About 5 years ago I found a dentist in New York who gave me 6 crowns on my top front teeth. I was so impressed with his work that I recommended him to L (my best friend and current travel companion) who was also looking to get some crowns. As much as I liked his work, his prices have gone higher over the past several years, and he now charges almost $350 for an exam and a deep cleaning. So 2 years ago, when I had traveled to Ecuador last, I got my teeth examined, cleaned and one filling for $65, and was determined to do it again this trip.
This morning after swiftly vacating our lousy hotel in Ambato, L and I wondered around town, looking for breakfast, and most importantly, cafe con leche to start the day. After a $3 breakfast of perfectly cooked eggs, fresh passion fruit juice, a ham and cheese melt, and a fresh fruit salad, we started walking towards the bus station when I saw a sign for a dentist office. We rang the bell, and got buzzed in to an upstairs office where we were told the dentist had time to see me. I was pleased to see that he specialized in orthodontics.
He poked around my mouth with a hi-res camera which was attatched to a flat-screen monitor mounted next to the chair so that both of us could see it. He noted the cosmetic work I had had done by my fancy Park Avenue dentist, specifically the 6 crowns on my top front teeth. He showed me on the monitor exactly how the work was flawed, and strongly suggested that I get myself another dentist. After seeing it on the monitor I couldn't help but agree.
He also showed me an advanced cavity in my upper left wisdom tooth that was too large to fix. He recommended pulling the tooth, since it couldn't be repaired and was bound to cause me great pain in the very near future. I reluctantly agreed after seeing the gaping hole that used to be the side of my rear molar. He began by injecting novacane into my gums. Having been through this process before I knew how painful these shots would be, but suprisingly, they weren't that bad. After I was comfortably numb he began to remove the tooth. I have never had the pleasure before, but it felt as though my bone was going to separate from my face before the tooth separated from the bone. I was honestly scared. And it's a violent process, with your cheek being pulled back far enough to expose the tooth and the dentist using all the strength of an large adult male to separate your tooth from your head. I was seriously questioning why I had chosen to go to a dentist in a developing country, even though by this point I was beginning to think he was better than my NY dentist. I had thoughts of my face being ripped apart and needing reconstructive bone surgery or perhaps the tooth flying out of my mouth as his plyers ripped through my cheek.
At one point I stopped him and asked him if there was any chance that the separation of my tooth from my mouth could fracture my bone. He gently laughed at my ignorance, but in a way that made me believe that I was in competent hands. I finally surrendered and allowed what will be to be.
L, who was watching the entire process said he used a tool that looked like a chisel to separate the bone from the roots, wedging it between the tooth and the bone, and rocking it and forth to loosen it. Then he would use plyers to pull at the tooth, and then go back to the chisel tool, then back to the plyers, until finally, even with my mouth completely numb, I felt a profound movent of the roots finally letting go as he dragged the tooth out of the bone. It felt SOOOO wrong! But it was done, and the dentist was pleased with his work. (As I type this, it is now 10 hours later, and aside from the gaping hole in my gum, I feel no pain.)
After I was done, L decided he would get an exam and a cleaning, even though he had just had one only 6 weeks ago by our NY Dentist. Almost immediately the Ecuadorian dentist identified the same flaws in L's implants as he had in mine. He also found 3 cavities that apparantly the NY guy didn't catch only 6 weeks prior! He filled the cavities and we paid him for all of his work. I was charged $60 for my exam, cleaning and tooth pulling and L was charged $90 for his exam and 3 fillings. I'm guessing this is about 10% of what we would have paid for this work in NY. And I do believe that the Ecuadorian had exactly the same quality equipment and perhaps better education and skills than our fancy Park Avenue dentist.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment