apparently colombia has a really good reputation for dentistry, with people travelling from the states and australia for low cost, high quality treatment. armed with this knowledge i decided to go for my first visit in almost two years when i was in bucaramanga. after a clean and whiten i was informed my teeth were in a bad way and 14 of them showed signs of decay. i didn't even know i had 14 teeth in my mouth, let alone that many could be bad. i was suspicious that they were exaggerating to try and extract more money out of me so i asked them which required the most immediate attention. after a spot of tooth-haggling i managed to get them down to 4, the molars at the very back, which i was informed needed to be removed. two days later a strong armed specialist was brought in and got to work. it actually hurt a lot less than i was anticipating, partly because i insisted on regular anaesthetic injections to keep everything as numb as possible. if anything the scraping and cracking sounds were far more disturbing. i got quite a few strange looks as i left the dentists office and it was only when i returned to the hostel and looked in the mirror that i realised why - my mouth was full of blood. again this looked a lot worse than the reality, but i'd be lying if i said it was all a pleasurable experience. on the plus side the dentist did prescribe me with a course of ice lollies after my treatment. on the down side they did kind of taste like blood.

here's the original

apparently colombia has a really good reputation for dentistry, with people travelling from the states and australia for low cost, high quality treatment. armed with this knowledge i decided to go for my first visit in almost two years when i was in bucaramanga. after a clean and whiten i was informed my teeth were in a bad way and 14 of them showed signs of decay. i didn't even know i had 14 teeth in my mouth, let alone that many could be bad. i was suspicious that they were exaggerating to try and extract more money out of me so i asked them which required the most immediate attention. after a spot of tooth-haggling i managed to get them down to 4, the molars at the very back, which i was informed needed to be removed. two days later a strong armed specialist was brought in and got to work. it actually hurt a lot less than i was anticipating, partly because i insisted on regular anaesthetic injections to keep everything as numb as possible. if anything the scraping and cracking sounds were far more disturbing. i got quite a few strange looks as i left the dentists office and it was only when i returned to the hostel and looked in the mirror that i realised why - my mouth was full of blood. again this looked a lot worse than the reality, but i'd be lying if i said it was all a pleasurable experience. on the plus side the dentist did prescribe me with a course of ice lollies after my treatment. on the down side they did kind of taste like blood.

here's the original