Yesterday I treated a patient with a severe toothache with a root canal treatment.  Root canal problems can cause enormous pain.  The good news is that I was able to quickly get him out of pain.  The bad news is that if he had let me take care of the deep decay in that tooth 6 months before, when I saw the problem, he would not have suffered with pain or needed a root canal treatment.

I'm not a "told you so" person, so I didn't discuss any of that with him.  I absolutely will never even come close to criticizing a patient.  I'm here to help people; not make them feel bad.