Bear with me, this is a long one...First of all, let me explain that I have pretty significant dental anxiety. I hate going to the dentist. I have also had a lot of dental work and issues in my life. One such issue was a botched root canal done about 25yrs on a bottom molar (#19) that was never right and had been causing compounding issues ever since. I lived in Reno and just two years ago, dropped about $3000 into this tooth to "fix" the problems. This included painful gum surgery and then a new crown. Two years later, I am still having deep bone pain in the thing and after more consultations, I learn that this tooth isn't save-able and needs to be extracted. After talking with a lot of friends and family about their experiences having dental work done in Mexico, I decided to have the extraction and bone graft done while on vacation near Rosarito and selected Baja Dental based on proximity and good Yelp reviews.
I was happy that making the appointment was pretty easy. I submitted a request online and got a call the next day from a friendly lady who spoke good English. I called the day before my appointment to remind them that I have dental anxiety and wanted something to calm me down prior to my appointment (drama queen, right?) and they gave me a prescription for Valium. Side note: I didn't actually fill the prescription, drank some wine instead, but appreciated their accommodating my request.
Now to the appointment itself. The staff was very friendly and when I showed up there were three other Americans from LA and Long Beach in there so I got to chat with them and it helped my anxiety. They brought in another specialist/surgeon for my particular procedure and he and his assistant were very friendly and professional and the dentist spoke great English. This was not an easy extraction. I sat for two hours as a large, young, strong man tried to get this molar out and it was pretty gnarly. That being said, he numbed me up very very good and I felt little to no pain and he kept talking me through it, telling me I was doing great and that this was a tough one, etc... He finished after two hours then the bone graft was pretty quick after that. Two and a half hours later, I was exhausted and ready to go home. $528. Probably half of the cost at home, maybe more. He gave me three prescriptions: two for pain and inflammation and one antibiotic. He said I would probably be in pain for about two weeks due to the complexity of the extraction and that there may be significant swelling. I picked up my prescription at a nearby pharmacy (what a great experience-was in and out in less than 5min and it was $28 for all three).
So here I am now 12 days afterwards and he was right. I did have some swelling (not too terrible), I have had quite a bit of pain which I really noticed after running out of the stuff he gave me), but I am over the hump now and feeling really good about it. Now I need to plan another vacation for 6-8 mos to go back for an implant!
UPDATE: moved to 2 startNot impressed with follow up. I have emailed them asking for a copy of my records and asking to speak to the surgeon because I was still having pain and swelling after 4 weeks and didn't even get a response.
UPDATE #2: October 2020. My local dentist in CA said the extraction and bone graft done in Mexico were a "Grand Slam"! read more