Despite epic thread on Hungary, would like to hear patient feedback

Oral Surgeon

If your girl friend came to Ireland and got a large treatment plan on Monday morning, had 20 teeth cut and prepared by and impressions taken by Monday afternoon, then went to see the sights of Dublin and had 20 crowns or bridges fitted on Wednesday or Thursday then she is no doubt going to get a rushed and shoddy job.
It not necessarily the dentists or the country that's the problem, it is the speed and inherent time constraints that dental tourism involves.....

InTheTrees wrote: »

I came to this thread because my gf has many many issues. She sometimes talks about her teeth as being made of sand they're so bad.

The twist is that I am Irish and she is American and we live in the United States (the land of exhorbitant medical costs) and I was encouraging her to be a dental "tourist" to ireland.

Given the responses to the OP's innocent question I'm now a little wary.

It seems to me the responses are that any dentist in a foreign country is going to do shoddy work because they wont have to worry about the follow up care. The idea is that its not lower costs, taxes, insurance etc that makes foreign treatment less expensive but substandard treatment.

Or am I wrong?

SM35

OP

I honestly believe you have been given some sound advice from some highly trained, skilled and ethical practitioners, some of whom are specialists in their field, who come across significant numbers of patients who have received poor quality care, and I am sure from Irish as well as overseas practitioners.

I do not have any financial interest or otherwise in trying to prevent or "scare" anybody from going abroad for treatment - I do not do full mouth reconstructions (which at your suggestion of possibly needing ten crowns or thereabouts is an ADVANCED level of dentistry).

I have seen some excellent standards of work carried out from all parts of the globe. However, I consistently come across some patients who have chosen to undergo care in a different jurisdiction, generally for financial reasons, and where the results are poor, with resultant loss of teeth.

These issues I come across include treatment that was carried out too fast, with inferior quality materials or laboratory work, and where the fundamental reasons for the patient presenting with the dental disease were not addressed. I also consistently come across patients who only needed a couple of crowns, but end up undergoing excessive treatment e.g. excessive crowns where the underlying tooth structure has bee nneedlessly removed / damaged / destroyed.

Any ethical and competent practitioner will want to initially investigate and diagnose the reasons for your level of disease, before recommending STABILISATION:

1) address oral hygiene and suggest and coach you in improving home hygiene
2) assess your dietary habits and provide advice regarding modifications to your diet to reduce risk of decay
3) stabilise basic dental disease i.e. pain relief, removal of plaque and calculus deposits, removal of decay and placement of straightforward fillings , initial root treatments etc

All the above takes time to be carried out properly, and RECONSTRUCTION should only commence once the actual disease process has been shown to have been stabilised over a period of time.

By all means, research going abroad for your care, I am sure there are some superb clinicians out there, but as soon as you start rushing treatment and go from a diseased mouth to reconstruction in a short period of time, you are only asking for trouble in the long term.

You mentioned you had a budget of over €2000 - Have you thought of attending a local dentist who could stabilise things for you with some straightforward basic care - e.g. tooth coloured resin fillings with whitening - that way you will have stabilised dental disease, and will have improved your appearance?

InTheTrees

Oral Surgeon wrote: »

It not necessarily the dentists or the country that's the problem, it is the speed and inherent time constraints that dental tourism involves.....

Thank you, that is important to know and does explain a lot.

crystallamp

Well, I was very excited about going to Hungary and took the plunge and went. Was very impressed with the clinic I attended. It was all very modern and seemed incredibly state of the art. I agreed a treatment plan, to replace crowns and add new crowns and replace some fillings.

But... when it came to it, I couldn't go through with the work. I was too nervous. Whilst I would have trusted them to carry out the work, I don't think they are as patient with nervous patients as perhaps you'd find in Ireland.

Furthermore, it would have taken a number of visits for me to complete the work, and whilst I admire that, because they wanted to ensure enough time was between visits to assist healing, it wouldn't have been economical for me to return time and time again. I was told that there are other clinics in Hungary, that will complete as much work as necessary in one visit, and I actually had a consultation with a clinic in Dublin who said they could do as much as I was able for in one day, depending on how long I could stay on the chair, but this particular clinic seemed to want to do things right and ensure the treatment was spread out in a reasonable time frame.

I've since met with a Dublin dentist who specialises in nervous patients, and whilst I won't get all I want done in Dublin as I cant afford it, I am a bit more comfortable with the prospect of being sedated.

My advice to people planning on going abroad for dental treatment is to firstly compare prices before you go. I found a couple of Dentists who had prices not far off what I was being given in Hungary. I think the real value is in Implants when you are considering going abroad and also if you are being promised the work being done in one visit, question whether this is the best way forward for you.

Not sure if I'm allowed to mention the clinic I visited, I'm happy to reply by PM. I DO recommend them, but just not for me and my situation.

btkm8unsl0w5r4

Think this is best put in the old thread. I will move it.

Please dont recommend to anyone, a dentist with whom you have not had treatment and were unwilling to trust to do your work. When if come to recommendations you have literally to put your money where you mouth is.

Complex dental work cannot be done in short periods of time, if it could we would all do it that way. Healing is not optional and has to be respected.

bilbonetta

I am from Eastern Europe originally and have been living in Ireland for many years.
I have done most of my work over there at home although not in Hungary.
There are bad dentists there and I had to find the right one and it took me years of trial and error unfortunately, including a dentist relative who was a butcher although my mother still goes to him because of respect. She is the old generation of people who cares about totally different things and believes in the old school.

There are bad dentists here too and I haven't found the right one yet, not because of personality but because of quality.

One has to find the right one wherever, country of origin is of little importance. But I'd be careful just going to someone because of price or convenience whatever that means.

The most important thing is how skilful the dentist doing your teeth is, not how well their office looks, what nationality they are, or how nice they are to you and if they give you out of office treatment like an airport collection.
I honestly can't imagine my dentist at home doing this, lol.

I don't see why there' s an argument about good/bad dental care in EE compared to Ireland. It's not because of definite lower quality. We EE residents don't have worse teeth than other Europeans like Irish people and we don't suffer worse dental treatment.

I understand why Irish dentists may say they've seen a lot of bad work done abroad. I've worked in technical support for computer companies and for the exact same reason I've only seen bad cases coming to us. Almost no one that was happy actually called or had a complaint but we had cross country complaints trying to reach us because locally they couldn't get any help. For the same reasons Irish dentist see the bad scenarios majorly and it would only take proper statistics to prove one way or the other.

I for example when I couldn't get home over the years which has happened because my life is here in Ireland, have gone here for a cleanings and check ups the odd times. My dentist here in Ireland recommended replacing one of my old fillings and made a bad job out of it creating a notch between my teeth, unable to floss now without tearing it.

After every cleaning he left white paste around my teeth which I learned that I had to go home and clean up myself. And he only ever cleaned my front teeth for some unknown reason. He is very nice, pain free and has tons of people visiting so he only spends 1/4 hr with me on each visit and doesn't talk too much. He has an award for treating sensitive patients...lol
He has queues waiting outside his office too and he was recommended by my colleagues none of which have teeth you would smile with but I am not about aesthetics but about teeth being healthy.

My dentist in my own country did 3 root canals including my top front two teeth 10 years ago, and changed my amalgam fillings on other teeth done in my childhood because either of decay they saw on the x-rays or because the fillings simply had discoloured my teeth and especially gums and it caused aesthetic problems. He put full veneers on my front teeth at the same time and a crown on my molar.

I only had one month holiday then and I got married during that time too. He made me spent the majority of the time in his office from morning to evening most days including Sundays, to make sure it was all done before I left. I haven't had a problem since, not one. He told me he stabilised my teeth for at least 5 years and possibly 10 if I am good to my teeth, and he did.

And the reason I did such an extensive repair in such a short time was because it was the first time I could afford it after working in Ireland for a few years.
So it's not about time, it's about skill.
Since then, 10 years, my old dentist only needed to clean my teeth when I went back home. My local Irish dentist only recommended replacing an old filling so that' s for a 2nd opinion. I am in my 40s now and still have 30 teeth.

bilbonetta

How do I post a picture here by the way?