Late last year I was asked by a friend to check out the cost of teeth whitening in Bali; I found a place in Sanur and was given a price of Rp2,000,000. I dutifully reported this to said friend and was told 'that's very cheap; it can cost several hundred dollars in Australia'.
In Bali again over the past few weeks, and at a loose end for my last few days, I decided to look into it for myself. Although I'm at least as vain as the next guy I've never had any cosmetic work done and I admit I think of it as kind of a 'girly' thing so I snuck about trying not to let on to anyone.
I popped into the 'Health Clinic' to ask for more details and met the dentist who presented me with two product packs and (confusingly) asked which I wanted to have done, I asked what the difference was and was told 'it's up to you'. In a restaurant when asking the difference between pan fried or grilled fish I'll accept an answer like that, as an explanation from a qualified dentist on the difference between two treatments it lacked a little detail and a small red flag went up in my head. I told her I'd come back the next day, wrote down the product names and went home to Google them.
Option 1
BEYOND POWER WHITENING SYSTEM
http://www.animated-teeth.com/dentist_laser_whitening/a9-beyond-teeth-whitening.htm
Hmmm, seemed OK. Nothing too scary and I can't see how anything could go outrageously wrong with this (at heart I'm actually a cowardlybastard instead of, or as well as, a fatbastard).
Option 2
OPALESCENCE BOOST
http://www.teethwhiteningreviews.com/item.php?id=11
Again it all looks relatively harmless although a lot of people say it's painful and I'm not into pain. What I'd really like is to be able to take my teeth out and pick them up - much whiter - after an hour's walk along the beach.
After reading a few more reviews I decided I wanted whichever was stronger; I didn't want to fork out 200 odd $$ without a noticeable result and BOOST looked like it was a goer. However, while walking down to the clinic the next day I had a complete about face; I didn't want people shielding their eyes when I smiled and, I fortunately reasoned, if something did go wrong....
At the clinic the dentist had the pack of BOOST ready to go and said 'you want this one, yes?'
ME: 'how many times have you used this product?'
HER: 'none'
Another, much larger red flag began waving about wildly inside my head
ME: (high pitched nervous laugh) 'how about the other one?'
HER: 'oh many times'
ME: 'well, that settles it for me so you can put that one away. Thanks'
The dentist and her assistant huddled in the corner for a brief discussion and then she put the silver BOOST pack away and brought out the BEYOND, which I now noticed contained several things that looked suspiciously like syringes (a veritable forest of red flags danced in my head). My dislike of needles borders on phobic and I REALLY didn't like the look of those things.
I sat in the chair and they did various things to my teeth for the next 20 minutes, mostly polishing and cleaning from what I could tell. There was a gritty pink polishing gum and lots of drilling, hacking and sawing sounds; nothing I hadn't heard at the dentists before, nothing painful, and no needles which is really all I cared about.
The next thing happened suddenly and took me completely by surprise; they had evidently finished preparing my teeth and it was time to begin the whitening. At this point I was lying in the chair wearing yellowish safety glasses, the dentist reached down below my line of sight and picked up a contraption that can only have been inspired by the movie SAW. From memory it was all huge cast iron spikes, rusty padlocks and things designed to inflict pain - they somehow stuffed it into my mouth. Despite what many who know me think my mouth is not actually that big and I still can't figure out how they got it in there, once in place I couldn't close my mouth and my lips were lifted away from my gums, by about a metre. At one point my lips were so dry I wanted to wet them with water from the cup beside me, if I stretched my arm up to its full reach I could just touch my top lip while by lower lip felt like it was somewhere near my waist.
Just as I got used to my mouth feeling like it had been stretched over the Eiffel Tower the dentist came at me with one of the syringes. I literally screamed 'what the hell are you doing!' which probably didn't sound anything like that given the state of my mouth - and the assistant covered my glasses with her hand and said 'tidak boleh lihat itu' (you can't see that). Not the best thing to say, I would have thought, under the circumstances. She kind of held me down while the dentists did her thing and after about 30 secs of not feeling the expected jab of a needle I relaxed.
I guess it went well for 2 cycles of the whitening; they used the syringe thing for 15 minutes, which I worked out must have been some kind of dispenser, and then put the light on my teeth for what felt like a minute.
A few minutes into the 3rd ‘cycle' I began noticing pain. I didn't know exactly where it originated but it was building and I felt that I was going to have to stop the process if it got any worse. A few minutes later I started telling them it was hurting and I wanted to stop; they said it was nearly finished and I should hold on. A minute later it became so intense I pushed the dentist away and started trying to pull the wadding and several tons of scrap metal from my mouth. They started helping me, all the while saying 'you moved, you shouldn't have moved'. They (very slowly) cleared my mouth, all the while peering down, squinting in what looked like horror and repeating 'you moved', none of which reassured me. As soon as I could I got the cup beside me and started rinsing my mouth with water; this obviously washed off the chemical and soothed my lips which I now realised was the source of the pain.
They stood looking at my mouth with expressions I read as 'that must hurt' and 'I'm glad that's not me'. With visions of the lower half of my face sloughing off a la Two Face from Batman I asked for a mirror. The assistant flew around the room looking for one, a dental clinic has to be full of them and I read her taking so long as their not wanting me to be exposed to the full horror of my own face. She finally found one of those tiny round ones they use to look inside your mouth and brought it over - I looked at my mouth...
My teeth were nice and shiny, not too white so you could tell I'd had them whitened but slightly whiter than they had been. My lower lip was a lot whiter, about ½ of my lower lip was white, like toothpaste white, and was bleeding from the centre. If you have ever had badly sunburned lips it felt exactly like that but with bleached white lips instead of purple burns. It wasn't overly painful since I'd washed the chemical off but it did look bizarre and I wondered how long it would last. The dentist keep telling me it would be gone in a few days which I suspect (hope) is true.
I sat for a few minutes about what went wrong and why, and I went through my experience with the dentist. She is actually a very nice lady and in my opinion the main problem was a lack of communication. If I had known what was going on I wouldn't have struggled at the wrong times and it might have gone better. On the other hand I am a busybody who ALWAYS has to know what is going on, even when I go to the doctor here in Australia and I'll find any excuse to have a hissy fit so maybe it was me?
I arrived home last night; my lips had my wife in fits of laughter.
At least someone had a good time.