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Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Welcome back to the dental chair! It’s good to see you again. I’m happy to see the number of you reading my dispatches is steadily increasing; I’m hopeful that my first-hand experiences documented in these dispatches are helping you understand the situation.
This past appointment was rather early in the day, but right on time, the doctor saw me and the work began. This is one of the things that is the most impressive to me in this endeavor. You really are a name, and not just a number. As a sign of how well this treatment is, I was given a possibility of one day, with a backup day a couple of days later for my upcoming appointment. I received a phone call and an email with my preferred day and time just two short days later; this truly is amazing!
After nearly an hour of effort, this stage of my treatment was complete, with a bit of discomfort, but nothing that was incapacitating. Yes, progress is being made! With my next appointment, it’ll be apparent that I’ll be at a point of no return, for me that’ll be great. It’s been quite some time since I’ve had a full dental compliment, and now I truly see that the efforts being made will have a positive look; I can’t wait!
Another upcoming appointment and another dispatch for your reading pleasure comes in a few days. Until we meet again in the dental chair,
DT (the Dental Tourist)
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Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Welcome back to the dental chair! It's good to see you again. I hope things are going well for you. I will apologize now; this dispatch is a bit short, due
to some severe time constraints.
I managed to get to the dental office a few minutes early in an effort to try and speak to one of the other patients, but that didn't work out. I sat in the chair within five minutes of my appointment time, and the work begun. After twenty minutes of effort, the first stage of the preparatory work was completed.
While this work took place, there was little speaking; this was obviously a sign that professionals were at work and that the sole focus was on my well being.
This is one of the things that is most impressive to me in this endeavor. You really are a name, and not just a number. As a sign of how well this treatment
is, I was given a possibility of one day, with a backup day a couple of days later for my upcoming appointment. I received a phone call and an email
with my preferred day and time just two short days later; this truly is amazing!
After nearly an hour of effort, this stage of my treatment was complete, with a bit of discomfort, but nothing that was incapacitating. Yes, progress is being made! With my next appointment, it'll be apparent that I'll be at a point of no return, for me that'll be great. It's been quite some time since I've had a full dental compliment, and now I truly see that the efforts being made will have a positive look; I can't wait!
Another upcoming appointment and another dispatch for your reading pleasure comes in a few days. Until we meet again in the dental chair,
DT (the Dental Tourist)
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Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Welcome back to the dental chair! It’s good to see you again. I hope things are going well for you.
If I may indulge you the reader, I’d like to begin by starting a brief history of my dental trials and tribulations. I think like many of us, we were blessed with good genetics in other areas of our life, but the ‘good dental’ gene missed many of us. Since my family wasn’t terribly well-to-do, dental treatments at a young age weren’t much of a priority. I have since realized that dental care in general wasn’t a priority for any of us until I was around twelve.
At that time, I was introduced to orthodontia. For those of you reading this, if you have not experienced this (especially as it was practiced more than thirty years ago), this is where I think dental fear originates! There was plenty of pain once a month, and not a drop of lidocaine to be found. Now due to various situations and events, I had endured orthodontia for several years. Toward the end of the treatment, it was recommended that all of my wisdom teeth be removed. As a good patient, they were removed without discussion. In my mind, I want to think that’s where my dental fear really originated from; it was not a pleasant experience. As my teenage years ended, so did my orthodontics treatments. My teeth weren’t bad – or so I thought.
As my early adult years progressed, my visits to dental professionals were few and far between. Yes, I have insurance coverage, but the prices after the coverage – wow! We’ll leave that discussion for another time; we have more pressing things to chat about.
About fifteen years ago, I visited a dental professional recommended to me by a member of the family here in my home town. This dental professional must have thought he hit a jackpot! “Oh, you need this, and this and this…” Needless to say, the costs were astronomical, but I sucked it up and got the work done. Well, part of the work done. I left his chair with less than 28 teeth the last time I saw him “Oh, tsk, tsk, it is too bad we need to remove this!”, and I’ve never returned!
I’ll fast forward the story a bit from this point – that last episode of dental treatment occurred a few more times over the years – up to about two years ago, when Google brought the knowledge of dental tourism to my attention.
Next appointment in a few days – plenty of effort to be had this time around; you’ll read about it here.
Until we meet again in the dental chair,
DT (the Dental Tourist)
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Sunday, April 27, 2008
Introduction
A few days ago, the culmination of a couple of years of contemplation and a couple of weeks of discussion between my spouse and I, along with emails with a dental professional in Mexico, it happened! Last week, I became a dental tourist! Yes, I did it – I crossed the line and I’m going to do this; I’m going to get my dental needs taken care of once and for all.
In a gift of gratitude to Gary and all of his work on the web pages here at http://mexicandoctorsdir.com/ which were a real help in understanding what I have available to me, I have offered to create a series for his web pages.
For many of us in this situation, we’ve had a couple of strikes against us in our life in our battles to maintain our dental health. At this point, it really doesn’t matter what those strikes against us are, but how we came to make a decision like this. For my situation, it’s financial – plain and simple. I know my mouth needs some extensive work; your mouth is different, but you wouldn’t be here reading this, if you weren’t interested.
If you’ve done much Internet searching, you’ve found a few articles about his, but very few from a first-person point of view. It’s my aim to try and help in that endeavor of giving my impressions of what I saw, what I felt and what I’m experiencing as we go through this process.
My intent is to try and write these entries as quickly as I can after the treatment so you’ll know what I’m experiencing, both physically and emotionally. Personally, for me, this is beneficial, so I’m hopeful this is as helpful for you as it is for me.
In conclusion for my first entry, I’ll get right to the chase. I didn’t bother with a dental professional estimate here in the states. I know that I’ll need several thousand dollars worth of work to remediate my current dental needs, and that would be after my dental insurance paid what it would.
I knew that going to a professional in Mexico that costs would be lower, but after getting an estimate, I was pleasantly surprised at the cost. My largest fear of dental work was as a result of fear of tossing yet more money down the hole that is my mouth. At least after one appointment, what everyone is writing about dental tourism may be right on the money. A few more weeks will tell. I’ll tell it all here for you to read and for you to decide.
Until we meet again in the dental chair,
DT (the Dental Tourist)
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Friday, May 30, 2008
My final dispatch from the dental chair, my friends, and as I wrote before, the discomfort I felt at the time was worth the gain! My delay in this last dispatch was due to my need to deal with other matters. The dental work was for me, of course, but there’s a special event upcoming that needed my attention.
I’ve had two more dental appointments since that last dispatch was written – and, yet, the feeling I have in knowing that my friends as well as my colleagues note a difference is amazing. I’ve had no one actually say anything, but I know they’re trying to figure it out! My confidence is growing in the dental effort that was chosen for me, and that the choice made by my dental professional was the right one. He has informed me that more effort may be needed, but at this time, my situation has been corrected to a functional level; I now have a mouthful of teeth that work.
I’m hopeful that this has given you some insight into the process, and that the things you’re reading on-line about this “Dental Tourism” situation really is true!
Again, my thanks to Gary for allowing me the opportunity to share my positive experience with dental tourism with you through his web pages. The pages here at http://mexicandoctorsdir.com have a wide variety of dental professionals listed here to choose from. My choice in dental professional was strictly from the listing here, as well as follow-up questions directly to the doctor! It really seems strange to make a choice like that, but it is worth your time and effort to seek one out.
Until we meet again in the dental chair in a few months for a check-up…
DT (the Dental Tourist)
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Do you have questions or comments about this posting? Please send them to me by click on this email link: Gary W. Logan
If you have any thoughts that you would like to pass along about your experiences with the Directory or the Doctors please send them to the email link or use the link to the Questionnaire.
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