Yesterday was officially one month until I leave for my Euro Trip 2019.
August 9th I will take off and be visiting:
- Naples, Italy
- Dubrovnik, Croatia
- Kotor, Montenegro
- Mostar, Bosnia
- Sarajevo, Bosnia
- Antalya, Turkey
- Banja Luka, Bosnia
- Crikvenica, Croatia
- Pula, Croatia
I have been planning and saving for this trip since last year. Going away for 23 days is already pretty costly with paying for all the transportation, accommodations and the food I will no doubt be consuming 24/7 in Europe. HOWEVER, to add to all that, I also intend on getting my teeth done in Turkey. I will become a dental tourist! You would have thought I’d get a BBL before I’d get my teeth done, but here we are.
Why?
Well, my family has been going to Bosnia for sometime to get their dental work done because Canada and the United States charge an arm and a leg for it. Initially I also thought I would go home to get my teeth done, but after doing a lot of research the time frames given didn’t work for me. I am gone for 23 days, and quite frankly, there is no need to be in Bosnia for 14 days of those 23. I love my home, but aside from Neum, WHERE THE BEACHES AT? I love beaches and if I’m going to be somewhere warm in the middle of summer, I want to occupy myself with the beach.
There was a lovely young lady named Brooke who had posted her trip to Turkey to get her teeth done on a YouTube channel. After seeing her post, I decided maybe Turkey was a good idea. Flying from Bosnia to Turkey is cheap and throughout all the posts I was seeing on YouTube and Instagram, it looks like they do some fine dental work there.
The Planning
First I made contact with Dental Center Turkey. I had seen many MANY posts about them on Instagram and all I ever heard was awesome reviews about the work they do.
I contacted them via e-mail and then WhatsApp back in January of this year. By the beginning of February I had already sent them pictures of the current state of my teeth, told them I wanted a smile makeover and asked what they thought.
The e-mail I got back from them VERY CLEARLY stated all my options with a price breakdown. When I tell you the e-mail was like 3-4 pages, I am not kidding. They put everything out in so much detail, it was amazing.
From the choices they gave me, I (believe, because who knows what I’ll want when I get there) I will be doing 16 porcelain veneers, gum contouring, I need a crown and I will also need a gum shield for my new teeth.
British Pounds will be the death of me. But this was the cost breakdown I was given for the work they think I will be needing. This may seem like a lot, but please now watch this:
About $5400.00 to get all that work done. Which, just to give you an example, a SINGLE porcelain veneer in Canada is about $1,200 per tooth.
16 x $1,200.00 = $19,200
ALMOST TWENTY THOUSAND DOLLARS just for the veneers if I wanted to get them here at home. Not to mention that I still need the crown, the gum shield and the gum contouring. So let’s just say, the cost of all this work would have been about 4x the amount here in Canada vs in Turkey.
I made sure to book my hotel in a good location in Antalya, even though the dental center offers transport to and from every appointment in the price. (awesome!) I’ll probably be inside upset that my face is huge from all the injections, so I need a good hotel to hide out in with a pool.
Oh no, THE FOREIGNERS!
I really wish people would stop asking me if I’m scared about ‘third world doctors‘. You have to wonder if folks think the only doctors that exist in this world are in Canada, America and the UK. I promise you, people in the other 193 countries also need dental work done and have dental schools. It becomes insulting because I happened to be born in another country and because it feels like folks think you’re stupid? Which leads me to some of the most annoying things I have had to experience….
The Questions
‘Oh, did you do your research?‘ – no I am blindly going into this because an IG influencer said so. The fuck do you think? Of course I did.
‘I don’t think I could do that.‘ – no one asked you/no one is asking you to
‘What if something goes wrong?‘ – that is MY cross to bare
‘If you ask me, I think you look fine now‘ – I didn’t fucking ask you, and you are not paying for the procedure nor does your opinion matter about it. I’m not here to please YOU
‘So I had a friend who had his done in ______ and didn’t like the results‘ – I’ve also heard of airplanes crashing, therefore, I should not ever take an airplane yes?
‘The veneers don’t last forever!‘ – I’m well aware, neither did your last two marriages
‘What if you have to go back to Turkey to do more work in 10-15 years?‘ – it is a $100 flight from Sarajevo to Turkey, it’s really not that serious to me
‘Why didn’t you just get braces/Invisalign/some other dental thing done instead of having to file down your natural teeth?‘ – So like, first, can braces fix your teeth in a week? Ohhhh. Ok. They can’t. The name of my blog is not ‘The Incredibly Patient Tourist’ – you get the point. Secondly, none of these procedures will fix the points I have on my left and right side (K9’s), the chip I have in my front tooth, the two teeth that stick out at the top, the spaces between my bottom teeth, the shading etc. Veneers fix all my smile issues in a short amount of time and that makes me SUPER happy.
Finally…..
I’m very excited to go get my teeth done. That’s really all that matters to me at this point. I’ve worked hard and non-stop to get the money together to pay for the damn teeth, so I will enjoy them. I’ve wanted to change my smile for some time now and I look forward to being able to smile HUGE in pictures with my friends and in selfies because I will finally have nice teeth.
Make sure you stay tuned to my Instagram between August 9th – September 2nd for all the videos and posts in the aforementioned countries. I will definitely be writing a post talking about how the dental work went with before and after pics, etc.
If you want to plan your own flight + stay to Turkey for teeth (or whatever other reason) you can feel free to request an itinerary on my contact page!
- Mirna
thank you for the post i love it !
you’re welcome! thank you for reading