Testimonials

I am writing a review about Dr. Vardakis, who runs and has run for I think it was about twenty years a dental surgery in Irakleio,Crete.

Now, I do not keep a permanent home, but move country every six months or so. For one or two medical services, like a dermatologist, I've found one I really like and I just swing by when I'm back in that country. For a dentist, there is one I love and would always go to, except he's staggeringly expensive (in Manhattan - think 550 USD per filling) and I won't travel to the USA these days, the TSA and NSA. So I was in Crete. I'd spent three months in Hania, and then I moved over to Irkaleio, and I wanted to visit a dentist, and in fact I don't remember exactly what for now - oh yes! there was a big black old filling which my previous two dentists had both said they "didn't like the look of" and I in general had outstanding work to convert all my old black fillings into modern amalgam (whitish) fillings. So I wanted to get that done. Visiting a dentist is in a sense problematic, because it means you have to *find* a dentist, and that means finding one who's *good*. Lots of work, and it's not easy to get information you trust. The fake review industry is enormous. For me also, there's an additional complication, in that my lower molars seem pretty resistant to local anaesthetic, which makes life fun - in fact, these days, I find a dentist who is qualified in anaesthesia and actually have myself properly unconscious for such treatment. So, I began reading reviews and searching and so on - which is a bit more complicated also because you need really to be searching in Greek, which I don't speak or read (well, I can read, to say it, but I have no clue what it means). I have no idea now, after many months, exactly how I found the web-site for the practise. I do remember that I found a couple of sites, external sites which were reputable review sites, which had some reviews on. It was one of the very few - really I think the only - practise where I could actually find what I deemed to be genuine reviews, and genuine reviews which were favourable. So I went. So! what of the practise, the dentist and the work done. I had, if I remember it correctly, one pretty huge old black filling replaced, one small filling made, and one bit of reinforcement done (some material added to the wall of a tooth).

I also had my teeth whitened. Now, I can't really comment about the quality of work, because I'm not a dentist and I can't see inside my own mouth and even if I could I wouldn't know good from bad, unless there was some gross error and I couldn't say close my mouth =-) The one piece of work I can speak about to a greater extent is teeth whitening, which - quelle surprise, right? it's not magic - worked. The teeth whitening I actually learned about from the doctor. I knew of course it could be done, but I'd been told before - incorrectly - it had to be done by having an (expensive) mould made of your teeth, which you then used at home. Well, this is *a* way to do it. The other way, which is much easier, is to have the dentist do it directly while you're there. Now, I'm 46, and my teeth have never been whitened, so there was a lot to bleah out of them. I paid 400, which is the price, and for that you normally have one or two treatments. I needed three, and the third would have been at no extra cost, but I personally was not okay with that so I paid an extra 200. I'm profoundly happy with the results and I wish I had it done ten years ago. The fillings - ah, now we need to talk about the man himself, because when we start talking about dental work, we need to talk about how the dentist goes about his job.

What sort of man is he? how does he behave with patients? This is actually the strongest point of the man. He is one of the rare men who naturally empathizes - which is my way of saying that when he works, he ha put himself in your shoes and you can say really he is, in his mind, feeling what you are feeling - and so he is thinking about what you will feel, and making as sure as possible you feel *nothing*. I've only met one other dentist like this, because men are *not* normally like this, and that was the chap in NYC. To be sure of course other dentists care, but I think for them it's more a technical skill. It's not fundamentally and primarily about the *patient*, actually where the mental picture of their experience is the mechanism by which work is done. If - or rather, when, finally - you find a dentist like this, then you've got what you need and as long as they're able to actually do the work you need, you're set. In this case, for me, I will be to the maximum extent possible deferring dental work until I swing by Crete again (or, if I really need something doing and I can, going there just for this), and so am able to have it done there. Finally, prices. For
me, at any rate, I thought it was frankly dirt cheap. I'm used to NYC prices - as I say, 550 USD a filling. In the UK recently I saw an endodontist - a root canal specialist, and had an existing root canal replaced. 1200 GBP. Dr. V. charges I think it's about 70 euro per treatment, basically. I can understand this is good money for Crete, where living prices are very lower compared to Western European norms (rent in particular is far, far, faaaaaar lower). It costs peanuts and you don't feel anything, and as far as I can tell the work is absolutely okay. 100% recommended.

As an aside, there's a fabulous bar - general bar, coffee, drinks, food, the lot - outside on the same street, pretty much next door. They do an *incredible* hot chocolate.

We (George and I) would meet there before treatment, have a drink, chat about the world, and then amble in and do stuff. We've kept in touch, and we're friends. He's an avid photographer, so if you're into that he has an amazing collection of cameras, some of which are in the office.

One more aside, which is the mark of a good parent in fact, his son has become a dentist as well 🙂