Should I Go to Costa Rica for My Crowns
Posted by writeradmin
I have twelve crowns that I did for a smile makeover years ago and I’d like to update them to the prettier, whiter crowns you can get today. There is a dentist in Costa Rica that will do them for $6000. Of course, I’d have travel and a hotel to pay for too, but that doesn’t cost much there either. I’m wondering, though, if there is a way I could get a comparable price in the U.S. and avoid too much travel.
Ellie
Dear Ellie,
I’ll tell you up front that you are unlikely to get a dentist in the United States to do twelve porcelain crowns at that price — at least not a legitimate dentist. While price is an important factor when deciding on anything, this is not the most important consideration for your crowns. You want to make sure that the dentist is capable of doing the work. A LOT can go wrong. Here are just a few things that I have seen happen to other patients who succumbed to the appeal of dental tourism.
- The dentist could over-drill and a tooth could become sensitive.
- The crowns can look awful.
- You could end up with an infection and now need root canals.
- The crowns could fall out
- The crowns could be placed poorly in such away that it makes it hard to speak properly.
- The crowns could be placed incorrectly and it throws off your bite, leading to you getting TMJ Disorder.
There are so many more things that can go wrong. What kind of recourse do you think you are going to have even if you did travel back there? There are not the same protections for patients there. In fact, I know of a woman who had a combination of crowns and veneers done in Costa Rica where things went terribly wrong. She tried to get the dentist to fix it. When he wouldn’t she complained about him publicly online, as a result they put a warrant out for her arrest because that was illegal to do there. She ended up having to flee the country.
When she saw a dentist in the states, he essentially told her that the work done on her teeth was criminal negligence. Yet, there was nothing she could do about it. Plus, she now had to pay to have it all fixed. Sometimes cheap dentistry, is not the same are affordable dentistry.
This blog is brought to you by Arnold, MD Dentist Dr. Meredith Esposito.