Root Canal Cost This Woman $6,000 in the U.S. — and Just $7 to Fix It in Turkey

Kayleigh Öğüt, a TikTok user with 62,000 followers on the platform, went viral with a video in which she describes the cheap, good dental care she has received in Turkey.

So cheap, in fact, that the root canal Kayleigh got fixed in the country cost her about a tenth of a percent of what the root canal cost in the U.S. Keep reading for all of the details.

“I’m an American living in Turkey because I have a Turkish husband, and people ask me all the time if I want to move back to the States,” Kayleigh says in the Oct. 31, 2023, video, prefacing the story of her dental experience.

Kayleigh has a ton of other videos about her time in Turkey, by the way. In one upload, she lists what she loves about living in the country: “the blend of small local community and giant, sprawling city; the balance of modern living and rich history; the normalization of Turkish coffee; the call to prayer, it makes me feel very aware of the moment; the sea; [and] the small community of believers from all over the world.”

In her Oct. 31 video, Kayleigh tells viewers that she went to a dentist in Turkey the week before to “fix a root canal that an American dentist messed up.” Then she relates the ways in which her American and Turkish dentists different.

The Turkish dentist, for example, ordered three X-rays — to “make sure the filling was fully taking up the space,” Kayleigh explains — while her American dentist didn't order any X-rays.

Plus, at her Turkish dental appointment, Kayleigh got bleaching that her American dentist said was impossible, Kayleigh tells viewers. And, she says, the Turkish dentist didn’t break her crown.

“It was some of the most — it was the most superb, fantastic, incredible dental care I’ve ever had,” Kayleigh adds in the video, which has racked more more than 246,000 likes.

And then came the kicker: “It cost me $7. Seven dollars,” Kayleigh says. “The original root canal that I had — that the Turkish dentist needed to fix — was $6,000.”

So no, it doesn’t seem like Kayleigh is in any rush to move back to the U.S. “My husband and I genuinely do not know how we could ever say goodbye to the healthcare here,” she says.

As you might expect, Kayleigh’s video about her dental care experience in Turkey was met with shock and skepticism in the comments.

“Why can’t the U.S. use its massive economy and influence to provide free and proper healthcare and education to all its citizens?” one TikToker wrote.

Another commenter, meanwhile, thought the story was a stretch. “Not hating or anything, but I’m genuinely confused,” that TikToker wrote. “There is no MF way it cost you 7 dollars. That’s like 200 [Turkish lira] and that’s simply impossible in this economy.”

And a third user is a Turkish native living in the States and facing a different reality. “The dental treatment I’m receiving is just giving me anxiety,” they commented.