Trip to Goa that put a smile on my face
Why are people paying ridiculous amounts of money for dental veneers and implants (Mail)? Just tell them to get themselves off to Goa. Britons who live in Spain fly there for dental treatment: why aren’t all of us doing it? An implant there costs about £500. A friend with whom I was on holiday had two top-quality crowns fitted, whitening and a scale and polish for £220. My teeth were dreadful. I had only 12 left, and they were in a really bad state when I went to Goa for three weeks. I came back with a full set of fixed teeth. I didn’t have implants. I had root canal treatment to avoid any problems and I didn’t experience any pain having the work done. When I had root canal work here in Britain, it was a very painful experience indeed. I now have a full set of teeth consisting of crowns, caps and bridges, and can eat anything at all. I clean them as I cleaned my own teeth, using a good toothpaste and I use a mouth wash. The dentist even gave me the natural gap in my teeth which I’d had since I was a child. I told him I didn’t want the horrible bright shiny effect which seems to happen with treatment here — I call it the ‘Simon Cowell effect’: I always think his teeth are going to jump out and get me. The total cost was £4,000. and I probably spent just ten hours of my holiday in the dentist’s chair. I couldn’t possibly have afforded the prices quoted here. People need to wake up to what is out there in other countries. you get a holiday and your teeth fixed for a fraction of what you would pay here.
BETTE ALLEN, Tiptree, Essex. ReAdInG about other women’s terrible experience with teeth veneers shows me that the problems aren’t confined to me, as my dentist kept claiming. he drilled my own perfectly healthy teeth into stumps before putting veneers on — and every time one fell off he told me: ‘That is unusual — I will just take another little bit of enamel off and it should then be OK.’ But it wasn’t — and I would plead with anyone considering veneers for cosmetic reasons to think again. I’ve now had to have extensive and expensive bridge work to compensate for the fact that my own teeth are virtually nonexistent a few years after veneers. I wasn’t told that veneers have a short shelf-life and that, in having them applied, my own teeth will be irrecoverably damaged. I now have to suffer for the rest of my life for having had the vanity of wishing to have a perfect smile. My own teeth are gone — I actually paid for them to be damaged beyond repair. My dentist, whom I trusted totally, ruined my mouth, my smile, my bank balance and my life. And he wasn’t a charlatan, but a registered dentist who, as soon as I mentioned that I was considering veneers, scraped my own teeth to a point where there was no going back. I hope my experience stops anyone considering this barbaric, detrimental and irrecoverable action.
HELEN DRYER, Gidea Park, Essex.