Dental care at sea?

[ronrick1943]

Like everyone else, get it taken care of before you leave---why spoil a good cruise with problems that can be taken care of before you get n the ship.

[coljack]

On 1/23/2020 at 11:09 AM, Art Instructor2 said:

I worked in dentistry for many years, so I can speak from experience.  

 

Great advice from everyone, get this resolved before your leave for your cruise.  An endodontist will be able to find the problem.  Aside from the pain when the tooth flares, the infection in the canal can spread to her blood stream.  Sepsis is very serious and can lead to death if not treated.  This should be #1 on your "to do list."  

Have been to an endodontist, who could not isolate the problem with a high degree of certainty, even after x-rays and 3D scan.  He recommends taking a "rescue pack" if the tooth has still not flared up before the TA.

[Wendy The Wanderer]

In my case it's whether to remove the tooth (a wisdom tooth.)  I have chosen to leave it where it is because of other possible complications from dental surgery.  It's just a hairline crack.  I'm not about to get the tooth taken out just because of this cruise--if it flares up before that, yes.  I'm hardly an astronaut who has to get his appendix taken out before flying to the moon.

[SWFLAOK]

There won't be any dental care on your cruise ship. That's not something that they do. Whether there's a dentist available in any of your ports depends on where you're going, and how busy the dentists are in that port.

Based on our experience, the doctor onboard won't even have any pain meds other than Advil and Tylenol. And depending on where you're going, you may not be able to bring any strong pain meds on board. If you bring them with you they  may be considered illegal drugs in the countries that you enter. You could be convicted of a serious drug crime for bringing a pain medication with codeine into other countries.

If I were planning to take a very long cruise, I would have a troublesome tooth removed well before I went. Especially a wisdom tooth that should have been removed long ago if the dentist mentioned it. I would also make sure that any implant had sufficient time to settle in without a problem, based on several friends that ran into problems with having implants looked at by dentists not familiar with them.

We always take a filled prescription of an antibiotic from our dentist in case one of our old teeth decides to abcess. That can easily ruin many days of a cruise. We used to cruise on our own boat in the US and the Bahamas, and finding a dentist in an emergency was never easy.

And we also bring all of the dental repair kits that are available in our local drug store so we have the ability to reglue a crown, or fill in a lost filling while on a cruise.

Edited January 26, 2020 by SWFLAOK
added more info

[rcandkc]

Another thing that can cause fathom tooth pain is clenching while sleeping.  A properly made night guard can  help immensely.