Jennifer M. Beitler, DDS

This is a wonderful dental practice with experienced, friendly professionals. The atmosphere is open and bright (not oppressively shut-​in like most dental offices). In short, Dr. Beitler is the best dentist I’ve ever had. I am surprised that she is even accepting new patients. Better get in while you can!

Recently, I had to find a new dentist because of my new dental insurance. One of my co-​workers recommended Dr. Jennifer Beitler in Gaithersburg. I scheduled my first appointment about 2 months ago for a cleaning.
The all female staff works great together as a team and they were very pleasant and friendly.
More recently, I had to have a number of teeth pulled and Dr. Beitler had a very calming, reassuring manner. She had a great, very reasonably priced solution to replace the teeth that had been pulled.
I went yesterday to pick up my new teeth, and once again, her all female staff was very cheerful and friendly. I highly recommend Dr. Beitler and her staff!!!

Dr. Beitler’s office staff is alright. Becky the hygienist is very bubbly, friendly, and sweet. I don’t particularly care for Patti the receptionist or Judy the technician.
Her office has modern digital x-​ray equipment which is nice. I don’t like the set-​up how everything is open. If you are waiting in the chair you can watch someone else getting their teeth cleaned. Just seems odd as I’ve always been in dental offices which have closed partitions/​doors/​separate exam rooms.
Recently I went to get a filling done for a spot on my tooth which Dr. Beitler suspected to be decay and thought it would be best to fill. First Dr. Beitler gave me two incredibly painful novocaine injections. Tears were streaming down my face and she said in so many words, «I must be losing my touch… normally people don’t tear up on the bottom jaw, usually the top teeth are worse.» Fifteen minutes later my mouth was not numb at all. I brought this to her attention and she gave me one more awful injection, which was probably not as bad as the first two due to SOME effect of the novocaine at the injection site. I waited another 15 minutes. At this point my mouth was still not numb, hardly at all except for the tip of my tongue. Certainly NOT adequate to have my tooth drilled. At this point it was 9:45 am my appointment was at 9:00 am. I basically asked her what happened, why wouldn’t the novocaine work after all this time? She said it was possibly psycho-​somatic and that I could have «psyched» myself out of getting numb due to the mental pressure of thinking, «oh my mouth has to get numb for the filling.» I had brain surgery in May 2009. I can ASSURE you that my body is VERY accepting of any prescription/​professionally supervised drug it is given. So I don’t believe that excuse. She said I was not the only person that this has happened to either. Hmmmmm…
I left that day having wasted my time and re-​scheduled for another day. The day before my next appointment (which was one week after first horrible experience) my tongue still felt strange like it was numb still, almost a week later. So I called Dr. Beitler and to cancel the appointment, left a message for her and she called me back. She basically said, «with your medical history this is not surprising.» Blaming the fact that I had brain surgery on the ineffectiveness of the novocaine and the problem that my tongue was still slightly numb a week later. I’ve had a root canal before. The endodontist MAXED OUT the novocaine injections. There were no strange feelings a week after that procedure…
After hearing her excuses, I was quite appaled and contacted my neurosurgeon. He assured me (as he is an expert on all the nerves in the head) that the teeth on the bottom left jaw (#18 was to be filled) have no relation to the branch of the trigeminal nerve on the RIGHT side of my face that was affected by the surgery. He concluded that most likely the local anaesthetic did not diffuse properly into the nerves.
After all this, I won’t be going back to Dr. Beitler to get my filling or any other dental work/​check-​ups. Clearly there is a problem with any medical professional who falsely and ignorantly puts blame on a patient’s medical history and psycho-​somatic interactions to cover-​up their own incompetence.
As for «Losing her touch»??? I’m not sure she ever HAD it.