- Renee felt insecure about her teeth her whole life and, by 48, all of her teeth were rotting. Fed up, she sought out dental treatment.
- After finding dental treatment in Australia too expensive, a colleague recommended a dentist in Thailand.
- Renee paid $33,000 for a medical holiday trip to Thailand.
- On this holiday, Renee lost all her teeth and her funds.
- Here, Renee Beal, 55, from Perth, WA shares her story….
Sitting at my laptop, I scrolled through dental treatment options online.
“I can’t believe how expensive dental treatment is,” I moaned to my colleague.
I’d had problems with my teeth since I was a child, as the enamel on them was weak, making them prone to decay, and I had to have up to 15 fillings every six months. Then, when I fell pregnant with
my daughter at 25, acid reflux eroded my teeth so severely, eight of them had to be removed.
Read more: Gorgeous girl with nose deformity finally receives life-changing surgery

By 48, all my top teeth were rotting and had to be removed.
Now, I only had eight teeth left on the bottom and wore a denture on the top.
I’d learned to adapt my smile so nobody could see, but working as an implementation consultant with a software company meant I had Zoom meetings all day, and I couldn’t help but feel self
conscious during them.
“I can give you the details of my dentist in Thailand,” my colleague offered. “It’s so much cheaper to have work done over there.”
She passed them on, and I called the clinic to ask about a procedure I’d found called ‘All-On-4’ that replaces your teeth with permanent implants.
The dentists in Australia were advertising it for $70,000, so I was delighted when the dentist in Thailand offered to do it for $33,000.
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I booked an appointment for six months’ time.
The package included a stay at the clinic’s hotel for 12 days, which promised guests luxury accommodation, a pool, three meals a day and unlimited massages.
I booked my flights and took out the largest loan I could. When the time finally came, my partner, Russell, dropped me at the airport.
“The next time you see me, I’ll look a million dollars,” I told him.
Arriving in Bangkok, my transfer car drove me straight to the clinic.
As we pulled up outside a rundown two-storey office block, my heart sank.
This looks nothing like the website, I thought.
I was ushered into a tacky reception area, where the staff demanded I pay the full amount upfront and hand over my passport details.
Next, I was taken to the hotel. Horrifyingly, bloodstains were on the bedsheets in my room, and dirt was smudged up the wall.
So much for luxury, I thought

The next day, I received a call from the clinic. “We can do the surgery in two days,” the receptionist said.
“But I was told the whole process would take 12 days,” I said. I was worried about them rushing through things if they didn’t start immediately as planned, but there was a no-refund policy, so I was left with little choice.
In the days leading up to my surgery, only frozen food was available, and it was impossible to talk to any staff because of the language barrier.
The day before my surgery, I was taken to a different, modern-looking clinic, where staff took X-rays.
I was relieved to finally be in a professional-looking environment.
However, for the surgery itself, I was taken back to the rundown clinic I’d been taken to on the day of my arrival.
Walking in, a feeling of unease crept over me again.
The dental assistant led me into a room and told me to sit on the dental chair.
I was then given 15 injections of local pain anaesthetic, but as the dentist pulled my remaining eight teeth out, I could feel everything.
The pain was unbearable.

He then hacked my jawbone away with a cut-off wheel before drilling holes into my gums and inserting the implants.
As blood poured down my throat, I couldn’t help thrashing around, so the assistant held my head as another pinned my arms down, hurting me even more.
Then, after six hours of what felt like torture, the dentist delivered a devastating blow.
“We can’t put the bridges on the implants today,” he told me. “Your top jawbone is too thin, so we need to wait until your jaw has strengthened.”
I was horrified.
“For how long?” I asked.
“Six months,” he said. “But even then, there’s no guarantee it will work.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“But I have no teeth,” I gasped. “You can’t leave me looking like this.”
The dentist told me they’d make me a temporary denture, but my mouth was so swollen when they took the impression I knew it wouldn’t fit.
“No more,” I pleaded as they pressed the impressions into my sore mouth.

Back at the hotel, I called Russell in tears.
“We’ll find a way to fix this,” he consoled me.
He booked me into a luxury hotel, and I found a dentist in Perth called Dr Adrian Kat, who could do the All-On-4 procedure.
I called his clinic to speak to him, and when I explained what had happened, he was very sympathetic.
“Come and see me when you get back,” he said.
The following day, I returned to the clinic to collect the dentures.
As expected, they didn’t fit and were unbearable to wear.
It was the final straw.
“I’m not going through with the rest of it,” I told them.
I booked the next flight home, and with the help of Russell and my super fund, I gathered the money I needed to have the surgery with Dr Kat.

“The implants have been placed close to a main artery and nerve,” he said, examining me.
I gulped, thinking how much worse things could have been.
After spending two and a half months without teeth, I was put to sleep before Dr Kat carried out the surgery.
In just two hours, he removed the Thai implants and started the procedure from scratch.
When he handed me a mirror and I saw my new teeth for the first time, I burst into tears.
“Thank you so much,” I said. “I thought I’d never be able to smile again.”
For anyone having cosmetic surgery, I’d advise not trying to do it cheaply overseas.
It not only cost me more money in the end, but also my confidence.