I write this for the benefit of anyone considering travel to Mexico for dental work and hope you will read of my nightmare and not try to save money you will later likely spend upon return to the states. From my home in Houston, Nuevo Progreso is a six hour drive and I thought it worth it to save thousands of dollars on sixteen zirconia crowns that would have been totally unaffordable here. In July 2013 I decided to go for it and went down for nine days to get the work done. The dentist at Artell Dental Center, Dr. Jose Gonzalez that I researched and initially began work with disappeared after the second day and left me to another doctor who damaged my teeth so badly I required five root canals over the next six months. One of the crowns installed by the new doctor failed within 30 days disintegrating in my mouth so I had to return to Progreso to get it fixed.
Suspicious that I did not get the indestructible zirconia crowns I paid for, I went to three dentists here in Houston all of whom told me I had terrible work and needed at least half of the crowns removed and replaced. Xrays revealed that I did not even get zirconisa like I requested and had some inferior substance that fell out of a second crown that fell off a few months later. The Xrays clearly showed that the crowns were not zirconia and Artell argued with me that they were as ordered and it was not until a Houston dentist wrote directly to Artell that they agreed to replace the crowns with what I paid for.
I made the third trip to Progreso to begin the replacement of the crowns incurring all travel expense. I stayed five days while the uppers were ground off by the endodontist because Dr. Jose was incapable of doing it himself. There is a process where they shove strings under your gums to make impressions and this is quite painful and they could not get it right and had to repeat the process. A temporary set of teeth was installed on my uppers and I wassent home.
I returned for the fourth trip 10 days later to have the uppers installed and noted they were glaring white and not coated in porcelain as is standard to make them look natural. I was exhausted and let them install them anyway. I returned to Houston and found gaps between four of the uppers and the teeth I could stick my fingernail in they were so ill fitted. They had to send the uppers back to the lab five times to have porcelain built up to try and get them right but clearly did not do. Dr. Jose attempted to fill the gaps with bonding compound but was slopy and now the compoune is covering my gums making it impossible to clean them. This was done on my fifth trip to get my lower four remaining crowns installed.
After all this H$LL clearly the four lower crowns do not fit either as Dr. Jose immediately began applying bonding compound after seating the lower crowns and again covered the gumline. It is imperative that a crown go inside the gum for hygiene and eight of mine do not. Dr. Jose also failed to clean up the compound so I have a very rough surface on the inside of my lower molars that is making my tongue sensitive.
Returning to the Houston dentist is as I expected and again eight of the replacement crowns need to be replaced again. Now that I finally have the super hard zirconia I wanted it is almost impossible to remove them or clean up the bonding patchwork that will definitely cause periodontal disease so my mouth is so screwed up I never should have touched it.
It turns out Dr. Jose only has two years of experience and clearly my case was out of his league. The standard of acceptable care would never pass American Dental Association standards. Beware of Mexican Dentists. A friend of mine went to Torreon for an implant and it broke off into her sinus shortly after treatment. She does not have the option or desire to seek further treatment from her dentist. BEWARE OF DENTISTS
Artell Dental Center Reviews
I write this for the benefit of anyone considering travel to Mexico for dental work and hope you will read of my nightmare and not try to save money you will later likely spend upon return to the states. From my home in Houston, Nuevo Progreso is a six hour drive and I thought it worth it to save thousands of dollars on sixteen zirconia crowns that would have been totally unaffordable here. In July 2013 I decided to go for it and went down for nine days to get the work done. The dentist at Artell Dental Center, Dr. Jose Gonzalez that I researched and initially began work with disappeared after the second day and left me to another doctor who damaged my teeth so badly I required five root canals over the next six months. One of the crowns installed by the new doctor failed within 30 days disintegrating in my mouth so I had to return to Progreso to get it fixed.
Suspicious that I did not get the indestructible zirconia crowns I paid for, I went to three dentists here in Houston all of whom told me I had terrible work and needed at least half of the crowns removed and replaced. Xrays revealed that I did not even get zirconisa like I requested and had some inferior substance that fell out of a second crown that fell off a few months later. The Xrays clearly showed that the crowns were not zirconia and Artell argued with me that they were as ordered and it was not until a Houston dentist wrote directly to Artell that they agreed to replace the crowns with what I paid for.
I made the third trip to Progreso to begin the replacement of the crowns incurring all travel expense. I stayed five days while the uppers were ground off by the endodontist because Dr. Jose was incapable of doing it himself. There is a process where they shove strings under your gums to make impressions and this is quite painful and they could not get it right and had to repeat the process. A temporary set of teeth was installed on my uppers and I wassent home.
I returned for the fourth trip 10 days later to have the uppers installed and noted they were glaring white and not coated in porcelain as is standard to make them look natural. I was exhausted and let them install them anyway. I returned to Houston and found gaps between four of the uppers and the teeth I could stick my fingernail in they were so ill fitted. They had to send the uppers back to the lab five times to have porcelain built up to try and get them right but clearly did not do. Dr. Jose attempted to fill the gaps with bonding compound but was slopy and now the compoune is covering my gums making it impossible to clean them. This was done on my fifth trip to get my lower four remaining crowns installed.
After all this H$LL clearly the four lower crowns do not fit either as Dr. Jose immediately began applying bonding compound after seating the lower crowns and again covered the gumline. It is imperative that a crown go inside the gum for hygiene and eight of mine do not. Dr. Jose also failed to clean up the compound so I have a very rough surface on the inside of my lower molars that is making my tongue sensitive.
Returning to the Houston dentist is as I expected and again eight of the replacement crowns need to be replaced again. Now that I finally have the super hard zirconia I wanted it is almost impossible to remove them or clean up the bonding patchwork that will definitely cause periodontal disease so my mouth is so screwed up I never should have touched it.
It turns out Dr. Jose only has two years of experience and clearly my case was out of his league. The standard of acceptable care would never pass American Dental Association standards. Beware of Mexican Dentists. A friend of mine went to Torreon for an implant and it broke off into her sinus shortly after treatment. She does not have the option or desire to seek further treatment from her dentist. BEWARE OF DENTISTS