Dental treatment overseas

What can we do, and what can we not?

We will assess work done overseas. We cannot promise to fix it, because with some treatments the loss is not reversible.

That sentence is deliberately plain, and we would rather you read it here than hear it for the first time sitting in a chair. An assessment will tell you what state the work is in, what state the teeth underneath are in, and what your realistic options are. Sometimes that is maintenance and nothing more. Sometimes it is replacement. Occasionally it is something that cannot be undone and has to be managed instead.

You will get a straight answer either way, and you will not be lectured for having gone.

This is not about competence

Let us be clear, because a lot of what is written on this subject in Australia is really advertising.

There are excellent dentists working all over the world, in every country people travel to, and there are poor ones everywhere too, including in Melbourne. The quality of the work done on the day is not what makes overseas treatment different, and any Australian clinic implying otherwise is selling you something.

What is genuinely different is continuity. Dentistry is not a product you collect and take home. It is a relationship with something in your mouth that will need adjusting, checking, maintaining and eventually repairing, across years. The question worth asking is not who is better. It is who is there in year three.

What actually goes wrong, and when?

Rarely on the day, and rarely in the first month. That is part of why trips can look like a complete success at the time.

• Adjustments that were never made. New work usually needs small refinements once you have lived with it, and a bite that feels fine on day two can ache by week six.
• The gum settling. Gums move for months after treatment near the gum line, and that is when a margin can start to show.
• Something small becoming something large. A chip, a loose crown or a lost screw is a quick fix if dealt with promptly, and a bigger problem if left because the person who made it is a flight away.
• Records that cannot be obtained later. Without knowing what was used and what was done, a local dentist is working with less information than you would want.
• Warranties that assume you can return. Read them before you go, not afterwards.

If you are going anyway, what should you ask for?

If you have decided, we would rather you went well prepared than went without this list. Ask for all of it in writing, in English, before you fly home.

• The itemised treatment plan, with the procedure codes for everything done.
• X-rays from before and after, as files rather than photographs of a screen.
• Photographs, particularly of the teeth after preparation and before anything was fitted. This is the one nobody thinks to ask for and the one that matters most later.
• What was used. The materials, and for implants the make and reference of the system placed, because components are not interchangeable between systems.
• The warranty in writing: what it covers, for how long, what you must do to claim it, and whether it requires you to return.
• The name and registration of the treating dentist, not only the clinic.

Then have a check-up when you get back, while everything is new. It creates a local record of how the work looked at the start, which makes any later change obvious rather than arguable.

The part that cannot be undone

Most dental problems have a way back. This one does not, and it is the reason the assessment wording on this page is as careful as it is.

Where a lot of natural tooth has been removed to fit crowns or veneers, that tooth does not grow back. Whatever is on it can be replaced, and replaced again, but the tooth underneath stays reduced for the rest of its life and needs covering from then on. No dentist anywhere can reverse that, here or overseas.

That is why how much tooth is removed is the question we push people towards before any cosmetic treatment, wherever they are having it done. If you are considering veneers abroad, ask how much preparation is planned, and ask for the photographs afterwards.

Implants are different but have their own version of it: an implant that cannot be matched to its own components later is difficult to service, and bone that has been lost around a failing implant does not simply come back either.

If you have already been

Come in with whatever you have, including nothing. Plenty of people arrive with no paperwork at all, and an examination and x-rays will still tell us a great deal.

What you will get is an honest read: what is well made, what is holding up, what needs watching, and what needs doing. If the work is good, we will tell you that, and a fair amount of what we see is. If there is a problem, you will hear what can be done about it and what cannot, in writing, before you decide anything.

Assessments are done by principal dentist Dr Fatima Kurnaz, a general dentist rather than a registered specialist, who will refer you on where a case belongs elsewhere.