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Never been to a dentist, how bad are my teeth?

N

neverbeen

Junior member
Joined
Jan 26, 2018
Messages
4
Hi all.


I've never been to the dentist all my life. I know I've had periodontal disease for 10-15+ years, a lot of tartar hard substances. I still have all my teeth including wisdom teeth. I have bad breath and recently my 2 front teeth has revealed a gap, I've stopped going out due to it. My social life has severely diminished and I constantly have a fear that a family member or friend will find the true extent of my bad teeth. I live with my parents and I always lock my room, I don't want them to come in while I'm sleeping and realize my teeth is so bad.

Nobody knows how bad my teeth is since I basically don't smile at all and speak with my mouth nearly closed. Every tooth has that hard tartar on it and I've learned to hide it well. I know this is not a lot of information to go by. Based on all this I said, are my teeth in really horrible shape? Would I likely need to have them all removed?

I have everything ready, my fears are:
1. Pain
2. Dying from surgery
3. Friends and family finding out

I'm thinking of going to one of those all in one clinics that does implants also so I don't need to go to so many places and face so many different people. And I'm thinking of doing one of those dental tourism things to save money.

I've been planning the previous year, my plan:
1. I'm responsible for paying all the bills for my parents, so I've set up auto pay for everything
2. I've renewed my passport a few months ago
3. Schedule an appointment with a dental clinic in a different country
4. Tell my parents I'll be going on vacation
5. Go to that country to see a dentist and I'll stay at a motel in that country until all the work is done or until I could return without any friends or family noticing

That's the plan, the first two items is done. But I keep having second thoughts, thinking about postponing until next year, etc. What can I do to stop having second thoughts?
 
I think you're overthinking ALOT. Dental tourism can turn our great or turn out really really badly. It would suck if you went to some shady dentist in Mexico to save money only to wind up paying an American dentist 1000's of dollars anyway to fix shoddy work. If I were you I would first go to an American/European dental clinic, not sure where you live, and get yourself an initial exam. You haven't been to the doctor in awhile so it would be good to get your teeth checked out and get some X-rays so you know what you're looking at before you go to some overseas dental clinic. And even if you need extensive dental work why not try to make arrangements with a dental school before you jump straight to dental tourism. You can save tons of money that way and the quality of the work would likely be above average.

Second why would you hide the fact that you want to fix your teeth from your parents and family? I'm sure they would be supportive no? As far as tartar and build up go on the teeth you can have that all removed with a cleaning, really not a huge deal. Now you say you've had periodontal disease for 10+ years, how do you know that? Have you been diagnosed with periodontitis? Without pictures nobody can give you any answers on the condition of your mouth. From the sounds of it you need a good cleaning and exam.
 
I've heard that there are some countries in eastern Europe with Dentists who do decent work like Hungary and in some cases their operations even cater to English speaking dental tourists and its a third of the cost of what you would pay in the UK. Maybe you should go to a dentist in your home country and get an examination and an estimate for fixing your mouth so you have an idea of what to expect, how much to save and make sure you aren't being lead down the garden path so to speak.

I do sympathise. I think especially if I needed full dentures or all on four I would go away for 3 weeks so I had time to learn how to eat and speak again so no one was any the wiser when I came back.
 
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