IMPLANT IN BOGATA
My quandary about what to do about my teeth started this Monday. I arrived back from Boston with a tooth ache, the last tooth on the upper right, which I had been told I was going to lose two years ago before going to India with Todd and Susie and then on to the Baltic states of Finland, Latvia and Estonia followed by time in Winsen, Germany and Haarlem, Netherlands. My Asheville dental appointment had been in November when I was told the tooth was on its way out. Then after Christmas it started to ache. When I called my dentist he said it was too far back, he wasn‘t going to touch it, but he would give me a seven days supply Amoxicillin to tide me over until I visited a dental surgeon before my trip. The title of dental surgeon was so lofty that I expected a bill of at least $600 to get the tooth pulled. I was going to avoid him if I could. So I remembered that years before when I had a toothache before going to India I had taken an antibiotic, Doxycycline, one pill a day to prevent getting malaria and as soon as I began taking Doxycycline my toothache went away. So this time I got a two month supply of Doxycycline, although I needed only one, and started taking it a month before leaving for India, although I was told to start it a day before arriving in India. And, like magic, the pain went away, and I was able to make it, painfree, to New Delhi and my Indian dentist, Dr. Kakar. Sitting in his dental chair I asked him to pull the tooth. But he examined it, found it still had life, and ordered a root canal for it, but said the tooth in front of it was a goner, and pulled it instead and screwed in an implant post in its place. After two hour long sessions with another dentist, a root canal specialist, who performed the root canal, painfully I might add, I was told that this rear tooth might last three or four more years.
Last year when I was in Delhi again, after visiting Sri Lanka, Dr. Kakar put in a crown on the post he had put in the year before and decided to pull the back tooth on the lower jaw just below the root canal tooth and put a post in my jawbone, which I can feel with my tongue. This means that I have to make a trip to India in the near future to get the crown put on the post.
And now, with a week to go before Bogata, the tooth which I had originally wanted pulled and was given a root canal instead, was suddenly very painful. It had only lasted two years. I still, stubbornly, was not going to pay an Asheville oral surgeon to yank it, assuming he would do it on short notice. I looked on line and found that Bogata was famous as a dental tourism site. So I decided to have it pulled in Bogata in a week or two. And to ease the pain I rummaged around and found the original bottle of Amoxicillan, now a year past the discard date, and started taking it. Sure enough, in a day the pain began to subside.
But then I was, and still am, left with the question of how to find a doctor in Bogata whom I trust. I realized right away that demanding an American doctor or an American trained dentist, was chauvinistic. If I trusted my Indian dentist completely, why wouldn‘t I trust a Colombian dentist? So I looked on line, and discovered that Colombia was a tourist destination for all kinds of dental work, including implants. An American implant costs $5000, an Indian implant by highly skilled Dr. Kakar costs $1250 and in Bogata I could get an implant, according to the website, for $700. All I had to do was enter what I wanted on a form and I would get expert advice. So I started to fill out the form. Then I changed my mind. I didn‘t want to sign up sight unseen, I wanted to get some advice from someone first, without knowing anyone who could help me. So I dropped the form, half filled out, and then in the next several days was written to, inexplicably, by at least 6 dental clinics offering to give me expert care. I didn‘t answer any of them.
So that is where I am a week before flying out. A tooth implant into my jawbone is a big deal for me. I don‘t want to entrust myself to someone who sees a way to make a quick buck who has sent away for an implant kit and is going to try it out on me, his first patient, who will soon fly home and not be able to sue him when things go horribly wrong. I also don‘t want to be an ugly chauvinistic American who distrusts anything not American. So I am in a delicate situation. I had never considered visiting Bogata until two months ago when someone who had been there said it was a wonderful place to visit and I found a cheap ticket on going.com and bought it on a whim. I had certainly not considered visiting a dentist there.
So that‘s where I am. Whatever happens I‘ll have a cross-cultural experience and have something to write about. I already have.
BILLYBABA’S WANDERING 