Natalia Kondratiuk-Świerubska, Woman.gazeta.pl: Recently, we can often hear people who decided to undergo dental procedures in Turkey, and after some time had to face unwanted consequences. What do you think about this phenomenon?
Emma Kiworkowa, doctor of medical sciences, dentist, orthodontist: Medical tourism towards Turkey is indeed a noticeable trend. I think that in some cases it can be very dangerous, because people are often not aware of how to be prepared for such procedures and what consequences they may entail.
Have you met people in your work who took advantage of this option?
In recent months, we had three patients in our clinic who had previously undergone procedures in Turkish clinics. One woman came to us six months after leaving. In the case of the other two people, more or less two years have passed since the surgery.
Why do problems arise?
Such aesthetic procedures are performed when the patient is completely dentally cured. So if someone decides to take such a step, the condition of their teeth must be perfect. Moreover, he should not have any disorders in the temporomandibular joints.
Let us also remember that a stay in a foreign clinic usually lasts a week or two. After this time, the patient returns home and there is no possibility to consult a doctor. And the culture and art of our profession assumes that the effects of such work should be controlled. In particular, at the very beginning, the patient should appear for check-ups. In the case of medical tourism, this is very difficult.
You mentioned how long a stay in a foreign clinic usually lasts. In such cases, if the doctor finds any problems, then there is no time for treatment.
Exactly. And skipping the treatment stage before aesthetic correction causes problems after some time.
For example, what?
Headaches, gingivitis appear. It also happens that some elements crumble. Very often, therefore, the patient enjoys the effects of the procedure for a very short time. The exceptions are situations when someone was properly prepared before leaving – had teeth in good condition, the correctness of the temporomandibular joints was also checked. Of course, it is very important who performs the procedure.
I heard about a person who went to Turkey, and on the spot it turned out that the “clinic” is located in a private apartment in a block of flats.
Currently, the offer is so large that you really need to check everything carefully to avoid this type of situation. In the case of aesthetic treatments, every detail is extremely important! I often compare it to working on a film. To create something good, actors and a director are not enough. It takes a whole team to give it their all.
The same is true with dental procedures. Each stage should be carried out at a high level. So I advise against taking shortcuts. Often it ends up so that after some time we have to take everything off and start all the work from the beginning.
Ultimately, we do not save, and we pay even more for everything.
Costs don’t matter. The second is the already mentioned complications that can be really unpleasant. It is impossible to live comfortably with such ailments as, for example, bleeding gums, and such a person needs the help of specialists. So the patient has to go through the whole process all over again.
Research shows that the condition of the teeth of Poles is still not good.
I am glad that in larger cities people’s awareness is growing and the situation is improving. However, in smaller towns we notice many serious problems, such as toothlessness. And this, unfortunately, will not change quickly due to the huge scale of the phenomenon. I think it must be decades. That is why it is so important to educate the younger generations.
Your Julia Squirrel Foundation, which has been operating since 2012, does a lot in this regard.
We have a lot of actions on our account. One of the most important is a research and diagnostic project, during which we examined nearly 50,000 children. And based on these studies, we drew conclusions that were used, among others, by the Ministry of Health. Unfortunately, the data is alarming. The scale of neglect is very large. As many as 90 percent of children over the age of seven require dental treatment.
What it comes from?
Unfortunately, this is most often due to the lack of parental awareness. For example, in some families, everyone in the household uses one toothbrush! I heard about my father, a truck driver, who would go on a road trip and take a toothbrush with him. And at that time, his whole family didn’t brush their teeth because they weren’t home.
It also happens that children are not taught to take care of oral hygiene at all. Once, at the end of the project, we gave the children toothbrushes. One five-year-old was very touched because it turned out that it was his first toothbrush in his life. We know that such stories are hard for many people to believe. Unfortunately, this is the reality in many Polish homes.
Changing the subject to a more positive one, I would like to ask you what works are you most proud of?
Considering that over 60,000 patients have passed through our clinics, it’s hard for me to pick out one or two best metamorphoses. In addition, the baseline condition of our patients’ teeth is usually much better than in the case of people from TV shows. So the changes are not that spectacular. However, an example comes to mind of a patient who struggled with bothersome tinnitus for three years. She consulted with many specialists – incl. otolaryngologists, neurologists. But nothing helped.
She finally contacted us. And after three months of properly planned treatment, with the support of physiotherapy, the problem began to disappear. And she thought that noise would always bother her. And although this metamorphosis was not as spectacular as, for example, the aesthetic ones, I am particularly proud of it. I remember the patient crying with happiness when the problem was solved.
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Emma Kiworkowa – doctor of medical sciences, dentist, orthodontist. Co-owner of Villa Nova Dental Clinic and Elektoralna Dental Clinic, where she manages a team of over 150 people. In her original program “Doktor Emma. Patent for a smile” and “Body Fixers” or “10 years younger in 10 days” on the channels of the Polsat group, she performs spectacular metamorphoses of smiles. Together with her mother, Dr. Dżulietta Kiworkowa, she runs the Julia Squirrels Foundation, which currently has 8 branches in Poland and conducts the largest training sessions for children in the country in terms of numbers – so far nearly 50,000 children have been tested and over 91,000 children have undergone training. Julia’s Squirrel Foundation has been taking care of the patients of the Akogo Foundation for 10 years, in the Budzik clinic it has organized a fully equipped dental office where the patients of the clinic are taken care of.
Source: Gazeta
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