RE's Excellent Mexican Dental Adventure

[RE]

For me, a good reward for a bit of searching.   It's only 160 mile drive for me.  Need the teeth before the next phase.  Thanks for useful information - that's what I was looking for.  Oh, looks like a good informational Website.  I'm now a member.

Nice to have you aboard the Diner.

I can recommend a good Dentist in Los Algodones if you go there.

RE

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[Luap]

I'd be screwed, actually not screwed, if I didn't use my girlfriend's dentist, Dr. Ramos.  She only had a crown and some fillings done - minor shit.  To save me from hunting for it, did you give your Dr.'s name in the article?  What I wanted to know was the cost and the pain.  I hate going to the Dentist, which is a major reason I have shitty teeth.

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[RE]

To save me from hunting for it, did you give your Dr.'s name in the article?

No, I don't make a practice of promoting Commercial Enterprises on the Diner Blog.  I'll send you his name and email addy in a PM though.

RE

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[Luap]

Thank you.

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[agelbert]

RE,
I just read your Mexican adventure and the thread posts. My wife and I had some dental work in 2007 that set me back a little more than $5,000. My wife had one root canal (there was an abscess that required and incision on the gum to clean it from a specialist that jacked up the bill - I fought that down to about $1,000 from the $3,000 that dentist wanted with a limited BCBS dental plan I had then), and two crowns and I had one filling but I believe it was mostly a huge ripoff because of the deep scale root planing cleaning done in four sessions that costs $800 AFTER they have done a normal cleaning. They also recommended this horrible mouthwash that blackens and/or yellows your teeth. I began using it just after the work was done as recommended by the dental technician that cleaned my teeth. I researched it on the internet within a week of using it (when I noticed my teeth looked stained) and dropped it, and that dental group, forever. Crest Pro-Health Mouthwash effects are so widespread that Crest has agreed to pay for people's teeth cleaning if it darkens their teeth. It's better to just avoid that poison and any dental group setting you up for repeat business (I refuse to believe they were unaware of the teeth darkening problem). 

http://consumerist.com/2008/03/crest-pro-health-mouthwash-stain-your-teeth-brown-crest-pays-for-your-cleaning.html

 When we need more work, I'm headed for Algodones. Thanks for the info.

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[RE]

When we need more work, I'm headed for Algodones. Thanks for the info.

Lemme know when you are needing work.  I'll send my dentist's contact info to you also. $5000 there buys you 1O Crowns plus  some Root Canals.

RE

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[agelbert]

RE,
Okay. I'll let you know.  Thanks again.

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[RE]

Eddie will probably suffer a seizure reading this post.    Take a valium before reading Eddie.  lol.

As long term Diners know, right around when we launched the Diner I headed down to Mejico to have most of the rotten teeth in my head yanked out on the cheap by a Mexican Dentista, which overall went quite well.  However, I never really liked the Dentures, even after Eddie relined them when I was down in TX for the Convocation.  So I haven't used them at all for the last 2 years, I get by with just the 6 front upper teeth left in my mouth, which actually aren't all really my teeth, just Stubs with Caps on top of them.

I can chew most anything besides Nuts, using the top front teeth against my lower gums, even chewing up steak is not a problem, at least if it a relatively tender cut.  Fish and chicken, no problem, cheese no problem, spaghetti and rice no problem, etc.  You just do not really need a whole lotta teeth long as you have some tools to dice the food up with.  Even Nuts are possible if you have a Mortar and Pestle, ocassionally when I get a hankering for Pistachios, I grind them up in the mortar and spoon the dust into my mouth.  Works GREAT! 

However, without those last 6 teeth at the top, I would be limited down to baby food, mostly soups and well ground up stuff I can swallow whole.  Most digestion takes place in your stomach, so if you dice anything up small enough so you can swallow it, you really do not need to chew it.  This is the whole fallacy behind Gail Tverbergs' "Small Jaws" hypothesis on why Homo Sap can't survive without Cooking Food.

So anyhow, I am happily going along here the last few years PAIN FREE with ZERO DENTAL BILLS from high priced Dentistas, eating most of what I like with no problem, without even using fucking Dentures!  Once the fucking teeth are OUT of your head, not much for the Dentista left to work on or charge you through the nose for.

However, those last 6 Teeth Stub/Caps at the top front of my mouth are important Cosmetically, and they still do allow the in-mouth experience of chewing, which is nice though not necessary.

Unfortunately however, about 3 days ago, the Gums above my Right Front Tooth mostly, but also to an extent my Left Front Tooth got swollen and sore. I ignored in for a day, but by day 2 it was making my chewing painful to do, and I could tell it was getting worse.  I also am well aware that these type of gum infections can move into your heart and elsewhere in your meat package and wreak further havoc.  I had to FIX this fucking problem!

Fortunately for me, in my Medicine Cabinet I am WELL STOCKED with Anti-Biotics.  I never use all the ones prescribed, and between my dental issues over the years and the operations, I have hundreds of these pills, mostly Amoxicillin.  Of course, since some of them are 4 years old, they are theoretically out of date, but I keep them frozen in vacuum sealed bags, so basically they are really still fine.  No different really than the 5 year old Cream Cheese I recently consumed.

So I developed my Treatment Plan, which was to crack open a bag of Amoxicillin and down 3 of those a day until *hopefully* the swelling and pain went away.  However, this was not the end of my treatment plan.

I reasoned that Gums are membranes which will allow surface antibiotics lathered to penetrate them easily, and be localized to the neighborhood of the infection.  So to do some Backup to the Amoxicillan, what I did was take a tube of off the shelf Neosporin Ointment, squeeze it onto a Q-tip, and then Swab my Gums with this once every 4 hours or so.  You're not supposed to ingest this stuff, but I figured the small amount I was swabbing onto my gums probably would not kill me, but would hurt those mother fucking bacteria worse.  I also did some mouthwashing with Hydrogen Peroxide solution between applications to back this up.  It was me against the bacteria, and I pulled out all the Weapons at my disposal!  Don't bring a Knife to a Gunfight with Bacteria!

I WAS RIGHT!  Inside a day of my Treatment Plan, swelling reduced, pain reduced.  By day 2 PAIN GONE, SWELLING GONE!    The Bacteria LOST, RE WON!  Those mother fuckers are DEAD, DEAD, DEAD!

Had I gone to a Dentista up here, just for him to LOOK at my gums would have cost me $200 minimum.  Then he probably would have recommended I have my last 6 Tooth Stubs left in my head yanked out and get Implants for probably $50K or more up here, which would buy him many nice vacations but impoverish me. lol.

These last 6 tooth stubs/caps are getting "long in the tooth" as the saying goes, a couple of them are 4 years old, and the other 4 about 6 years old with no maintenance from a Dentista, so they will probably give out here at some point and I will need to have them pulled out too.  So when I make my trip down to the lower 48 this summer, I probably will make another cross-border trip from Yuma to Los Algodones (spanish for "the dentists") and get some implants dropped in there to support a snap in set of dentures that hopefully will work better than the ones I got that sit on top of the gums.

I won't give up these last 6 teeth though until absolutely necessary.  Hopefully, I can keep those nasty bacteria at bay a while longer with the pharmacopea.

RE

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[Eddie]

Most likely you have one tooth that is non-vital (dental pulp no longer alive) and the root canal has not been filled. The danger with throwing antibiotics at it is that eventually they won't work, and you'll need something stronger than amoxil. Flagyl is my go-to for that situation, just so you know. I think your treatment plan sounds okay, but the clock is ticking.

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[RE]

Most likely you have one tooth that is non-vital (dental pulp no longer alive) and the root canal has not been filled. The danger with throwing antibiotics at it is that eventually they won't work, and you'll need something stronger than amoxil. Flagyl is my go-to for that situation, just so you know. I think your treatment plan sounds okay, but the clock is ticking.

Eventually, all things fail and then you die.

My goal here at the moment is simply to keep the bacteria at bay until I can get down to the lower 48 and then make the cross into Old Mejico for another visit with the Mexican Dentista.

Maybe you can join me for the trip and meet him!  He's a nice guy in his 30s.  Maybe he will cross the border and partner with you while you semi-retire to take care of the Mangalista Pigs!  His English is real good, he seems proficient technically to me, I think he could pass the boards.

RE

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