I wanted to tell everyone about my experience in case you need dental work and can't afford it.

I had 9 Amalgams and a bad crown that needed to come out. I had been reading the bikerchicks website with great interest but was afraid to go that far (I'm in Florida.) I thought I'd rather spend a little more money and go with a local dentist.

I found a local holistic, metalfree dentist and went for an appointment with him. He told me that 4 of my Amalgams were so large that they would need to be crowned instead of refilled. Also, my crowned tooth looked on the xray to be dying so he could either do a root canal or pull it and put in a bridge. I knew I didn't want a root canal (and was surprised that a holistic dentist would even do it) but wasn't happy to think that two perfectly good molars would be ground down for a bridge either. He finally gave me a total cost of $10,000 which included around $3,000 for the bridge.

I had several misgivings about this dental office, from the whiter-than-white teeth on their too-large, perfect smiles, all the way up to the price which was way more than I could pay.

I began emailing Torrie (www.bikerchick.freehomepage.com)for more information and finally she set up an appointment with her dentist, Dr Morales, in Mexico. I was very skeptical because for all I knew Torrie was really a man who lured unsuspecting dental patients over the border, bopped them on the head and stole their travelers checks. But she put me in touch with about a dozen real people all over the country with real phone numbers and real stories of how he was a great dentist, so I began to feel more comfortable.

My husband and I flew to San Diego and saw Dr Morales the next morning.

The dental work took about 5 hours. He ended up pulling the crowned tooth which I was glad of because it had been giving me pain for a long time. He also did three cavitations where my wisdom teeth had been pulled out 20 years ago. The total bill including the massage, the cavitations, the vitamin c IV, the IV sedation was only $2,000.

We had to go back again for the partial and met some very interesting people in the waiting room, including one man who had had Rheumatoid Arthritis so bad he couldn't lift his arms to even wash himself. He had been crippled, homeless, and suicidal, but just getting out his mercury fillings totally healed him!

The day after the dental work I noticed that the Arthritis in my hands was gone! I wasn't expecting that and it was a nice surprise. Overall, I'm very thankful I went to him. I figured that flying myself and my husband out and paying for a rental car and the motel and food, and shopping, we spent around $1,000. That and the $2,000 for the dental work meant we still saved $7,000 over the cost of the local dentist.

If you're really short on money you can keep costs down further because we didn't really need the rental car and I also got the massage and vit c IV which are not essential.

Go get your Amalgams out, you'll be so glad you did!!!

Update: In 2006 I made an appointment with Dr Morales to bring my son in for Amalgam removal. When we arrived in his office we were told Dr M had taken the day off, along with the other dentist who practices with him. Apparently they went to the races instead of work that day. That was on a Friday and we couldn't return the following week to see him as the receptionist suggested, so in effect we spent $2,000 to fly out there for nothing.

After this I've heard some other disturbing things about Dr Morales. Feel free to email me for more info that I can't post here.

Anyway, I no longer recommend Dr Morales. I might consider this dentist: rel="nofollow" href="/aa/?19748" title="http://www.biologicaldent.com/center_for_biological_dentistry/about_us.html">http://www.biologicaldent.com/center_for_biological_dentistry/about...

Or, I've called here to ask for a referral and gotten a good dentist:
http://www.hugnet.com/alliancedentist.php

or


http://mercuryfreedentists.com/