Dentist

I have to find a new dentist. I have known this for a couple of months, but am not really sure where to look for one. The current dentist I have is a referral. There are two reasons why I am leaving this dentist. First, I want to say that he is a very nice person and has a great bedside manner. His office is clean and efficient and his staff are very friendly and helpful.

With this said, every time I have a cavity filled the dentist has to give me multiple shots of Novocaine in order to complete the filling. It is like he doesn't give enough in the beginning and so when he starts to drill, I feel it. I immediately let him know and he will then give me another shot. I have had to do this a couple of times in the past. In February, I had another cavity and went into to get it filled. He shot me up the first time and we waited about 10 minutes for it to take effect. When he started drilling, I immediately let him know that I was feeling it. So he gave me another set of shots and then started back on the drilling. By now, my eyeball was starting to feel numb, and I could feel my neck starting to go numb, but yet, I still had problems. So he had to give me a third shot. This time I felt him go under the tooth and I jumped. He said something like that was the nerve that hadn't fallen asleep yet. So then he started drilling again. By this time, I figured that as long as I wasn't going to scream or hit him from the pain, I should just grin and bear it. My thinking was I would rather have a few moments of discomfort in the chair rather than have him continue to dig around looking for another nerve to hit with his Novocaine needle.

The other reason why I need to change dentists is that he is no longer in my insurance PDP, and so it won't be fully covered.

I am now having a problem with one of my teeth and need to find another dentist, but am not really sure where to start.