Dental Nostalgia: Chair of Terror

The deep cleaning

“Have you been cleaning your teeth?” I leaned back too far in the chair, my feet up in the air, under the blinding exam light. The dentist’s tone was stern, his words accusatory.

“Yes,” I replied. “I got my teeth cleaned at a dental office in Canada two months ago in preparation for this appointment.”

“Do you floss?” he grilled me.

“I’ve been flossing twice a day and brushing three times a day,” And then I thought all for this appointment. So my teeth would be shiny clean and ready for crowns. When six months earlier I’d visited his daughter, a kind and skilled dental surgeon in the same office, she was impressed by my oral hygiene.

“We can’t work on the crowns today. We need to do a deep cleaning.”

Well, can’t hurt, I thought. Holy crow was I wrong! As the dentist began digging along my gum line, I groaned under my breath, crossed my arms over my chest tightly, clenched my fists, and raised my knees. It was brutal. He told me, “Relax.” Now and then, he would mercifully pause to answer his cell phone, and order me, “Rinse with water.”

Panting and with my heart pounding in my throat, I spat into the porcelain bowl and was horrified by the amount of blood and the bits of tissue left behind. I waited for him to finish talking to his sister and the cleaning continued. Finally, the dentist forced a glob of thick rough paste, the texture of wet sand, onto my teeth and polished them.

Before I left the chair he took an impression of my lower teeth, instructing me to hold the plate in place, and then told me why he was taking impressions. “For bleaching,” he explained, “To make you look younger.” Explaining the bleaching without the “younger” part would have been sufficient.

I returned to his office later that day and he gave me three syringes of liquid bleach manufactured by Phillips Zoom! along with a plastic tray that perfectly fit over my lower teeth. I would fill the tray with the bleach mixture and wear it while I slept. I liked this product, by the way. During our final appointment, he told me I owed him $6000 Mexican pesos ($465.48 CAD) for the bleaching kit. On Amazon today, this kit is listed for $42.00 CAD. The trays (not customized to fit) cost $23.88 CAD on Amazon today. That’s what I call a markup.

I wondered what I got myself into. Although my gums ached and bled, my teeth were mighty clean. I questioned whether I should go back, but then I figured my upcoming appointments couldn’t be worse than the cleaning. I felt committed to this guy and had already given him one-third of our agreed amount for my new crowns. I never received written receipts for any of the work this dentist completed. He had a large hard-cover ledger on his marble-top desk in which he recorded all our transactions. I should have been more proactive and requested receipts.

A return to terror

A couple days later I went back confident that all would go well. After all, to grind down my live teeth the dentist would have to freeze me. These days, dentists topically numb the gums before they inject. And in this age of modern dentistry dentists certainly don’t grind down unfrozen teeth – or so I thought.

The freezing injections were painful, but I held my breath and waited for the solution to take its numbing effect. When he started to grind, I knew it hadn’t. I let him know. “I’m not frozen!” He then jabbed me in the roof of my mouth where there remains a scar two months later that I can feel with my tongue, a little reminder of our time together. The stab was excruciating and yet somehow did not freeze my front teeth.

While he worked to grind down my teeth, he and the dental assistant talked about meal specials offered at neighbourhood restaurants. All this went on while I swallowed my pain, and choked on my agony. I don’t think I’m precious or that I’m the centre of the universe, but their casual conversation made me feel like the dentist’s full attention was not on me or the work he was doing.

The dentist looked in my mouth before the torture began and said, “Change of plan. We’ll do four crowns in front and two in the back. You have some decay between those molars.” And I had only agreed to six crowns, so fair enough. I’m used to being in on the decision-making regarding, well, pretty much everything that directly affects my physical being. Still, I’m glad to have those two lower molars taken care of. They look and feel good. Not my decision but an appropriate one.

He took impressions and placed the temporaries. Everything looked just fine. “I need to see you in two days.” Great, I thought, I’ll get my crowns and be done. “Next time, no freezing,” he said. I thought this was kind of strange but following the stab-y and ineffective injection in the roof of my mouth, I was relieved. Alas, my relief was short-lived.

Of course, it hurts.

I sat down in the chair for our next appointment and experienced body-wracking pain when he ripped off my temporary crowns with no freezing. I cried out, “That hurts!”

“Of course, it’s going to hurt,” he replied. Silly me.

For reasons that still mystify me, he then took new impressions, having me hold the cold metal impression plates again, this time pressing them into the ground stumps of my live, unfrozen teeth. The dental assistant placed a suction tube in my mouth to suck up the flow of drool and then both the doctor and his assistant disappeared for an hour or so.

Finally, the doctor appeared as suddenly as he’d vanished, yanked the upper plate out and told me, “Rinse with water,” before shoving the lower impression plate into my mouth and telling me, “Hold your fingers here.” He left again and was gone about half an hour. By now, the blue paper bib I wore was soaked with my saliva and so was the front of my shirt. I was afraid and alone and feeling very vulnerable. I was also getting really angry.

When the doctor returned, he roughly removed the lower plate, examined the impression, and scolded me, saying, “These aren’t good enough. They need to be perfect.”

I lost my mind. “I’ve gone through days and days of pain! When will I have crowns?”

“In know, I know. I’m sorry, Lori.” He didn’t sound sorry. He sounded impatient with me and disappointed in my dentistry skills. “This is the worst part. Going to the dentist always hurts.”

He filled the lower plate with more grey goop and shoved it onto my tender teeth. “Hold it again.” And off he went. This torture lasted two full hours. When I met my husband outside the dental office I was livid. By now, I felt that the dentist was being intentionally cruel.

A gringa breaks down

At a nearby restaurant, the anger turned to frustration which then turned to tears. I needed to find a new dentist to finish this job. There was no way I would endure being treated this way anymore.

I picked up my phone and searched for dentists near my location. One dentist received stellar reviews and had a kind face.

I sobbed and asked my husband, “Can we walk over to his office and talk to this guy?”

Dr. Orlando was sitting outside his office as we approached. I started blubbering immediately, disjointedly telling him my story. He listened patiently and when I was done, told me, “I recommend that if you start treatment with one dentist, you finish with that dentist.”

Adamantly, I shook my head and replied, “I’m not going back. If I can’t finish the work here in Puerto Vallarta I’ll get it completed in Canada.”

Back to the future

He scheduled an appointment for the next day. Dr. Orlando was kind and gentle and explained everything to me. After he expertly and painlessly applied the freezing serum, he gently massaged my cheeks, telling me, “Sometimes when our muscles are tense, the freezing doesn’t work as well. Relaxing the face this way helps the freezing to take effect.”

Within ten city blocks, I had stepped forward in time from 1930s dentistry into the modern age. I felt respected and cared for. Dr. Orlando needed to remove the temporaries to see what work had been done beneath them. Then, without my help, he took impressions using fruity-flavoured goop and smooth, plastic plates. I loved being back in the present day!

Dr. Orlando is very professional and did not say anything negative about the other dentist’s work. He did, however, suck air through his teeth in an alarmed way when he saw the bruises in my mouth. It was an involuntary reaction, not a criticism. Within the week, I had my pretty zirconia crowns, white and shiny. Dr. Orlando’s partner dentist also did some skillful work to beautify my lower front teeth, making them appear straighter. What a great team!

Choose wisely

Dental work in Canada is expensive and out of reach for many people. Our three-week trip to Puerto Vallarta, staying at a mid-level, all-inclusive property and paying for dental work, was still considerably cheaper than getting the same dental work done here in Alberta, Canada.

If you choose to get dental work done in Mexico, take your time to research. My opinion is that it’s ideal to go to a Mexican dentist who has successfully treated someone you personally know and done it more than once. The first dentist I visited got good reviews online and his clinic was nice. Through reading reviews and visiting his staff periodontist I expected a great experience. What a painful disappointment.