wife’s sleeping, eating, and daily life.
On 2022-04-09, my wife came to you again with aggravated pain on UL67 and LL5, together with the “night guard dilemma” you brought to my wife, you seemed to be troubled and irritated by the mess that you have created, and Mr Ikeda you said directly to my wife’s suffering face: “my treatment was all done properly without any mistake thus the pain you are feeling is non-dental. You have no occlusion problem”. And Mr Ikeda, you just did not follow through at all leaving her with the pain. You created the mess, you boldly brushed aside your responsibility, refused to do anything meaningful to remedy your mistake. You are taking human life too lightly.
Perhaps you just didn’t have a clue if what you have done to her crowns had seriously tampered her biting alignment and overall occlusion? Perhaps you just didn’t have a thought-out treatment plan for her occlusion to start with? Perhaps you just didn’t have the knowledge and skills to treat occlusion? Perhaps you do not know what to do with the mess you created?
As can be seen on the medical record, you didn’t even give her a chance to brief you on her dental history. You don’t care to know your patients’ dental history?
And, your attitude became more and more outrageous, cold-blooded, chilling and irrational.
On 2022-05-06, you stressed to my wife that everything with the treatment is fine based on your personal observation, and that my wife’s feedback (all those new symptoms of pain) which did not agree with your observation and opinion must be wrong. Mr Ikeda you stressed that all symptoms of pain my wife was suffering were not related to teeth, all symptoms had nothing to do with what you have done to her. You stressed that my wife must first prove symptoms were caused by your treatment, otherwise you had no responsibility whatsoever.
Then in the 2022-05-8 telephone call where my wife was merely trying to make an appointment, you reiterated your standard script again: “My treatment is up to standard and is all well done. I do not understand why you still have pain. If you really have pain, it’s all non-dental”. “I have no plan to look into why you have all these new symptoms.
This 2022-05-8 telephone call was unusually lengthened by Ms Terumi who was taking this opportunity to accuse my wife of having a mental problem, and that all my wife’s dental pain symptoms were caused by her personality traits, suggesting my wife had a serious personality defect.
Your Ms Terumi gave an hour long lecture to my wife about letting go with bad medical practice. Ms Terumi even quoted her “personal story of condoning a surgeon who failed her knee surgery” as a teaching material, and suggested my wife to condone everything that you have done to her and just walk away, don’t come back.
Your libelous medical record
My wife came to your clinic on 2022-05-20 to collect her medical record purported for the professional reference by other dentists. Upon reading my wife’s medical record, we have deep concern over the following points:
1. This medical record was to a very substantial part created by Ms Terumi who is a hygienist. As a result, the medical record falls short of the usual standard required by the dental profession. There is no date chop or date chops are too faded to be visible on many of the entries. Incredulously some entries were even wrongly dated!! The medical record is lacking in my wife’s medical history and lacking proper assessment of her initial condition. There is no clear treatment plan, lacking in technical information, lacking in pre- and post-treatment conditions, etc. Hence, this “medical record” is quite useless. Well, perhaps it does not matter to you as you don’t care.
2. On the other hand, much of the information created by Ms Terumi is largely irrelevant to dental treatment. A great deal of effort has been given to bad mouth the character of my wife. For instance, Ms Terumi described on the medical record that my wife was unhappy because she was not informed of no parking on Saturday. But on the other hand, the medical record didn’t properly mention about the UL2 crowning blunder. Such “medical record” looks more like a maliciously crafted report intended for character assassination, rather than a medical record for facilitating dental treatment.
3. We have discovered quite a number of locations on the medical record have been tampered with, some of the information relating to my wife’s dental conditions and symptoms are fake or incorrect. Also, there are quite some fabricated stories. Certain wrong details were incorrectly dated, while some others were appended afterward on the margins. Let me remind you, forging documents and tampering medical records are criminal offenses. I demand that you provide me with the original copy of my wife’s medical record for my examination within 3 days of this letter.
For public interest
Mr Ikeda, All in all, the way that you conducted your dental treatment to my wife has demonstrated a very shocking reality about your clinic. Dishonest, deceptive and unscrupulous practices, irresponsible and cold blooded behavior, plus all sorts of extremely unethical conduct and sophistry that fall far below human morality, let alone meeting the minimum professional moral standard as a dental surgeon. It appears to me that you are running a business driven by greed and immorality. As a result of your dealing, my wife has suffered grave physical and mental injuries, and this has seriously disrupted our family and daily life. I find it imperative to speak out and ensure all truths are heard, and justice be made, as wide as possible, as far as the law permits. I believe the general public should be well informed of this so that other patients in the community will not fall prey to your scheme.