Complaint Review: Carlos F. Garcia DDS

PATIENT BEWARE:
If you are considering getting dental work done from Dr. Carlos F. Garcia DDS at his office in Laguna Beach, CA, I strongly recommend you read my horror story first. It involves almost dying, emergency room visit, 3 days in Intensive Care and being out of work for 2 weeks due to the treatment I received from Dr. Carlos F. Garcia.

I went to Dr. Carlos F. Garcia when his clinic was recommended to me by my regular doctors office.  What I thought was just a bad headache was actually an abscess in one of my teeth.  So off to the dentist. When I arrived I was ushered back for x-rays and then into the dentist chair where I was told that I would need a root canal and that I had swelling in my neck area. I said ok, when should we take care of the abscessed tooth? They said we will see you today at 4pm. I specifically remember asking them if I should wait until the antibiotic that they proscribed would be working before they open up the abscess, like a few days to a week. They stated there is no need for that and they recommended doing the root canal that same day to alleviate the pain and pressure. I remember asking them if the doctor was sure about that and they said dont worry about that, you will be fine.

Later that day I came back to the office of Dr. Carlos F. Garcia where I met with Dr. Carlos F. Garcia and he told me we were going to do a root canal to relieve the pain.  After the root canal was over, he told me to go home and take my antibiotics.

My wife and I left the office of Dr. Carlos F. Garcia and headed home to rest. That night I took my anti-biotic pill as instructed by Dr. Carlos F. Garcia and headed off to bed thinking this nightmare was over. But oh no, it was just beginning!

The next morning I woke up and my neck looked like a someone parked a goodyear blimp beneath the root canal site. We immediately called the office of Dr. Carlos F. Garcia and they made an emergency appointment for me. I arrived and they told my wife to quickly go to the nearest pharmacy and get two different antibiotics while I was starting to get worked on. They started drilling deeper and deeper into my tooth (I guess they didnt get it done right the first time). At this point they did not even have the common courtesy to numb my tooth so I will leave it up to your imagination to how wonderful that felt. Laying in the Dentist chair in excruciating pain, Dr. Carlos F. Garcia kept saying whats your problem, its not a big deal, suck it up. Talk about a real jerk type of thing to say while someone is in obvious pain. So after this he put a new temporary crown on and said he was done and said to go home and rest. At this point my neck was continuing to swell, even though he said he was done.  I asked him if I needed to go to the ER (since my wife said she was not comfortable just taking me home with my neck continuing to swell). I stood up and asked him eye to eye in your PROFESSIONAL opinion do I need to go to the ER. He looked back at me and said they will do nothing for you, I doubt they will even see you. You have the anti-biotics,  just go home and take them and you will be fine.  The picture listed on this Ripoff Report was taken right before I asked him this!!!

My wife insisted that we go to the ER because the swelling kept getting worse not better.  So we went to the nearest ER where they quickly did a CT and found out that I had Ludwigs Angina. (Wikipedia says: Ludwig's angina, otherwise known as angina ludovici, is a serious, potentially life-threatening cellulitis[1], or connective tissue infection, of the floor of the mouth, usually occurring in adults with concomitant dental infections). Next they started me on several IV antibiotics, but the swelling continued until they gave me IV steroids.  Now by this point my blood oxygen level was low enough for me to have to be put on oxygen. (My poor wife thought she was going to lose me.) Next they rushed me into the Intensive Care Unit and would not let me eat or drink for two full days since my throat was already so close to completely shutting. It took 3 days of IV antibiotics and steroids, along with a plethora of pain medication, to get the swelling down to a point where I could go home.

Once I was released home, I was bed ridden for 2 full weeks and was not able to work, resulting in a loss of income and a long and painful road to recovery.

Recently I approached Dr. Carlos F. Garcia on March 28th, 2011 at his office in regards to helping pay for the medical bills since there was obviously some errors, he scoffed about the idea of helping me pay for the medical bills. Instead he felt that I should pay the full amount for all my bills on my own.

So Dr. Carlos F. Garcia was unable to do the right thing and stand by the work that he had preformed and the resulting actions of his work. I had to publish my experience to let others know that this dentist is PATIENT BEWARE and may end up harming you (or even killing you, depending on his actions).

And this isnt the end. Now I have to go to a specialist to have the root canal re-done. Fun times ahead.

I implore you to not go through this horror that I have gone through.

• Total Medical Bills: $18,273
  
  
  
• Future Required Medical Bills for a new root canal (preformed by another dentist) : $3,200
  
  
  
• 2 Weeks of missed work: $8,000

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• Total lost because of this (without pain and suffering): $29,473
  
  
  
• Other costs, Pain and suffering etc: Who knows, but a LOT.

I will be updating this Ripoff Report as things update.