bt0558

Anyone been in a similar position or can advie anyway please...

I am flying to Egypt Friday to start a teaching job immediately in Hurghada. I have today a serious tooth ache (back lower molar/maybe wisdom) which is getting worse if anything. I am about to contact dentist for an urgent appointment.

My options are i think

1 see if anything dentist can do (although I expect temporary for actual work next week if anything) and then fly out and try to get urgent treatment in Egypt although health cover will not have been arranged.

2 Just fly out and hope for the best

3 Cancel and rebook flights and inform employer will be later than expected due to dental emergency and get the thing done defore departure,

Anyone with experience of similar or advice?

Thanks

Hello.Kitty

the temporary should hold for up to a couple of months and at least your dentist should be able to prescribe anti-biotics and whatnot to fight the infection.

In the meantime, get hold of some clove oil, or failing that, just some normal cloves and dab on a drop (with a cotton bud) onto the surrounding gum. It's a strong natural anaesthetic and fights infection. If you can't find the oil, wedge some whole cloves beside the dodgy tooth. Works wonders... but don't get any oil on your tongue!

Also, clove oil shouldn't be used if you're pregnant because it's a very strong uterine contractant and could cause miscarriage.

Oyibopeppeh

There are two types of clove oil to be had - the full strength variety and the "dental" variety (which is a lot weaker!). Make sure you ask for the industrial strength stuff!

bt0558

Thank you for the dental advice, I will look for heavy duty clove oi.

Does anyone know what sort of risk I would be taking by going to Hurghada with an existing dental problem?

Ta

Hello.Kitty

surely it'd depend on what's actually wrong and only a dentist can answer that one (I have tried staring at the screen, but nope, can't see you!).

Tooth problems are rarely instantly fatal, so it's more about stopping/ controlling the pain than anything else... once that's done, you only need to worry about the aesthetics and which options become available to you in your current location.

So, got that emergency appointment yet?

---
Oh, and I didn't realise there was a dental version of clove oil - proper hard-core, me! Just don't get it on your tongue - it burns so much you'll forget your tooth!

bt0558

hello.kitty

I am not looking for general dental advice but I do appreciate the advice given and will certainly take it all on board.

I also appreciate your staring at the screen but again that wasn't my intention.

Of course I have my emergency appointment the outcome of which will determine my course of action among the alternatives I listed. It is my dentist's modus operandi to give a short emergency appointment to take immediate action (as you so well describe) and then to go for follow up treatment he following week or so when anti bioics have had a chance to work etc.

I have never been to Hurghada and therefore have no reliable knowledge about dentisits there. If they are as good or better than I would find in the UK I am happy to fly out and arrange for the follow up to be done there.

If no reliable dentists exist in or around Hurghada I would be daft to simply fly out and hope for the best. In this situation I would delay my departure and get the floow up done here.

I am looking therefore for someone who has knowledge of Hurghada in particular or someone who knows Egypt well and can hazard a guess. Maybe someone who has flown out with a problem and found it to be a nightmare with no way to sort it while on the plane.

That sort of thing.

Rather than wait and go for advice when time is too short I decided to post here for infrmation so that I might even be able to discuss the possibility of having work done in Egypt with my dentist.

I am still hopeful.

Tockalosh

If you land in country and the toothache is hideous and you dont have high BP then head to the pharmacy and ask for Celebrex 200mg made by Pfizer. The best anti toothache painkillers money can buy. Not cheap but they kill extreme toothache and I cant see a UK dentist prescribing them somehow. I knows because I had it last week and had the beloved root canal this morning. Relief at last

Good luck

co durham boy

http://www.primadent-hrg.com/

It's your lucky day !

Hello.Kitty

doh! I didn't think of Google!

/slaps forehead.

Did you know that septicaemia due to severe dental abscess was one of the most common causes of death for the Pharaohs? Glad to see Egypt now has modern dentists' surgeries.

A little fact that I'm sure anyone will appreciate when they have severe toothache. I hope yours feels better soon.

bt0558

Thanks co durham boy, yeah I saw that one and all qualified at Cairo University too.

Hopefully someone who has some knowledge/experience of using dentistry facilities in the area including these will log on and be able to tell me whether this place is pucker.

There are several others in the area but a fairly professional website tells me that they have good web designers but does not provide any confidence that they have good dentists. Have to agree that it doe look promising thouh.

Thanks again

Thanks also to hello.kitty, it would seem that toothache could well be instantly fatal after all. Now I am worried.

kittycat1

I had toothache about 6 weeks ago- made an emergency appointment and they whipped my wisdom tooth out in 10 minutes- a day of a fat cheek and numb nose and all fixed- go and sit in a dental surgery until they can fit you in, you really don't want to be traveling with a dental problem, if not a bit of string and a doorhandle will do.

Hope it feels better soon! Toothache is horrible!

Hello.Kitty

There's no need unless you feast on honey and have never seen a dentist in your life.

Seriously though, I'm sorry if my posts haven't been as helpful as you'd hoped (they started off well though). I am blessed with teeth that go spectacularly wrong for no apparent reason, like the side falling off one in a maths lesson, an abscess I thought was a small blister but had in fact eaten through my jawbone and a molar that was so completely rotten, my dentist at the time told me that any normal person would be howling with pain, not wondering why a little black dot wouldn't come off when brushing.

Even my brother didn't die instantly, and he had such bad abscess-induced toothache that he could feel it on the other side of his face.

So anyway... what's the worst that can happen? A less than brilliant dentist could pull the offending tooth out. You can always have a single prosthetic tooth fitted in its place when you get back to a trusted dentist.