Dagdigian R Darrel, DDS

Dr. Dagdigian has great «bedside manner» in that he is great at communicating with you about what he is going to do, creates small talk, and makes you feel comfortable. As a dentist I thought he was wonderful, but my poor review is based on his Invisalign abilities. It has been about three years and I am so extremely disappointed about my decision to spend $ 4,000 on Invisalign under his care. When you spend that much money, you do so because you want straight teeth; not «mostly» straight teeth, but all straight. Well, throughout the entire three rounds of full treatment though the aligners, I kept gently complaining that one area wasn’t being straightened. At first, he listened and when the first treatment and trays were done, he ordered a whole new refinement round and set of trays, and when we were done with those and I noticed nothing had changed in that specific area, the same problem arose. So, he ordered a whole round again and by the end, still no success. Apparently, Invisalign will only allow 2 refinements after the first round of treatment, but that’s it. Well, my guess is that since he knew he could no longer order another round, he pretended to «all of a sudden «act like those teeth had been fixed and were perfect, when they clearly were not. I stressed and stressed to him as it got closer to the last trays that they were not improving and he would continue to deny that he saw what I saw. I would even go to random family members and ask them if they could tell where my teeth were still not straight and it was obvious to everyone, except for him. I truly believe he just lied and acted like they were all straight because he knew he was out of refinement options. My teeth were never straightened. I felt so disappointed about how much money I had spent for those results. Around the end of the treatment I had my first child and when she was still a newborn I misplaced my retainers twice. Both times I had to pay $ 400 to replace them but the second time I just gave up. I felt like I had wasted enough money already and just let my teeth move. I hate that he could not help me out or work with me or offer some type of treatment to fix them, after all the money I had spent. I hold him directly accountable for the results and here is why: For Invisalign, the dentist needs to send x rays and impressions to invisalign and then they use this information to send you an electronic plan of the series of tray they suggest to take you from day one of treatment to the end. A good OD is never safisfied with what they suggest. They use their expertise and experience to reject that initial suggestion and make very specifics instructions on what the trays need to work on and do. How do it know this? Because a few months after my experience my sister went to another OD for Invisalign. He was highly trained and never satisfied with the trays treatment that Invisalign would suggest. He would always use his expertise to give great detail and specifics about how he wanted the Invisalign trays to be created. He explained how he never once had accepted the suggestions Invisalign would electronically present because you can’t just allow a computer to do everything for you. He also explained how when he first started doing Invisalign he wasn’t happy with the results his patients got and it took a lot of experimented to get it right. Well Dr. Dagdigian would just accept whatever the heck Invisalign presented. I know this because he would tell me that he was waiting on them to send him this information so he could hit accept and shortly after that I’d get my trays. He just wasn’t experienced enough and it’s sad that people have to waste $ 4000 trusting someone who just pretends everything worked out great when you obviously aren’t happy.
The right thing to do would have been to be honest. The right thing to do would have been to give me my money back or offer some sort of remedy. A friend of mine had a similar experience to mine and her dentist refunded her money. That’s honestly. That’s concern showing concern for patient’s well being. Instead, I got denial.
I am all for Invisalign, but beware what dentist you go to. Your results are only as good as your dentists experience.
I apologize to Dr. Dagdigian for such a poor review. I am just so disappointed about how much money was wasted and wish my concerns would have been validated.
Signed,
The girl with the crooked bottom teeth