This story starts with a part of this brain being brave enough to go to the dentist… I mean actually get control over these legs, which shiver and whimper when they think of those beings with white lab coats and their machines that drill in the mouth. Is anyone free of childhood trauma and fear of dentists and if so how did that happen?

Times square of the dentist world. (copyright to dawn 😉

Anyway the suggested price of the treatment plan the receptionist provided was enough to induce a more mature economical fear. For me these are still first world problems, meaning I can use my relative status in this world and get out of the fucked up U.S health system. Some googling on dental tourism and I came up with Los Algodones, a Mexican town on the border with Arizona known for its dental tourism. After more googling I chose one of the big names, SANI group.

Some emails, phone calls and flight tickets later and I get picked up from Yuma airport in Arizona and share a ride over the border with two elderly African Americans, the man is getting treated for something that sounded a lot worse than dental problems. Except for hundreds of dentists you can also find a bunch of optometrists, pharmacies and some other medical facilities including stem cell therapy.

Drugs and alcohol known to go well together!

What does a town focused on dental tourism look like? Well for one it has restaurants with  “soft dish” options in the menu.

Instead street solicitors offering you drugs solicitors are trying to get you into pharmacies. Yeah, small difference I know.

This is all mixed in with the “normal” tourist markets selling trinkets, poncho’s and jewelry.  

There seem to be only 3 hotels in this town. Most tourists seem to come for day trips, get a treatment and go back leading to massive lines at the border in the evening. But I needed crowns which take a few days to make and fit so instead of crossing the border again and again I decided it would be more interesting to stay for 5 days and get to know this town a bit.

The dentist office I chose was factory and we were the cattle being moved from room to room from Dr to specialist but I was treated well, with honesty and courtesy and patience even if not with the most efficiency. Although part of the efficiency problem was miss communications regarding what time zone the town operated on. I was happy to discover their root canal specialist was a young women with tiny hands. The procedure was a lot less terrible than previous ones. One of the crowns, the original diagnostic dentist thought wouldn’t need to have a root canal started exhibiting pain after the treatment. The specialist explained the root had gotten inflamed due to the trauma of treatment and there was no telling if it would get better or worse at that point. Since I only had one day left I opted for another root canal. Oh what joy.
The treatments did offer opportunities to deal with fear and trauma in some creative ways. Like every perception, pain is a combination of top down predictions with incoming bottom up sensory data. Specifically the prediction of danger seems to be highly associated with perceived pain. In moments where the brave part of this brain was able to correctly predict that I was safe, that the people digging through my mouth were not out to hurt me or cause damage but instead where there to heal me and help, much of the pain subsided. A specific neat trick was to actually imagine the dentist hands were “mine” activating my mirror system in this way shifted the whole perspective of my worldview and I saw the scene from the outside. “I” was the dentists performing the treatment. “I” was in control. Other nice tricks involved imagining people I love and also playing with this imagined body size, imagining it bigger and stronger. Body scanning techniques also helped, focusing on breathing or relaxing the very strained neck muscles.

Border patrol behind this v2 bouldering problem.

Between treatments I explored my surrounding.  I walked along the u.s. border fence, I could almost but not quite fit my head through the bars. Many of the people in this town were born here and never crossed the border into the u.s. A waitress told me that once when she was 10 they managed to get the papers and she had a day in san diego zoo. I wish there were something more intelligent or helpful I could say about this except expressing sadness.

Not a postmodern art piece 🙁

From Yuma, Arizona. People were super nice!

The town felt very safe despite obvious economical issues. Some houses where no more than dirt shack while others had fancy gardens and expensive cars. Local’s were very nice and chatty and seemed mostly a bit board. Well with a church and a fitness gym being the only attractions in town can you blame them? Only one tourist place stayed open beyond 5 p.m so I  ate there often, getting to know the staff. Prices for food were on the low end of u.s. prices. 5-15$ depending if you go for the tachos or the steak.
Only the main roads are paved in town… the outskirts are just dirt roads that lead out into sand dunes where people bring their jeeps and dirt bikes for some joy rides. I went out there searching for some nature but under every tree there were endless broken beer bottles and a pile of garbage.
Only after I got back into arizona I headed to the other side of the colorado river to a beautiful nature park and fulfilled my craving. While waiting for my couchsurfing host to get home I wandered around the city and got offered food by 2 different people. I must have looked very homeless and miserable after the morning’s root canal but I do wander if statistically you are more likely to get offered help in small towns?