August 28, 2012
By Erin Tennant, ninemsn
A 22-year-old patient is suing his orthodontist for making him wear braces for 11 years.
Devin Bost from the US state of Oregon said he wore braces from the age of 7 to 18, causing him tooth decay and gum disease, according to this lawsuit.
He filed his lawsuit in a county circuit court last Friday, seeking $150,000 for pain and suffering and a further $35,000 to pay for corrective surgery.
Some of Mr Bost's teeth will need to be removed and replaced with implants, his lawyer said, but it may not be possible in some parts of his mouth because the teeth have rotted through to the jaw.
According to the lawsuit, Mr Bost started visiting orthodontist Brad Chvatal in August 1997, after another orthodontist installed his braces.
Mr Bost visited Dr Chvatal periodically — although not as often as he should have, his lawyer concedes — but in June 2008 he "received an urgent phone call from (Dr Chvatal's office) that he needed to have the braces removed immediately," the lawsuit states.
Dr Chvatal declined to talk about the details of the case, citing patient privacy laws, but said he tried to give Mr Bost "the best result we possibly could."
"We had a great rapport," Dr Chvatal said of his former patient, according to ABCNews.com.
He said there are extenuating circumstances to the case and that Mr Bost did "a lot of moving."
But Mr Bost's lawyer said he stayed in the area where Dr Chvatal kept his offices during the entire period.
