Need a good Dentist, any recommendations?? Hanoi or HMC?

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MojaveDan

I had two crowns done by a dentist in the West Lake area of Ha Noi. I should tell you the story of how these were done and then let you decide if you want a referral from my dentist.

I was getting married in Ha Noi in November 2006, and I decided to take advantage of the trip by getting dental work done there for cheap. Both crowns cost $380 total, which was a fraction of the cost in the U.S. and what I thought was a no-brainer for getting things done there. However, the dental procedure will live in my memory forever to say the least.

The questionable hygienic condition of the procedure room was the least of the problems. It didnâ€™t matter that I was sitting less than 20 feet from a very busy, noisy and smelly Ha Noi street with nothing more than a piece of plexi-glass in between the procedure room and the street. It didnâ€™t matter that the next three patients were sitting in the same room waiting their turn as I had done earlier. All of that and more were trivial by the end of my dental procedure.

I should have known it was going to be a bad day when the dentist had me hop on the back of a motorbike so I can get my x-rays a couple blocks away. A pharmacy had an x-ray lab (I use the term loosely) on the second story of their building. The room looked like torture room similar to what I seen in those cold war spy movies. Cold, dampy, flickering florescent green lighting and some metal contraption that could have been built before the turn of the 19th century. The â€œx-ray techâ€, who was probably still in high school, stuck the film holder in my mouth, pointed the metal contraption right at my head and disappeared around a corner. The contraption went â€œclankâ€¦ clankâ€¦ clankâ€¦â€ for a couple seconds and the x-ray tech reappeared. He stuffed the films in an envelope and sent me on my way back to the dentist.

I thought I would return another day to start the procedure, but that wasnâ€™t the case. The dentist took a few looks at the x-rays and then suddenly grabbed a drill, opened my mouth with two fingers and started drilling. No warning and no Novacaine. That moment was the closest I have ever came to literally crapping my pants. I quickly learned the Vietnamese word for hurt (Ä‘au), but that didnâ€™t matter because I wasnâ€™t able to speak with a drill and two fingers stuck in my mouth.

The dentist would drill and drill until he struck a nerve, which happened very frequently. How he knew was by feeling my attempt to jump completely out of the chair. He somehow managed to situate himself to where I wouldnâ€™t be able to move very far no matter how hard I tried. Letâ€™s not forget that thereâ€™s a drill ripping through one of my teeth and I havenâ€™t been administered anesthetic. ANY wrong move would trigger incredibly excruciating pain. This went on for three hours.

I was convinced that Novacaine wasnâ€™t imported into Vietnam and I would have paid any amount of money to have some. After three hours, I was completely exhausted by dealing with so much pain. I gripped the handles of the dental chair so hard that I broke one of them. I cried for so long that I ran out of tears. Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, the dentist holds a syringe in front of me. There was no doubt what it was. It was Novacaine. I was never so happy to be injected with anything, and I came very close to grabbing the syringe and injecting myself. Ironic to me at the time, my dental procedure was just about over. Words cannot accurately describe how happy I was when the drilling was over.

I came back two days later when my crowns were ready to be set. That procedure took all of fifteen minutes, but I was complete stress ball during entire time as I was expecting the dentist to grab a drill and start drilling again. The end result is I now have perfect teeth again and I take much better care of my teeth than I ever had in the past because I don't ever want to experience what I went through again.

If you want cheap dental work but donâ€™t mind living through the most excruciating pain you can ever imagine x 10, then I will gladly refer my dentist in Ha Noi to you.

l d

I was quite pleased with the crown I got at the SOS dental clinic in Ha Noi. Dr. Bean, an American, was really good. But I think that he has since left. Ask, he might have gone back to HCMC.

nguyenthanhtungtinbk

I think the doctors in Vietnam are ok generally, but I don't think they can speak English well (I mean for your problem, it's too specific). I'm not sure about the answer but I just try to help ^_^ Btw, my uncle is a doctor (he lived in Europe before if I'm not wrong), his wife is also a doctor, and one of them is a dentist (Sorry I don't know how good they are). They are both living in Hanoi. Unluckily, I'm not in Vietnam atm, if you need a dentist urgently then I may help.
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Btw, when I read the MojaveDan's story (the answer below me), it's really funny and I couldn't imagize that it happened to him ^_^ I did a fake tooth in "Bach Mai" hospital in Hanoi before about 6 years ago with no pain and that tooth still work for me ^_^ (they said that normally the tooth will last at least 10 years).

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