My First Visit to a Korean Dentist

I went to the dentist yesterday for a tooth that had been bothering me for months. Hellena, my Korean girlfriend, came down from Seoul to interpret and for moral support. They put me in their only single room made especially for special (high maintenance) patients like myself.

As soon as I sat down a technician came in and took me into the x-ray room. I am used to having the x-rays done in the dental chair and involve biting down on strategically placed pieces of cardboard. I hate that part because if feels sometimes like I'm going to gag on the cardboard. This is the x-ray machine. I stood in from of it and had to bite down on a piece of plastic that was fixed to the machine. The whole process took seconds. It was fantastic! No waiting for film to develop, the x-ray was on the computer screen the moment we came back into the room. I wonder if I can get my dentist to get one of these???


Hellena snapped this picture of me right before the dentist came in. He glanced at the x-ray and began to ask Hellena questions. He came over to me and began by blowing air on all the teeth in the area of my pain. I had no sensitivity. He then took a metal probe and put pressure on each tooth. Again, no pain or discomfort.

His immediate diagnosis: it's not the tooth. What!!!! I told Hellena to tell him to take a closer look at my x-ray and he did. He said all my teeth looked fine. He then came over and took my face into his hands and pressed his thumbs into my jaw. Ouch!!!! The left side brought shooting pain. I ripped his hands away from my face. He smiled and then did it one more time for good measure. It hurt even more.

His treatment was to put heat on it and that should resolve the problem. If not, to come back and he would see what else he could do. The most amazing part of it all was the total bill: 21,000WON ($21US). The x-ray was 10,00oWON ($10US) and the charge for the visit 11,000WON ($11US).

When I talked to Curt (hubby) about it, he said that the dentist probably looked at the x-ray before he even came into the room. So that made me feel bad for questioning his diagnosis which I'm still not sure what it was. I think it was inflammation.

I worried and stressed about it going for months and it turned out to be a wonderful experience. I will still get nervous every time I go to a dentist but hopefully it will get better each time.

Curt arrived home last night from being out of town for two weeks. I rode the Suwon-Incheon Airport bus to meet him at the airport. Traffic was horrible and it took a half hour longer than usual. I spent a lot of time looking out the window and I noticed a few things. First, when traffic was stopped, most Koreans put their cars into neutral. I watched as the drivers went from drive to neutral to drive, again and again. It made absolutely no sense to me but Curt heard that they think it saves gas. We are not sure whether it does or not but it seemed like a pain.

The second thing I noticed was that a lot of Koreans with GPS systems also had the ability to get television stations and they were watching television while driving. I was really surprised by this and wonder if it's even legal. I wouldn't think so.

A Trip to a Korean Dentist

Curt (hubby) has had a tooth that has been bothering him for awhile now. He decided to visit a dentist here in Korea instead of waiting until our U.S. visit at Christmas. He's a lot braver when it comes to dentists than I am. I had a tooth start to hurt shortly after we moved here but it only hurt to eat on that side. So I only ate on the opposite side and saw my favorite dentist during our Christmas visit. I ended up with my first root canal and I was happy to do it in the States. I have a extreme fear of dental work due to some nasty experiences as a child.

But I promised Dr. Isaacson that if I did indeed go to a Korean dentist I would take pictures for him. So this is for you, Dr. Isaacson! I'm just so glad it was Curt and not me in the chair! I researched the local dentists with my yoga buddy, Mr. Choi. They all had their chairs lined up one after the other and you could watch someone being worked on not only next to you but as you wait in the waiting room. We found this dentist that has a partition so you can't see people being worked on from the waiting room, and he also had a private room (very important to this American). Mr. Choi said that he was very expensive but I told him I didn't care, so we made an appointment.

The appointment was for Saturday and luckily my Korean girlfriends were coming over to help me with my book and for a sleepover. They were happy to accompany us to the the dentist. The photo above is Curt filling out the paperwork with the help of Hellena.



The dental office was a little taken aback by the arrival of Curt and his entourage (me, Hellena, Hannah and Jennifer). They thought we must be pretty important.


Here is Curt in the semi private room (no one was in the other chair until later) waiting for the dentist.

Some of those scary dental instruments.

The back counter was covered with stuff.

This is warning you to not using your cell phone during the exam. That's an important reminder for Koreans.

Here is Curt's x-ray. It's funny in Korea he is 51 when he is actually 49.

This was the other chair area. I looked into Curt's bucket and it contained a couple of dental scraps. Yuck!!

They also assigned three assistants to Curt instead of one. The dentist came in and spoke very little English. He sprayed air on Curt's tooth to make sure it was the correct tooth. It ended up being two areas that were bothering him. The dentist gave Curt some Novocaine and then did a little drilling of some decay and filled the areas. He said that if he still had pain, then he would need a root canal.

While Curt was getting worked on, I sat in the waiting room with Hellena and Jennifer. The receptionist kept apologizing for how much this was going to cost. She was clearly upset. We are not on the National Health Care plan and the total bill was 200,000 WON ($200 US). Normally, it would have been 7000-30,000 WON ($7-$30US). I told Hellena to reinforce to the receptionist that it was OK! The staff was also commenting on how tall Curt is (just under 2 meters). They had never seen anyone so tall.

After Curt was done, we were told that if he needed a root canal they would put the 200,000 WON towards it. The root canal would be an additional 100,000WON ($100US). So far so good, no more pain. I asked if they offer gas (laughing) and they were really surprised I asked and said that it was only for children.

Of course, we had to have some lunch afterwards. We found a restaurant that specializes in gamjatang. I didn't know it was made with pork spine but it was really good.

Lots of sides. Hannah was picking up each black bean with her chopsticks. I asked her why she didn't use a spoon and get a lot more for the effort. She gave me a funny look and said that they wouldn't taste as good. After lunch, the girls went back to Seoul and we went home. It was a great time.