Perhaps another reason why Thailand is known all over the world as the ‘Land of Smiles’ is because of its popularity as a site for dental procedures. For more than two decades, the country has been serving as a major destination when it comes to dental tourism, and the demand for dental procedures here has been steadily increasing.
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What Makes Thailand Popular for Dental Work
Thailand’s popularity in dental tourism is due to three things that the country offers: 1) superior dental work, 2) affordable rates, and 3) wonderful travel experience.
Superior Dental Work
Dentists in Thailand — particularly in leading clinics like Thantakit International Dental Center — have decades’ worth of experience, and many of them also received training abroad (e.g., United States, United Kingdom, Australia). Clinics use state-of-the-art technology to perform dental work properly and quickly, while ensuring patients’ safety and comfort. For instance, at Thantakit we have the 3D Dental CT Scan (we are actually the first dental implant center in the country that acquired this in 2004), Digital CAD/CAM Milling Dental Lab, Digital Impression Scanner, and more.
In addition to providing high quality dental procedures and superior level of care, our dentists are also fluent in English, thus ensuring smooth and effective communication regarding your dental needs. Most staff in Thailand clinics (including our own) are likewise bilingual and well trained to provide the best assistance to international patients.
Affordable Rates
Getting dental procedures done in Thailand will cost you around 60% less compared to western countries (e.g., Australia and the U.S.). For instance, a single titanium implant costs (on average) a whopping US$5,500 in Australia and US$5,000 in the U.S. — but only US$2,200 — that’s less than half! — in Thailand.
Getting a composite veneer in Australia will set you back by about US$900 in the U.S. and US$860 in Australia — but will be merely US$200 in Thailand. As a final example, if you’d like to have pearly whites in the U.S., you’ll need to shell out roughly US$1,500 per tooth; in Australia, it will be cheaper, at US$700; but in Thailand, teeth whitening will cost you a measly US$300 per tooth.
Wonderful Travel Experience
Popular (and even not so popular) dental procedures in Thailand are undoubtedly cheaper than in most other countries, but even when you factor in other expenses, the entire trip would still likely be a bargain.
There are many affordable and direct flights available from all major cities in the world to Thailand. The country also has six (6) international airports to welcome tourists from any part of the globe.
Accommodations in Thailand are quite cheap. There are also plenty of dining options, featuring practically every international cuisine.
Foreign tourists can enjoy Thailand’s many gorgeous beaches, majestic mountains, and magnificent temples — all while basking in glorious sunshine, delighting in its local cuisine, AND getting world-class dental treatment. It can’t get any better than this.
Thailand’s Most Popular Dental Procedures
With all of these advantages in mind, you may be wondering which popular dental procedures you can get in Thailand. The answer is simple: pretty much all of the procedures that are also available in your own country!
Here are the 12 most popular dental procedures in Thailand:
1) Dental Implants
The vast majority of dental tourists in Thailand are here to get a dental implant, making it the most popular dental procedure in our list.
Dental implants are medical devices that are surgically implanted into a patient’s jawbones to support either a bridge, an extra tooth, or a removable denture. It helps protect the remaining natural teeth around it by improving patients’ chewing function. An implant can replace a single tooth or even an entire arch (in the all on four procedure).
On top of that, a dental implant prevents bone resorption, increases biting strength, and ultimately boosts patients’ self-esteem and confidence. They appear and function just like natural teeth, typically last longer than other dental appliances (like dentures), enhance speech, boost oral health, and many more. Thus, dentists usually consider implants as the top choice when it comes to restoring a patient’s smile.
Although many clinics in Thailand offer dental implants, Thantakit International Dental Center is one of the best choices. It was established in 1945 by the first Thai dentist who brought advanced dental implant or implant dentistry techniques from the U.S. to Bangkok (in 1973). Thantakit’s second-generation owner, Dr. Bancha Sirikai (who also founded the Thai Society of Dental Implantology in 1984), added implant dentistry to the clinic’s offerings.
Our center offers a variety of implant procedures, such as single implant with porcelain/metal crown or Zirconium crown, multiple implants with porcelain/metal bridge or Zirconium bridges, full-mouth implants with immediate teeth loading, and more.
2) Dental Crowns and Bridges
Also called “caps,” dental crowns save the functionality of damaged teeth by covering the decayed or cracked tooth with customized material. Whether your tooth is cracked or stained, crowns can be of help in strengthening as well as improving the appearance of your tooth.
Dental crowns or caps cover poorly shaped or discolored teeth, restore fractured teeth, protect weak teeth against fractures, and support big fillings when there is not enough of the tooth left. They can also be used to cover dental implants and for attaching dental bridges.
Dental crowns can last for 10-15 years, as long as you follow good oral hygiene. They need to be treated well, just like your natural teeth. Regular dental checkups and a tooth-friendly diet, along with prevention of harmful practices like teeth grinding and opening bottles with your bare teeth will all be helpful in extending the lifespan of your caps.
On the other hand, dental bridges — such as implants and partial dentures — are used to replace patients’ missing teeth. Besides affecting your smile and chewing function, a missing tooth can affect your occlusion (or bite), cause your remaining teeth to shift, lead to temporomandibular joint disorder (or TMJ), and produce speech impediments. It also increases your risk for developing periodontal disease as well as tooth decay.
There are different kinds of fixed dental bridges (i.e., those that cannot be removed), such as conventional fixed bridges, cantilever bridges, as well as resin-bonded bridges. Conventional and cantilever bridges usually involve shaping the teeth around the missing tooth, before placing crowns on the shaped teeth and attaching them to an artificial tooth (called a pontic). Meanwhile, a resin-bonded bridge involves less preparation of surrounding teeth and is usually used for missing front teeth.
Thantakit offers a 2-year warranty on our crowns, with prices as low as 15,000 THB (roughly US$424.48), which is for a porcelain fused to metal crown (PFM).
3) Dental Veneers
Dental veneers are extremely thin laminates or shells made of tooth-colored material (either porcelain, ceramic, or composite bonding) that are “cemented” to the front surface of teeth to make them look better. They are used for stained teeth, damaged teeth, mildly crooked teeth, and tooth gaps or spaces (called diastemas).
For small chips and cracks in a tooth, a composite “white filling” is usually enough. However, in more severe cases of cracking, chipping, discoloration, dullness, spacing, or uneven teeth, getting a dental veneer is the better solution.
Porcelain veneers can last anywhere from 5 to 10 years, while composite veneers last 1 to 2 years. As with other dental procedures, practicing good oral hygiene and getting regular dental checkups can help your veneers last longer.
You can get a single composite resin veneer (direct bonding) from Thantakit in just a single visit for only 6,000 THB (roughly US$169.62). Our porcelain veneers cost as low as 15,000 THB (about US$424.11) for the Porcelain e.Max Veneer, and come with a 2-year warranty.
4) Root Canal Treatment
Our natural teeth can last a lifetime. In the unfortunate case that one of your teeth gets severely damaged, it can usually be saved through a special dental procedure called endodontic treatment (often called root canal treatment or simply RCT). RCTs are successful around 95% of the time.
Dentists normally recommend patients to get an RCT instead of a tooth extraction because a missing tooth can have various negative consequences, such as shifting of teeth that are adjacent to the empty space, crooked or crowded teeth, and less chewing and biting strength. Tooth extraction can also eventually lead to dental diseases and the loss of other teeth if the extracted tooth is not replaced.
Over and above those, replacing a tooth (using an implant or a bridge) is often more expensive than endodontic treatment and requires more extensive procedures to be performed on surrounding teeth.
Endodontically treated and restored teeth could last your entire lifetime, provided that you meticulously take care of your teeth and gums. Here at Thantakit, our highly experienced endodontists can perform RCT in just 1 to 2 visits to save your natural tooth. This will cost as low as 9,000 THB (around US$254.52), which is for an anterior/incisor tooth (front tooth).
5) Wisdom Tooth Extraction
Our third molars (also known as wisdom teeth) are the last teeth to erupt — and the ones that are least important for oral health. They usually come out from your gums in your late teens or early twenties – and in some people, they don’t erupt at all.
It’s common for wisdom teeth to become impacted or trapped in patients’ jawbone and gums, particularly if there’s not enough space in your mouth. They can lead to pain, crowding or shifting of teeth, and even infection and decay of surrounding gum tissue.
To prevent all of those risks from happening, it’s best to have your wisdom teeth removed, ideally by an oral and maxillofacial surgeon (also known as a mouth and jaw surgery specialist).
Here in Thantakit, a normal/surgical tooth extraction costs as little as 1,500 THB (around US$42.43), while extraction of a fully erupted wisdom tooth can go as little as 3,000 THB (around US$84.87). All of our teeth extraction procedures will take only one visit.
6) Dental Inlays and Onlays
Dental inlays and onlays are dental restorations for repairing teeth in the rear part of your mouth that have only a mild or moderate amount of decay. They are likewise used for restoring cracked or fractured teeth, provided that the damage is only mild (severely damaged teeth would require a dental crown instead).
Dental inlays and onlays are frequently made of porcelain, composite resin, and even gold. With the same color of natural teeth, they are usually used to replace metal fillings to achieve a more natural-looking smile. They lessen tooth sensitivity, prevent tooth loss, and demand less tooth reduction compared to metal fillings, enabling dentists to conserve more of your natural tooth structure.
Dental inlays and onlays can last up to an astonishing 30 years — much longer compared to conventional fillings. You can get a porcelain inlay or onlay for as low as 12,000 THB (around US$339.59) in Thantakit. A gold inlay or onlay would cost just a bit more, for as low as 15,000 THB (around US$424.48). Either of those dental procedures would take between 3 to 7 days.
7) Gum Treatment
If you’re suffering from gum bleeding, loose teeth, or bad breath, you might have gum disease. Periodontal or gum disease is often discovered only when people’s teeth get loose and fall off. It’s the leading cause of tooth loss among adults, with at least 3 in every 4 people suffering from it.
Research shows that gum disease is directly correlated with people’s health: those with gum disease have a higher risk of heart attack, stroke, diabetic complications, and severe pregnancy complications.
If you’re suffering from mild to moderate periodontal disease, getting non-surgical periodontal treatment is the best course of action. This involves removing plaque and calculus (or tartar) under your gum — in what’s called the pocket — and smoothing your root surfaces. For moderate to advanced periodontitis that involves bone loss, surgical periodontal treatment is the better choice.
Thantakit offers a variety of gum treatments, such as gum graft surgery, frenotomy, root planing, and more.
8) Root Planing/Deep Cleaning
One of the most popular and conservative treatments for gum disease is scaling and root planing. Scaling involves the removal of calculus (or tartar) and plaque from your tooth surfaces.
This is very effective for early periodontal disease, especially gingivitis. For more severe gum disease, scaling and root planing is usually done before performing surgery.
9) Damon Speed Braces
The Damon System involves advanced braces and wires. Unlike conventional treatment, which involves removing healthy teeth and/or using palatal expanders (which is uncomfortable, takes more time, and can lead to a flat profile and a narrower arch), the Damon System ensures complete, natural 10-tooth smiles.
Speed Braces (Damon System) from Thantakit will set you back by just 100,000 to 160,000 THB (from roughly US$2,830.46 to US$4,528.73).
10) Invisalign (Clear Aligners)
Popular among celebrities, Invisalign is a revolutionary way to straighten teeth. Using a series of custom-made, invisible aligners, Invisalign is removable, comfortable, comes with no irritating metals or brackets, allows patients to brush and floss during treatment, and many more. The set of aligners are worn for around two weeks, moving teeth millimeter by millimeter, for a total of around 12 months.
You can get Invisalign from our dental center.
11) Amalgam/Mercury Removal
Dental amalgams that contain mercury are considered dangerous and are best replaced with composite fillings. The process needs to be done extremely meticulously to avoid ingestion of toxic mercury.
Thantakit is well experienced in performing this procedure. We remove mercury amalgams and replace them with compose BPA-free fillings for only 1,200 THB (about US$33.97) per surface.
12) Zoom Teeth Whitening
Last but not the least in our list of the most popular dental procedures in Thailand is Zoom tooth whitening.
Zoom! Whitespeed Tooth Whitening is a clinically advanced, patent-pending tooth whitening procedure that effectively whitens teeth by an average of 8 shades in just 45 minutes.
This costs only 12,000 THB (roughly US$339.67) in Thantakit, but with our current promotion, you can get brighter teeth for the bargain price of just 10,000 THB (roughly US$283.06).
Get Your Dental Procedure Done in Thailand Today
Thantakit International Dental Center is one of the best providers of popular dental procedures in Thailand. Situated in Bangkok, we are the oldest and most respected dental center in the country, with most of our patients being dental tourists from Australia.
Contact us now for a FREE dental consultation.
