Save Big Money on Dental Care in Los Algodones, Mexico, AKA "Molar City"

I recently visited Los Algodones, Mexico, also known as Molar City, where there are literally HUNDREDS of dental clinics congested within just a few city blocks. The morning air was fresh and it was already warm when I arrived at seven in the morning and I began taking as many photos as possible. There were NO other people entering Mexico during the time period when I was there, around 6:45 AM, and the inspector looked through my satchel, noting I only had a Canon digital camera and a GoPro video camera. I walked through the "scanner", which appeared to be nonfunctional and I could see the wires were not connected at the ground level, so I assume no scanning took place.

I walked through an exit area and into the Mexican air, where I was immediately greeted by a man on the right side of the street, who asked me what I was looking for. I went over to tell him that I was just going to get as many photographs as I could before my 8 AM dental appointment. He told me about his job as a sales director for several dental clinics, but I told him I was only there to get a couple of crowns put on at a place where I had already had work done. It was very nice walking through the small town and I took as many photos of the fronts of the dental clinics as I could, while walking down the main street, and then circling around on several side streets.

I believe I may have saved thousands of dollars compared with the pricing I have been quoted for the same procedures by San Diego area dentists. Of course everyone has different dental needs, and the drive from Spring Valley, California took two and a half hours one-way, but it was a beautiful, albeit intense journey. Traveling on Interstate-8, I went through the mountainous region of the Cleveland National Forest, and one of the main reasons I arrived at Los Algodones so early was that I wanted to avoid as much traffic as possible. I left Spring Valley at around 4:00 AM and I arrived at the Andrade parking lot at about 6:20 AM. I was one of the first vehicles in the parking lot, but there were several vehicles that came in right after I parked. There was a $6 parking fee, which is paid at a terminal located just before the booth where someone told me to back up a few feet to use the terminal (the first time), so the first time I used cash and it accepted my crumpled $1 dollar bill and a $5 dollar bill, but on the second trip a few days later I used a credit card. There really wasn't any other parking option that I could see on the way there - it was just a long, winding, two-lane road all the way to the parking lot from the freeway.

There was a 2% foreign-use credit card fee for my dental treatment after I paid in full on the first visit. I needed a root canal, a couple of crowns, an impacted wisdom extraction and a simple molar extraction. A US dentist would have charged me about $4500 to $5000 for that work, and I probably would have needed to see a dental surgeon for the impacted wisdom tooth. The dentist that worked on me offered a "cash discount", but he didn't specifically state 10%, which was what I had seen on the internet that other people mentioned that they received from their various dentists when they paid with cash. I have a feeling I overpaid by a few hundred dollars, especially considering I was there during the off-season. I didn't care though because I am still suffering from PTSD due to the gouging prices I'd been paying to US dentists. If only I had thought of going to Mexico for dental care ten years ago, I could have saved many, many thousands of dollars.

One cautionary note: These are dental CLINICS for the most part, even when they call themselves by a specific dentist's name with "DDS" attached. The workers are almost never the actual dentist who fronts the businesses, but they are trained clinicians/technicians. There are some places where the actual dentist who is advertised as the expert at whatever type of care they offer does the actual work, but I believe these dentists generally own several clinics and they go wherever the most money is to be made, based on the season and the popularity of the different locations of their clinics located around Mexico. I went in the off-season for Los Algodones, which is the hot season that starts in May and ends in October or November. I believe most of the actual, highly-experienced and credentialed dentist-owners travel to other locations like Acapulco and Cabo San Lucas, to match themselves with the majority of the dental tourists who take Medical Vacations.

THAT is the main thing I will change if I decide to get dental care in Mexico again. I will make sure that the dentist who is shown on the website and Yelp reviews is the actual dentist who will be doing the work. On the other hand, I hate crowds and several of the popular clinics in Los Algodones had complaints about how long the patients had to wait and that they were getting jacked around on pricing. Those factors played a huge part in my decision to go to the place with the most legitimate-looking Yelp and Google reviews. I don't believe I chose as wisely as I could have though. It's still very confusing because NONE of the dentists I had considered had ANY credentials that appeared online. Not a single one. They say you should check out the credibility of the medical professional you're considering, but there was literally no way to do that with any of the dentists in Los Algodones. I would estimate I spent about 100 hours searching through videos and looking for various dentists' credentials online, but it became apparent that I was never going to find solid evidence that one or another dentist actually was qualified to do the work they claimed they were credentialed to do. So I simply went knowing that I would probably have someone who'd received adequate training to do the basic work I needed. I hope I made the right decision.

These photos were taken before many of the businesses were open.

The first business is visible just after you exit the border inspection station. It's a building that contains a couple of dental clinics and a pharmacy. There is ongoing construction at the top of the building, or they're preparing it for some type of facade or signage - you can see the exposed framework.

I was very impressed by the way the various buildings are used for multiple businesses. I was greeted right away by several men who were near the dental clinic on the right of the exit from the inspection building, and I explained that I was going around the town to take photos. They seemed to be mocking me a little bit, but it didn't seem to be negative, just that the guy repeated what I said and told me to go around. I think it was his use of the word "around" that made me wonder if he was mocking me. He said, "Yeah, you go around." This was during the off-season, in mid-May, and so I think they're used to larger numbers of people and more income from the dental tourists. I feel bad that I'm not able to spend more money to help them. I did donate a few dollars to a couple of older women who were asking for money near this area after I bought my medication at the Arizona pharmacy.

So obviously Los Algodones is a kind of small town that is filled with dental offices. I can't really say how good the dentists are or what type of education or training they get. I noticed that a lot of the clinics advertise dentists that never actually participate in the care of the patients of those clinics, from reading many reviews and blogs. That was also my case. If you're thinking of getting dental care here, make sure you call whatever clinic you're considering and confirm what you think you'll be getting when you arrive. Don't take the word of their advertisements or of the first person you speak with. The first place I called made it sound like they would could do everything I asked for during the first phone call, but I called back to clarify everything, and they told me they would need to make a special arrangement outside of their office for my request to get a crown, which is really a basic offering of any general dentist, and so I called another place which assured me that they could do that work.

One of the people I talked with who was doing some hawking for the dentists he worked for (there are literally hundreds of these people walking outside near the front of the clinics they're trying to hook people for) told me that many of the dentists and dental workers move from one clinic to another, based on arrangements that are made - as though there are some organizations that move these people around for one reason or another. You can see that there are several dentists who have locations throughout Mexico. I believe many dentists move to Los Algodones during the busy season, which is the cooler season, which is November to May (this is not including May, which gets hot out here). I believe that these dentists maximize their profits by going where the majority of foreign patients are likely to go, based on weather and other tourism offerings.

The place I went to was fairly close to the exit from the border control building. I was able to avoid the main, crowded areas, but both times I arrived, there was a man near the right side of the exit who began speaking English to me, asking me what I was looking for. This is the most common approach that is made, "Hey, what are you looking for?" I believe there are several dentists, out of the 600 or so, who do stay in Los Algodones throughout the year, but you have to do a lot of searching online, including every little bit of information you can possibly get (my dentist had two different names on the internet, the second one being a variation of the first, but it showed him doing another type of medical care not related to dentistry) and these dentists might be located in less convenient locations. The location was a big part of the reason I chose the dental clinic that I went to. They did a good job as far as I can tell. One of the assistants had a persistent chest-cough and she didn't always turn away from me. She wore a facemask, but I'm sure I was getting some small bits of moisture directly into my open mouth from her coughing. So I'm not sure I chose well at all. We'll see. I'm hoping I heal nicely and that the small bit of pain from the root canal I received at this place goes away within the next week or so. Otherwise, ... I don't know. I hate the idea of driving so far any time soon. And I have no idea what to expect - they might tell me one thing over the phone, then tell me something completely different after I arrive. They know they have me over the "inconvenient travel" barrel, so who knows?

This Valenzuela dentist has a lot of advertising on the internet and the website looked really well-done, but I tried to call them and got an answering system, but I never received a call back from them. I have a feeling that Dr. Valenzuela does not stay in Los Algodones after the busy season.

This Rubio Dental seems nice.

Mexico is very beautiful.

I think there are several "spotters", people who ride these small motorcycles around the town, keeping tabs on specific people. I noticed them as I was walking through the town, and when I was on my way out, both of the motorcycles were parked back at the border entrance. Some of the people who were asking if I needed help didn't seem accustomed to the idea that anyone would be walking around taking photos like what I was doing for about an hour before my appointment. And since I was there during the off-season, I suppose they were just used to keeping tabs on a lot more people. I left in the afternoon, right after I bought my medication and it was already close to 99 degrees, though it was a dry heat. There was no line in the pedestrian lanes, and I went on my way after my passport was quickly scanned by the person behind the shielded desk on the inside of the border crossing building. I can't imagine coming here during the busy season and dealing with the thick crowds of tourists within this tiny town. Apparently, there are long lines waiting to get through the border check station back into the US during the busy season. I get so paranoid about being forced to wait in a long line.

I hope I never have to come back here. It was such a long drive through the mountains and the desert ... but the views were spectacular!

La Mesa Near the Secret Stairs - Floral Photography Season

Whenever I can, I take my small "Canon PowerShot SX100 IS" digital camera with its 10X Optical Zoom along with me on the morning walks I take in La Mesa. It's a pretty old camera, and I'm a pretty old human being. I kind of wish I were the camera - it's really holding up and it's revealing a lot of surprises for me. Whereas, I'm pretty sure I know almost everything about myself, and I'm kind of falling apart.

The MACRO setting on this camera is truly amazing. This flower is part of a very small bunch, less than an inch in diameter, and there are dozens of bunches per flowering branch. I love that there is such a wide variety of flowers and succulents spread all through this area.

It's already the latter part of Spring and so many of the flowers are beginning to lose their luster. I can only walk a few times per week since my body has gone through so many days since I was born, approximately 23,360 days as of June 1. The last few thousand days have been very depressing and enlightening at the same time. More depressing than enlightening, but ... like these flowers, I feel I am losing my luster.

This closeup reveals the complexity of the reproductive molecular processes always at work within each flower.

The Calla lily is notorious for displaying its full bloom and readiness for reproduction. Get it? It appears to be beckoning the bees.

There are many unique flowers all along my walk, and so I'm constantly stopping to take these photographs. I usually take a few with the AUTO setting and these closeups come out nicely when I use the MACRO-VEGETATION setting, but I take several using the MACRO settiing with AUTO on the top dial just to compare them later. The VEGETATION setting is found under the SCN setting on the top dial. I never knew this camera had so many settings that make adjustments to the photos while you take them.

This is a processed closeup from the previous photo - showing how nicely detailed these MACRO photos can turn out.

What is this?

I mean, WHAT IS THIS???

Solar Power Powering My Stuff

I was able to mount eight Renogy 100-Watt solar panels just above my carport, using some unused corrugated steel pipes that had been laying around our backyard for a few years. This brings in close to a full 800 Watts at times, but usually on the brightest days it pulls in over 600 Watts, powering my air conditioner, fan, television, computer monitors, laptop, minicomputer and whatever else I might plug in. I'm using a 24-Volt 4000-Watt DC-AC inverter and its display shows that the small loads amount to around 200 Watts while the 6000 BTU air-conditioner requires around 400 Watts. My two Li-Time 12.8-Volt 100 Amp-Hour Lithium-Iron-Phosphate batteries provide enough power (2.56 KiloWatt-Hours) to last most of the day and part of the night, before I switch back to house power. This often saves around 3.5 KiloWatt-Hours per day, before the batteries are drawn down to 50% of their rated power.

I also used some treated lumber to support these pipes and then mounted the panels onto the pipes using thick wires threaded through the mounting brackets and around the pipes.

Later, I remounted the panels with brackets located along both sides at the centers of the panels so that the panels could be easily adjusted to match the angle of the sun as it changes with the seasons. Two ropes are attached to each panel, one at top and another at the bottom, and these are tied off at the support posts. I shorten one rope while lengthening the other in order to adjust the solar panels' angles to the sun in order to maximize the solar input.

This Reality Is a Womb For Our Spiritual Gestation

When I think of the purple and pink overarching that is our current state of existence, an existence of constant death and rebirth, a kind of never-ending swirl of life-energy, I realize that we're all caught up in a fallacy that goes against the reality of what this life is really all about.

We're all experiencing a form of gestation within this womb that we have come to call "reality", when in fact this reality is only just a temporary place where we grow spiritually. Christ pointed out the worthlessness of pursuing material gain - CHRIST, WHO IS GOD IN HUMAN FORM, MADE IT A REALLY, REALLY, SUPER-BIG DEAL TO POINT OUT HOW PURSUING MATERIAL GAIN IS A SILLY WASTE OF TIME. And the reason it's foolish to pursue material gain is because material gain interferes with our spiritual gestation within this temporary cocoon-reality.

How could material wealth be any kind of problem when it comes to growing spiritually? We must not really understand what "spirit" really is. Christ said the spirit is like the wind that moves the leaves, the leaves representing our physical reality. And yet, without money, people are miserable. Somehow, for some reason that is hidden to everyone who only thinks in terms of the material world, every form of physical suffering contributes to spiritual development. Makes sense from a strictly spiritual point of view. And that explains everything.

For to be "born again" is to force one's self to focus completely on the spiritual, the rock-solid reality that is the Truth of our existence, the Kingdom of Heaven where our true reality begins, and that is the only thing worth living for. To enter into the Kingdom of Heaven and join Christ there, is the path that exists for everyone who chooses love. Love is Light is God. Blocking out every material thing, including the body, and tuning our senses in to the spiritual reality that exists within us and that surrounds us and that exists for all time, here and now and forever, is the beginning of the path.

Macro Floral Photography

This morning it was overcast, with just enough light to allow some good macro photos of flowers.

Here are a couple of BUGS and their BABY BUGS, investigating (eating?) a flower.

Closer-up of the BUGS!

Even CLOSER to the BUGS!

BUGS COMMUNICATE AND TEACH THEIR YOUNG!!!

Looks like this bug was watching me...