DO NOT BRING YOUR CHILDREN TO THIS OFFICE! I brought my 8yr old son to this place to have a cavity removed, I picked Kool Smiles because I wanted a place geared towards children so it wouldn't be a scary overwhelming experience. When we walked in everything looked great, very clean, inviting waiting area with things for children to do. Nice receptionist. We were called back fairly quickly. The back area was open and clean looking. The nurse took us to get Xrays, and that's where the hell started and it turned into the worst dentist visit I have ever known. The nurse jabbed the Xray film into my sons mouth to the point where he gagged and threw up a little in his mouth, she did not apologize, she just started saying ""I didn't even touch him, I didn't even touch him"". We went to the exam room and the doctor and nurse started getting everything ready, went over the Xrays and told me an extraction would work. I told the nurse I wanted ""laughing gas"" for my son to calm him down, again I wanted this to be easy on him- not some horrible ordeal. They put him on gas but didn't explain it too him, I was the one that told him to calm down and breathe through his nose. Kool Smiles states in their paperwork multiple times that they ""show-tell-do"" to explain everything before it takes place to keep the child at ease, that did not happen at all. At no time during the visit did the doctor or the nurse explain anything to my son, or to me for that matter. Since I have had a tooth removed before I ended up just standing by my son and explaining everything they were about to do while the doctor and nurse came in and out of the room. The only time they spoke to my son was to Bark at him to move this way or that. They stuck numbing gel in his mouth and around his tooth so hard he started to get upset and they brushed it off. Then they stuck him with the novacaine needle without saying anything to him and the doctor told him ""well yeah it's gonna hurt"" when my son flinched and complained. A short time later the doctor came back in and just jumped right in and started yanking out the tooth. I stood beside my son and helped hold him in place because he was scooting off the chair, then he started screaming in pain as the doctor ripped the tooth out. At first I thought he was just scared but it became very clear that the novacaine didn't work and the doctor just took my sons tooth with no pain relief. My son was in so much pain he just cried and cried and the nurse told him ""you need to calm down and stop crying cause you might scare the other kids"" I have never wanted to hurt anyone so much in my life! My son is 8yrs. old, not a little kid, but a tough boy and I have never seen him so hurt and scared. We ended up going to another dentist on the way home to get him checked out and the other dentist told us the cavity was probably infected and the dentist shouldn't have pulled it without giving antibiotics for a week first, that's why the novacaine didn't work. The people at that office told me they hear complaints about Kool Smiles in Columbia all the time and were nice enough to give my son a prescription for pain. This visit turned into eveything it wasn't supposed to be. Start to finish the whole thing lasted maybe 25 minutes, but my son will never forget those 25 minutes.
more