What "Turkey Teeth" Means
What is really done to the teeth, the problems that tend to follow, the full cost of the trip, and what to ask before you book a flight.
Are Veneers or Crowns in Turkey Worth It Compared with Treatment in Lanark?
The price can look lower, but many "Turkey teeth" smiles are complete sets of crowns rather than veneers. To fit them, healthy teeth are ground down to small stumps that must stay covered for good. The quoted figure seldom includes flights, return visits or anyone nearby to care for the work afterwards. In Lanark, porcelain veneers start at £695 a tooth, and a gentler plan can often look natural while removing far less tooth.
How the Name Started
Mainly through social media, "Turkey teeth" became a nickname for a bright white, perfectly even smile produced in a few days at an overseas clinic. Turkey is the country everyone links with it, though the same packages are offered in a number of other places. Many people like the way theirs look in photographs.
The worries are about the technique more than the location. To achieve that uniform look fast, many clinics fit crowns across the whole arch, sometimes twenty or more, onto teeth that had nothing wrong with them. The British Dental Association has spoken out about patients returning with complications, and putting that work right is now a routine task for dentists in the UK.
Veneers and Crowns Are Different
People use the two words interchangeably. They're not interchangeable, and the gap between them matters more than anything else in this guide.
| Feature | Veneer | Crown |
|---|---|---|
| Part of the tooth covered | Only the front surface | The whole tooth, on every side |
| How much tooth is lost | Very little or none with composite; a thin sliver for porcelain | A great deal, often leaving a slim stump |
| Reversible? | Composite generally is; porcelain isn't | No |
| Danger to the nerve | Low | Greater, from the depth of drilling and the heat it creates |
| If it fails | Normally repaired or replaced | Replaced, losing more tooth each time |
Those photos online of teeth shaved into small pegs show what lies beneath a set of crowns. A healthy tooth that has been reduced that far will need a crown for life.
Have a Quote, or a Problem, From Abroad?
Bring it along. We'll go through it with you and give you an honest answer.
Common Problems
- Sensitivity and damage to the nerve. Drilling healthy teeth heavily can irritate the nerve inside, and some teeth end up needing root canal treatment, sometimes years later.
- Gums that are sore and bleed. Crowns that bulge at the gum line collect plaque, which keeps the gums inflamed.
- A bite that feels wrong. Altering every tooth at once, in a hurry, can cause jaw ache, chipped crowns or teeth that feel too high.
- A colour that's too bright. A shade picked for holiday photos can look harsh under office lighting a year on, and it can't be made lighter or darker.
- Hidden decay. Where the edges of a crown don't seal well, decay can begin beneath it without anyone seeing.
None of these is inevitable. When they do happen, though, it's usually after you've come home.
Counting the Whole Cost
A quote from overseas and one from Lanark rarely describe the same treatment, so compare them honestly. Add these to the overseas price:
- Return flights and accommodation, often for a week or longer
- Any extra trip the clinic needs, plus the time off work it takes
- A dental examination and X-ray in the UK before you fly, if the clinic plans from photographs
- Treatment here for anything that goes wrong, and a UK practice will bill for it, since someone else did the original work
- Replacement crowns in time, each one costing a little more tooth
In Lanark, porcelain veneers start at £695 per tooth and composite veneers at £395 per tooth, including the design, a trial smile and a review. 1 Our Lanark veneers cost guide works out totals for you.
Questions to Ask Before Booking
- Am I getting veneers or crowns, and on which teeth?
- How much will you take off each tooth, and why that amount?
- Who is carrying out the treatment, and where are they registered?
- What material will you use, and which lab will make it?
- Will I see a mock-up of the result before any drilling?
- How will you check my bite once every tooth is finished?
- If a crown breaks or a tooth flares up after I'm home, what happens, and who pays?
A careful clinic, wherever it's based, will answer in writing. If the answers are mostly about price, that's telling you something as well.
Changing Your Smile with Less Drilling
What most people are after when they ask for "Turkey teeth" is a smile that's whiter, straighter and more even. That usually doesn't need heavy drilling. A typical plan might start with aligners to straighten crowded teeth, then home whitening, then composite bonding or a few porcelain veneers only where they're really needed. Before anything is done, you try the planned result in your own mouth as a trial smile.
The finished smile is less uniform than a mouthful of crowns, which is partly the aim: it still looks like your own. It keeps future choices open too. Composite can be refreshed or upgraded in years to come, whereas a tooth cut down for a crown can never go back.
Had Treatment Abroad Already?
You're very welcome, and you won't get a telling-off. Bring any paperwork, any X-rays, and before photos if you have them. Your dentist will examine your teeth and gums, take X-rays to look at the nerves and how well the crown edges fit, and explain clearly which parts are fine, which to keep an eye on and which need treatment.
Often the news is reassuring. Sometimes one crown needs redoing or a gum problem needs treatment. Now and then a bigger plan is needed, and we'd talk it through in full, with the fees in writing, before you decide anything. Our second opinion page explains what the visit involves.
And Implants Abroad?
This guide is about cosmetic crowns and veneers. Overseas implants, including full-arch "teeth in a week" deals, bring different risks to do with healing time, which implant system is used and how it's maintained over the years. Those are dealt with in our guide to overseas implants compared with treatment in Scotland.
Questions
This guide is general information, not a diagnosis. A dentist needs to examine you to say what is right for your teeth.