Just found out the cost of my dental work

Just for some background, I had my two center upper front teeth removed about twenty years ago. I think it was in 2004 or 2005. The two teeth were in bad shape. Very crooked, broken, and the dentist said they weren't worth trying to save.

They made me a removable denture that I had for probably five years. It was relatively inexpensive, but annoying. And at the time, I didn't know there were other options.

Fast forward to 2009 when we were in Chetumal, Mexico and I went to the dentist for an unrelated problem. By this time, I had realized that I could have had a much more convenient 4 tooth bridge done, however the cost in Canada was about $2,500 CAD back then which was too much for us to justify at the time. So I asked this Mexican dentist about a bridge, and was quoted a price the equivalent of $546 CAD. Needless to say, I signed up for that and a week later the job was complete.

And I was very happy with that! It lasted problem free for about 12 years. However, one of the anchor teeth broke the first time we were here in Berat in 2021 and we were introduced to our current dentist here. He repaired the tooth (very inexpensively!) and it's been fine for another 4 years.

When we were in Scotland last month, that anchor tooth developed an infection and the dentist there said the best option would be to remove the anchor tooth and to install a new (and very expensive) 5 tooth bridge. We had been thinking about coming back to Albania anyhow, so it was an easy decision to make with more dental work being required.

And that's exactly what I've been having done here. I had that one anchor tooth removed, and the preparation for the new bridge was done yesterday. Today, I go back for the fitting, and again on Saturday for the final installation.

So, four different visits to the dentist, and the cost of the miscellaneous x rays etcetera and the new appliance. Up until now, I hadn't even asked the price because I know how inexpensive past visits have been.

This would all cost well over $6,000 in Canada. And from doing some internet research, it would have been minimum £2,500 ($4,600 CAD) in the UK.

Here at our local dentist in Berat the cost for everything included is 40,000 lek ($650 CAD, $475 USD, £354). 

Note, this is NOT dental tourism. Yes, dental tourism will be cheaper than what you pay in your home country, but to get the real local prices you need to go to a dentist who does work on the locals at local prices. We were fortunate to come across this guy, but we're not sharing his name because 1) he's too busy already doing work for the locals and 2) he's not easy to contact and make an appointment with and 3) we don't want to ruin a good thing by sending too many foreigners his way.

So, even if you include what we spent on flights, accommodation, and rental car, we are still far lower than had we splurged out to have the same thing done in the UK. And of course not even close to comparable with what the dental crooks in Canada would have charged.

This is costing not much more than the original bridge I had done 16 years ago!

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