Pillai Ranjini, DDS

Dr. Pillai was very nice. Both my husband and I had pleasant visits. The staff was all really nice. While the appointment started on time, it took 1.5 hrs, much more than I was expecting and planned for. At the end of my husband’s appointment, she recommended a host of expensive cosmetic surgeries including a jaw realignment. If you look into those, not only are they expensive (because they are purely cosmetic), but also extremely painful and risky procedure requiring several months of recovery. Not exactly what you want to hear from your dentist. Also, after receiving a bill, I called to pay it over the phone. Despite three messages over two weeks, I never got a return phone call and finally mailed a check. In sum, it started well but didn’t end on a good note.

After being very disappointed with my first dentist in the Triangle, I did some intense internet research and checked with my dental plan to decide on his successor. I eventually settled on Dr. Pillai, thankfully covered by my insurance. I was able to easily schedule an appointment within a week, and was very, very impressed with how thorough and detailed her work was. On my first visit, her assistant took both xrays and individual photos of all of my teeth, which took forever, but provided a nice reference for Dr.Pillai. With this information, there is also a cool cartoon that shows up on a screen in the exam room, with a diagram of all your teeth, and color coded marks on them according to whether they have cavities, already have fillings. My previous dentist did a crappy job with my fillings, but she fixed them and also did an excellent, painless job taking care of a couple of other cavities. She is also extremely nice and we chatted about all sorts of fun topics (well, she chatted, while I made gurgling noises and approximated words sounding like Sloth from the Goonies). I was fully satisfied with the quality of her care, and can’t recommend her enough. Her staff is also very friendly and helpful. She is anal about not refunding you completely if you don’t cancel or reschedule an appointment far enough in advance, so she’s definitely not for you if this can be a potential problem.