Mexico Dental Part II – A Guide to Dental Surgery in Los Algodones

Welcome to Part II of our Journey to Mexico for a Dental Implant!

Welcome to the conclusion of our Mexico Dental video series. Make sure to checkout part 1 of our series here if you haven’t already. In this video we return to Mexico 3 months after Erik’s initial extraction and dental implant installation. During the 3 month wait, the implant was given time to health and the bone in Erik’s upper jaw healed around the implant making the bond as strong as a natural tooth (or close to it!)

We decided to dry camp at the Quechan Casino this time around saving on park fees to pay for the remaining balance of the implant ($2,200.00 in total – more details on cost in the FAQ’s below). Dry camping at the Quechan Casino is great although there are a lot of trucks in the area and the RV lot has bright lights at night (both good and bad depending on your preferences). When we return for future work we will likely move out a bit further to BLM land closer to the dunes however you can’t beat Quechan for convenience.

This trip consisted of two visits, one to get impressions for the new crown and also to check bone growth around the implant and the second visit to have the new crown installed.

Prescription Eyeglasses Too!

We decided to investigate the prescription eyeglasses available in Los Algodones, Mexico. There are a lot of choices and we admittedly didn’t do our research on where to go (we went to the largest, most impressive looking retail locations which probably isn’t the best way to shop, especially for a good deal).

Algodones Optical had an impressive looking retail presence with same day or next day prescription glasses available in most cases. Popular brands include Columbia, Ray-Ban, Coach, Polo, Persol and many more.  Kala found a pair of Ray-Ban glasses she really liked and we found the prices ranged from $190.00 at Algodones Optical located closest to the boarder, to $149.00 at Best Optical which was in a smaller offer deeper into the city. That probably isn’t a good deal, but we were in a hurry and they were able to turn around the glasses in just a couple hours (wow!). Make sure you arrive earlier in the day if you want to take advantage of same day pickup.

What is With the Gap in Front of Your New Tooth?

Erik was born with too many teeth! Once he was old enough to afford proper dental care to resolve the issue, he started a long journey to dental health. He had his 4 wisdom teeth pulled, and then met with orthodontists to resolve tooth crowding in his mouth. It was determined that he needed an additional 4 teeth pulled to straighten his teeth (2 uppers, 2 lowers). That is 8 teeth in total he needed pulled for proper dental health. Once Erik made the decision to pull the 4 teeth, he immediately had Invisilign braces fitted as traditional braces seemed a tough choice for a busy professional who was customer facing in his job. The Invisilign was a success in majority, but after removing the trays the teeth slowly shifted back slightly and left a small gap between the teeth where the 4 teeth were pulled. The option to fix this is traditional braces, or another round of Invisilign which may be in the future for Erik. For now, he’s just happy that he no longer gets cavities and has dental issues that were a common result of the tooth crowding he had as a child.

I’m Interested in Exploring Mexico Dental & Optical! Where Do I Start?

For those of you here for a detailed education on our experience, not to worry we have you covered as well. The procedure from start to finish took us 2 trips across a 3 month period. 3 months you say?? Yes, it takes time for the implant to heal before it can accept a crown so you need to come back after things have had a chance to heal. In total we paid approximately $2200 for the implant which included initial consultations, a cleaning, a CT Scan, tooth extraction and minor bone graphing, implant installation, crown and crown placement. We opted not to get a temporary tooth made during the healing phase, that would have added some minor cost to our total. We have put together a list of questions and answers that we believe you will find useful in beginning your search to explore if Mexico dentistry is right for you. If you have any additional questions or suggestions please let us know, we will add content and questions to the FAQ below as the article expands with feedback from our followers.

[ultimate-faqs include category='mexico dental']