While I'm usually a DIY kinda guy, giving this advice on a large scale is a perfect recipe for disaster and really encapsulates the dark-ages dystopia that the current US medical system has become.

While looking for moldable plastic material ("Sugru" and similar) on Amazon, I was a bit taken aback by the reviews for one such substance. Multiple reviewers were stating that they were using this stuff to make their own dental crowns or some other DIY tooth repair because they couldn't afford a dentist. I found this quite shocking and I'm not sure if these people were serious.

See the reviews on this product page: https://www.amazon.com/InstaMorph-Moldable-Plastic-6-oz/dp/B...

The teeth reviews on that product are pretty crazy. I kept reading them thinking "they really thought they could do this themselves??"

If someone self-studies basic things, it shouldn't be a big problem. Just look at first aid. There are many people who have no idea what to do for minor injuries because they never took the time to learn. Suturing is on the borderline of of falling into first aid. There are people today who learn the basics of it for emergencies or because they live in remote locations.

Specialization of labour is what's primarily responsible for the industrial revolution - while this is a hyperbolic comparison, is the only reasonable way to fix healthcare to throw away all specialization and go back to "do it at home"?

The service needs to be available in some form at least for folks like me that have an essential tremour or otherwise are limited in fine motor skills.

I'm not saying do everything at home for everyone. But if some people did minor things (first aid type stuff) at home, that would free up the system for more important cases. Just think of all the people that fo to the doctor with a cold. A little education could go a long way.

People keep talking about patients going to the doctor for frivolous reasons, but what I see is that it is much more common for patients to ignore symptoms or take some over-the-counter medicine, and take too long to see a doctor.

This, I think, is a natural result of the US insurance system. Being sick is quite expensive and not being sick but being proven to not be sick is also rather expensive so people will naturally tend to avoid formal treatment longer in the hope that everything just magically goes away.

This also contributes to the amount of emergency room treatments that could have been trivially handled with earlier intervention. A boil that has gone septic is a very serious medical condition, but nearly all boils can be trivially resolved with a short regimen of antibiotics.

True, it does go both ways. I would still say it comes down to a lack of education/knowledge either way.

This is insane. Mess up with this and you could end up with a serious infection

You could end up with a brain infection, very easily.

If you cannot afford US dental care, and you are not super poor, get a 1 way ticket via Kiwi.com to a more “eastern” European Union country like Croatia or Poland. If you use scripts from GitHub or are very good at searching you can get such tickets for $200-$250. You can find extremely excellent dentists with great qualifications and reviews in countries like that, and many have amazing reviews and are super cheap.

A lot of people from EU countries, that do not have “socialized dental care” go to countries like that a couple times a year to get dental care.

This is totally bizarre to me.

> If you use scripts from GitHub or are very good at searching you can get such tickets for $200-$250.

This is the average cost, per tooth, of the work I had done here 2 years ago, in the US, at a dentist where I paid cash.

> You can find extremely excellent dentists with great qualifications and reviews in countries like that, and many have amazing reviews and are super cheap.

I’m wondering how cheap they have to be in order to make it cheaper to fly to europe. How much would be an extraction or a filling replacement?

Well, I am a dual US|EU citizen, currently living in Croatia. So, I do travel abroad a lot.

When I lived in the US, I had an individual plan through Costco (Delta Dental) that was quite a good deal. It was a Dental HMO plan, though. Really, the only thing I noticed that it did not cover was implants. However, Costco only offers it in a handful of states: https://www.costco.com/dental-insurance-services.html

Alternatively, you can get an individual dental plan through Delta Dental Plan in any state here: https://www1.deltadentalins.com/individuals.html

In both cases above, if you get the Dental HMO, it has no annual or lifetime maximum dollar limits, no waiting periods, or pre-existing condition clauses.

Anyways, I used my American dental insurance to get cleanings, X-Rays, and fillings. I go to Europe a couple times a year at minimum anyways, so I use that to my advantage by getting more advanced dental care there.

Dental implants, especially Swiss implants, can be 8 times cheaper than what some dentists charge in the US. A Swiss implant, when all said and done, costs about $1000 USD in the more eastern EU countries.

You may want to check out this website: https://www.whatclinic.com/dentists/worldwide

I would stick to European Union countries, as the quality of materials is very high. There is some website like the link I posted above, that has implant success rates posted, by dentist. I just do not remember the website's name. Anyways, you take your time and do extensive research before you choose your dentist.

Anyways, I have a very rare immune-mediated disease affecting my autonomic nervous system, which affects salivation, so my teeth are totally jacked up, even though they look really nice. I also have type 1 diabetes, and it makes my teeth naturally more prone to infections. So, cost-wise, I am screwed when it comes to dental care. I know somebody with the rare disease I have, that has about 20 implants in her mouth.

But, if your teeth are really jacked up, and especially if you need implants (of course it is better than dentures), it is way cheaper to go to European Union countries. This is even for 1 implant. If you may need thousands of dollars in dental care, you may be better off going to the European Union to get that care.

Thanks for your detailed reply and I’m sorry to hear of your medical conditions. Please continue to take good care of yourself.

Mess up cutting your toe nails or not disinfecting minor wounds and you can end up with a serious infection too.

If you really want to be frugal, why not go all John Rambo style and just cauterize the wound with some gunpowder? It's probably <$2 for enough to make sure you don't bleed out.

If you're cauterizing a wound, you wouldn't use gunpowder.

A sterile suture kit is about $2 as well.

No lidocaine?

Nah. It doesn't hurt too bad in most locations.

Yeah, just ask any cutter. For a version that most will have experience with—weightlifting/working out sucks and is "painful" but can feel great too.