Dr. Rader, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho 83814
Dr. Rader, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho 83814
Tuesday, October 2, 2018
Tuesday, July 3, 2018
Effects of Soda on your Teeth!
EFFECTS OF SODA ON YOUR TEETH!
Ever seen those videos where someone puts a baby tooth in a glass of soda and watches it decay? Well, the effect of soda in an actual mouth is a bit different. You have your saliva to help wash away the sugar, you eat other things throughout the day, and brush at least twice a day to remove debris or plaque. Nevertheless, soda is not something we recommend you consume more often than a once-in-awhile treat. Here’s why: Sugar Soda has an extremely high sugar content. The bacteria that cause tooth decay feed off of sugar and excrete acid, which is what causes tooth decay. The more sugar our teeth have to interact with, the more prone to decay they will be. Acid Think diet soda is a better alternative? Even though it contains zero sugar, it can still contain acids such as phosphoric acid or citric acid. Acid eats away at a tooth’s enamel and leaves it prone to decay. Colors Caramel color, Yellow 5, etc. Any type of artificial coloring can cause tooth-staining. If you prefer your teeth sparkling white, it’s best to stay away from soda.
Instead of soda, we recommend spicing up your daily beverages with other alternatives. How about some sparkling water or plain water infused with fresh fruit? When you do drink soda, make sure to rinse with water afterwards. And, as always, keep up with regular brushing and flossing to protect those precious teeth!
GenerationsDentalCDA.com
Justin Rader DDS
Wednesday, April 11, 2018
5 Beliefs that may eventually lead to White spot lesions on your teeth.
5 Beliefs that may eventually lead to White Spot Lesions - (CariFree Article)
White spot lesions are no joke. They are spots on your enamel that lack the minerals that build strong enamel and, thus, are weaker than the surrounding tooth surface. White spots can lead to full cavities, in addition to being cosmetically undesirable. However, they are not inevitable. There are some mistaken beliefs that may lead to white spots that were completely avoidable. Read on to see if you have accidentally adopted any of these dangerous (for your enamel health) beliefs.
Belief 1: Brushing once a day is fine, it’ll do the job.
Brushing your teeth first thing in the morning is great. It’s a healthy way to kick off your day. Brushing before you eat anything is even better; it lets you get rid of any bacteria that started growing on your teeth overnight instead of spreading and swallowing those bacteria.
However, thinking that a single daily appointment with your toothbrush is all the care your mouth needs is a recipe for trouble. You expose your mouth to enamel compromising foods and drinks throughout the day. You don’t want to wait twenty-four hours before dislodging the food particles and the bacteria that flourish on those food particles from your mouth. Brush every morning and before bedtime (at least) to keep those enamel weakening forces in check.
Belief 2: Immediately after eating, you should brush vigorously.
It’s understandable to want to completely clean your teeth after each meal, but white spots can grow from overbrushing, too. As you eat, the environment in your mouth becomes more acidic. The acid dissolves some of the minerals that make up tooth enamel. Normally, as the pH levels in your mouth rise after eating, partially with the help of saliva, the minerals, assisted by fluoride, redeposit on your teeth and rejoin the enamel.
If you vigorously brush your teeth while your mouth is still acidic after eating, you risk brushing away the dissolved minerals, stripping your enamel away. The resulting weakened white spot lesions are precisely what you were seeking to avoid by brushing. Instead, chew xylitol gum or swish plain water in your mouth directly after eating, and save the gentle tooth brushing for at least an hour after food or drinks.
Belief 3: Healthy foods won’t hurt my teeth, only junk food.
It’s well understood that sugar is a major contributor to tooth decay. It’s important to eat a healthy diet; the vitamins and minerals from a healthy diet contribute to overall better health and better oral health. But, that does not mean that eating a healthy diet is not without downsides for enamel health if no additional precautions are taken.
The problem is healthy foods still cause an acidic environment in the mouth after eating. In fact, fruits, which can be very healthy, also can be very acidic. Long term acid environments in the mouth can equal enamel compromise and white spot lesions. Raising oral pH after eating, even after eating healthy foods, is important to the health of your teeth.
Belief 4: Fluoride is always dangerous. I should always stick to fluoride free products.
People can have some strongly held beliefs about fluoride in toothpaste. Sometimes, those beliefs are not supported by good, current research. It seems, based on the best research, that fluoride is a good thing in moderation, not too much and not too little.
Current research indicates that fluoride in toothpaste helps the minerals that dissolve out of the teeth after eating reattach to the enamel as the pH rises again. Fluoride is an important tool to keep white, demineralized spots from developing on teeth. Brushing with a fluoride toothpaste or tooth gel is recommended for most adults and children who can do so properly.
It is well known that too much fluoride can cause brown, discolored spots on the teeth if the teeth are exposed to too much fluoride before they finish developing. It’s a condition called fluorosis. That’s why it’s important to supervise small children while they brush their teeth. A fluoride free tooth gel may be appropriate for young children who swallow toothpaste; check with your dentist if you have questions.
Belief 5: Fluoride only helps before the teeth erupt.
While we know that too much fluoride can injure developing teeth, we also know that some fluoride can strengthen developing teeth. This was a theory at one time, that fluoride could only be incorporated into developing teeth. According to this theory, only young children would benefit from fluoride since they were the only ones who were still growing new teeth.
We now know that fluoride on the surface of the teeth helps minerals reattach to teeth, so even fully grown teeth benefit from fluoride therapy. A toothpaste with minerals and fluoride is the most effective home care product, when used properly, to avoid white spot lesions.
Justin Rader DDS
GenerationsDentalCDA.com
Reference:5 Beliefs that may eventually lead to White spot lesions on your teeth. https://carifree.com/2018/01/23/5-beliefs-that-may-eventually-lead-to-white-spot-lesions/
Monday, October 23, 2017
Understanding the Five Stages of Tooth Decay
Did you know there are five distinct stages of tooth decay? And, that in the first stage of decay, you can actually take steps to reverse the progression of the disease? Indeed, it’s true. In the first stage of decay, whether you’re a child or an adult, the application of fluoride via fluoride treatments, your toothpaste and even the local water supply can stop a cavity from penetrating through the enamel and reaching its second stage. Even the saliva in your mouth and the foods you eat help to re-mineralize a tooth in jeopardy. But that’s just the first stage! What about the rest? Understanding how a cavity progresses can assist you in preventing each successive stage from occurring in your children. There’s always a lot going on in that little mouth!
Stage One: White Spots In stage one, the tooth begins to show signs of strain from the attack of sugars and acids, and white spots will begin to materialize just below the surface of the enamel. These white spots are representative of the demineralization of the tooth and can be easy to miss because they’re likely to occur on your child’s molars. A dental exam, of course, is designed to catch such cavities! Can you see why regular visits to the dentist are recommended? As mentioned previously, at this stage, the cavity can be repaired without the need to excavate the tooth.
Stage Two: Enamel Decay Stage two marks the beginning of the end for the surface enamel that is being attacked. Initially, the tooth erodes from the underside outward, so the outer enamel will still be intact for the first half of this second stage. Once the cavity breaks through the surface of the enamel, there is no turning back, and your child will need to have the cavity corrected with a filling.
Stage Three: Dentin Decay If a cavity in your child’s mouth were to progress beyond stage two without you knowing, you’d tend become aware of it when it started to hit stage three because it would probably start to cause some pain. At this level, the cavity begins to eat away at the second level of tooth material that lies beneath the enamel: the dentin. A filling can still be used to stop the onslaught of bacteria assaulting the tooth in order to prevent the cavity from reaching the tooth’s most critical component: the pulp.
Stage Four: Involvement of The Pulp Once the cavity reaches the pulp, it’s going to hurt. A lot. So if you’ve unfortunately missed all the signs to this point, a screaming child or moaning teenager will certainly let you know there is a big problem. Stage four is serious, and a root canal is the only option of treatment at this stage, save for a complete extraction.
Stage Five: Abscess Formation In the fifth and final stage of a cavity, the infection has reached the tip of the root and exited the tip of the tooth’s structure. This in turn infects the surrounding tissues and possibly the bone structure. Swelling would be commonplace and pain severe. In children (as well as adults) an abscess can be fatal if not dealt with promptly. Root canal or extraction would be the order of the day should decay reach this stage. Need to see us? Give a call at 208-664-9225.
As you can see, cavities don’t happen overnight. In the early stages, regular visits can stall and reverse the progression of these dastardly little devils, so it really does pay to visit the dentist at pre-selected intervals. You can keep your kids far from stage five their whole lives, and if a little bit of prodding to get them to the dentist accomplishes that, you can rest easy despite the griping.
GenerationsDentalCDA.com
Thursday, August 24, 2017
Why go to the dentist? Six Reasons You Need Regular Dental Checkups
Six Reasons You Need Regular Dental Checkups
Why go to the dentist?
Having to visit the dentist every six months may not be the appointment that everyone looks forward to, but it is one of the most important ones to keep. If you have found yourself wondering what the point of having regular dental checkups and cleanings really is, we’ve got something for you to think about.
If you are considering skipping a dental checkup because of cost or another factor like time or dental anxiety, make sure to consider all the risks. What you might end up paying in the long run for not visiting your dentist will likely be much higher, both for your wallet and your peace of mind. Here are some of the most important reasons why you should see your dentist regularly:
1. Oral Cancer Detection
Oral cancer is an extremely serious disease that manifests itself in various ways. Without knowing the signs of its early onset, oral cancer is often not diagnosed and can quickly progress and become life threatening. But thankfully, an early stage oral cancer diagnosis is often easily treatable.
Your dentist is highly trained to recognize these signs and symptoms, and with regular dental checkups every six months the likelihood of catching oral cancer in time is dramatically higher. Recognizing oral cancer in its early stages is key in treating it successfully, and while you may not notice oral abnormalities, your dentist will.
A VELscope Cancer exam is non-invasive, entirely pain-free, is covered by MSP in some cases, and lasts only a minute or two at most. The exam catches invisible signs of dead tissue caused by tumors forming by shining a special light inside the mouth. Takes very little time, totally painless, and could save your life? It’s a no-brainer!
2. Plaque, Tartar, and Cavities
Even with the most diligent daily brushers and flossers, there are still small areas in the mouth that are missed by a regular brushing and flossing. When plaque builds up it becomes more difficult to remove, solidifying and turning into tartar, which is extremely difficult to get rid of without professional help.
Regular dental cleanings prevent tartar from eroding teeth or creating holes in them, which is how cavities are created. Cavities rarely give any warning signs as they form, only resulting in a small ache once the tooth is already decayed. Once the damage has been done, you will have to go back to the dentist to have cavities and other tooth problems filled and fixed. This can all be avoided with regular cleanings that take care of plaque and tartar before it becomes destructive.
A cleaning appointment is also more affordable than getting a filling, so if money’s tight you should make sure not to miss the cleanings!
3. Gum Disease
Plaque and tartar buildup not only cause tooth decay but can also erode the mouth’s gum tissues. This happens when tartar buildup causes an infection where the gum is connected to the tooth, making the gum pull away from the tooth. This infection is known as gingivitis and as it progresses the tissue that attaches gums to the teeth breaks down.
Once it reaches this point it is officially gum disease, and only at this point will there likely be any swelling, bleeding, or soreness in the mouth. Along with the breakdown of gum tissue, gum disease also causes a breakdown of the bone that holds teeth in place. At this point it is common to see teeth loosening or falling out altogether and drastic treatment methods will have to be taken by a dental specialist.
Not only do specialists require more appointments and likely a blow to your wallet, but treatment of gum disease, depending on the severity, can include surgery, extremely deep cleaning, and medication. To avoid all of this, regular dental cleanings are essential in catching and addressing gingivitis before it gets out of hand.
4. Keeping Bad Habits in Check
There are many bad habits that can have a negative impact on your oral health, some of which you may not even realize are causing issues. Some of these habits include chewing ice, biting your nails, clenching your jaw, grinding your teeth, eating particularly sticky or hard sweets, brushing your teeth too hard, drinking coffee and red wine, and of course smoking.
When you go for regular dental checkups, your dentist can check for any oral damage caused by these or other habits which you may otherwise not have noticed. Being informed about specific destructive habits allows you to change or alter your lifestyle choice to prevent further damage. Visiting the dentist allows you to fix the damage that has already been done, and help your oral health be the best it can be.
5. Find Problems Under the Surface With X-Rays
A crucial part of visiting your dentist every six months is getting your teeth and jaw bone x-rayed. X-ray images allow dental professionals to see what is happening beneath the surfaces of your mouth, and can find and diagnose issues that may be invisible to the naked eye. Problems like this can include impacted teeth, which are growing teeth that are blocked from pushing through the gum line, as often seen in wisdom teeth.
Damage to the jawbone can also be pinpointed as well as any bone decay, swelling, cysts, or tumours, all of which are impossible to actually see without x-ray imaging. Finding these or any other major oral issues as soon as possible is critical in order to properly treat them.
Especially with destructive diseases that show little to no symptoms but progress quickly, up-to-date x-rays and bi-annual checkups are the best way to keep on top of your health.
6. Head, Neck, and Lymph Node Checks
In addition to checking your mouth, gums, and tongue for signs or oral cancer, your dentist will also check your neck, jaw, and lymph nodes, located just below your jawline, for any swelling, lumps, or other abnormalities. If an abnormality is found it could be a sign of a major health issue, and your dentist will alert you to it and refer you the appropriate medical professional.
Swollen lymph nodes are a particular area that do not necessarily hurt or seem out of the ordinary but when identified properly by a professional could be a sign of certain kinds of cancer or other diseases that require immediate attention. Not having regular dental checkups drastically cuts down how often your neck and thyroid glands are checked. So while looking for abnormalities only takes your dentist a minute, it could mean an extremely serious disease is identified early enough to make a huge difference.
So, Are Dental Checkups Worth the Effort?
Dentists and dental professionals are not only concerned with fixing teeth. They professionally clean your teeth, aim to ensure your teeth and gums are healthy, and check for abnormalities that may otherwise go unnoticed and could be a sign of larger health issues. Dental professionals make sure that your bones are strong, and will help you correct any habits that may be sabotaging your oral health, among other things.
Skipping dental appointments may not seem like a big deal, but oral issues can develop and progress extremely quickly whether or not you notice it. By keeping on top of your dental cleanings and checkups you’re doing yourself a big favour in the long run.
Here’s wishing you a great year of oral health!
https://goo.gl/E3r6zE
Justin Rader DDS
GenerationsDentalCDA.com
Wednesday, June 7, 2017
Want to Raise Inspired Kids? A Navy SEAL Commander Says Teach Them These 10 Things
Want to Raise Inspired Kids? A Navy SEAL Commander Says Teach Them These 10 Things
A few years ago, a retired Navy SEAL commander named Bill McRaven gave a graduation speech at the University of Texas. His words went viral, starting with his advice that no matter what you do, if you want to be successful, you should make your bed in the morning.
McRaven, who had been in charge of the mission to get Osama bin Laden in 2011, has since become the chancellor of the University of Texas System, and he's also now a best-selling author, as his book Make Your Bed topped the New York Times bestseller list.
Lauded as "a book to inspire your children and grandchildren to become everything that they can," by the Wall Street Journal, McRaven's book is a short, easy read--just 144 pages--and highly motivating. Here are his 10 key pieces of advice.
1. Start your day with a task completed.
If you want to be successful in life, start by making your bed every day.
McRaven talks about how in the grueling six-month Navy SEAL training, he made his thin bed according to his instructors' meticulous standards, and how the habit sustained him for four decades. He also talks about seeing Saddam Hussein after he'd been captured by American forces in Iraq in 2003--and noticing that he never bothered to make the Army cot in his cell.
"Sometimes the simple act of making your bed can give the lift you need to start your day and provide you the satisfaction to end it right," McRaven says.
2. You can't go it alone.
Every leadership book out there includes this advice, but McRaven has some of the best anecdotes supporting it. He talks about SEAL training again, focusing on how small teams of wanna-be SEALs were required to work together and haul a heavy rubber boat with them wherever they went.
But years after training, when McRaven was a high-ranking commander and was badly injured in a parachuting accident, he learned what this really meant, crediting all of the people who forced him to believe in himself, to recover, and to save his own career--starting with his wife and including the friends who visited him and the senior admiral who helped him navigate the Navy bureaucracy.
"You cannot paddle alone. Find someone to share your life with. Make as many friends as possible, and never forget that your success depends on others," McRaven writes.
3. Only the size of your heart matters.
I'm barely 5-foot-7, so I love this advice: It's more about the size of the fight in the dog than the size of the dog in the fight.
In his speech at Texas, McRaven talked about his respect for a very tough crew of SEAL trainees, the tallest of whom was only 5-foot-5. In Make Your Bed, he talks about meeting one of the most decorated SEALs from Vietnam--a diminutive man who was a Medal of Honor recipient and who had gone behind enemy lines many times to save downed airmen.
Before McRaven knew who the man was, he'd dismissed him in his mind because of his small size. That, he says, was a mistake: "It's not the size of your flippers that count, just the size of your heart."
4. Life's not fair. Drive on!
Often, during SEAL training in San Diego, McRaven writes, the instructors would punish students for small infractions, or even no infraction, by requiring them to run fully clothed into the Pacific Ocean, then roll around in the sand until they looked like a "sugar cookie." As a result, they'd face a very uncomfortable day, cold, wet, and sandy.
"Do you have any idea why you are a sugar cookie this morning?" an instructor who'd punished McRaven asked him once. "Because...life isn't fair, and the sooner you learn that, the better off you will be."
As McRaven writes, sometimes life just sucks through no fault of your own. The most successful among us accept it--and drive forward anyway.
5. Failure can make you stronger.
This is another one of those pieces of advice that you hear from many leadership experts, but it just has a little more oomph coming from McRaven.
He talks about how failure literally made him stronger during SEAL training, when, as a result of coming in last on a distance swim exercise, he and another SEAL were punished with an extra two hours of physical training each day.
The punishment was known as the "circus," and it was no fun. But a funny thing happened, McRaven writes: While the circus could have broken them, it made him and his fellow SEAL trainee stronger. Eventually, they were the best swimmers in their class.
6. You must dare greatly.
SEAL training included a daunting obstacle course, and McRaven talks about how he had to be willing to dive down a 200-foot "slide for life" headfirst to have any chance of finishing it in time. It was risky, and scary--but effective.
He also talks about one instance in which this same willingness to dare greatly led him to authorize an incredibly risky helicopter rescue of prisoners in Iraq. The mission was successful--but being willing to take risks means knowing you'll likely fail at least sometimes.
"Life is a struggle and the potential for failure is ever present," McRaven writes, "but those who live in fear of failure, or hardship, or embarrassment, will never achieve their potential. Without pushing your limits, without occasionally sliding down the rope headfirst, without daring greatly, you will never know what is truly possible in your life."
7. Stand up to the bullies.
McRaven talks about being scared of sharks during SEAL training--quite understandably, since the waters off San Diego, where they swam for hours each day, were full of them. Facing the sharks was just one price of becoming a SEAL.
He also talks about another experience later in his career, again after the United States had captured Saddam Hussein in Iraq. Even as a deposed despot and prisoner, Hussein managed to intimidate the Iraqi leaders who came to see him. So, McRaven ordered him isolated and humbled, so that when the Iraqi leaders met him again, they wouldn't be afraid.
"In life, to achieve your goals, to compete the night swim, you will have to be men and women of great courage. That courage is within all of us. Dig deep, and you will find it in abundance," McRaven writes.
8. Rise to the occasion.
Among other missions, Navy SEALs conduct underwater attacks against enemy ships. That requires swimming several miles underwater, "using nothing but a depth gauge and a compass to get to their target," McRaven writes.
It's scary as heck. But the true moments of rising to the occasion, McRaven writes, came later--when he was commanding soldiers and SEALs and had to watch men react to the deaths of some of their comrades in arms.
"At some point, we will all confront a dark moment in life. If not the passing of a loved one, then something else that crushes your spirit and leaves you wondering about your future. In that dark moment, reach deep inside yourself and be your very best," McRaven writes.
9. Give people hope.
McRaven talks about a SEAL training exercise in the freezing mud that pushed him and his classmates to the limits. Their instructors promised that if five students would quit, the rest of their class would be allowed to sit by a fire and warm up. Instead of quitting, he said, the students started singing, and thus inspiring each other to endure.
Many years later, McRaven recounts losing soldiers in combat--and seeing the example of a Marine general named John Kelly as he met with families of the fallen. The general's rapport with families came from his own tragedy, as his son had been killed in Afghanistan.
"Without ever knowing it, John Kelly gave all those around him hope," McRaven writes. "Hope that in the very worst of times we could rise above the pain, the disappointment, the agony, and be strong.... Hope is the most powerful force in the universe."
10. Never, ever quit!
Students in SEAL training can quit at any time--in McRaven's class, 150 students began with him, and only 33 graduated. Symbolically, students who quit are required to go to the center of the training compound and ring a brass bell three times.
On the first day of training, an instructor told McRaven and his classmates that his goal was to push them to ring that bell, but also told them: "If you quit, you will regret it for the rest of your life. Quitting never makes anything easier."
McRaven focuses on one time in particular when that lesson really became clear to him, when a 19-year-old Army Ranger under his command was wounded in combat and lost both of his legs. A year later, the soldier was still on active duty, never quitting, his prosthetic legs hidden by his uniform trousers.
"Life is full of difficult times," McRaven writes. "But someone out there always has it worse than you do.... Never, ever, ring the bell!"
PUBLISHED ON: MAY 26, 2017
https://www.inc.com/bill-murphy-jr/navy-seal-mcraven-make-your-bed-book.html
Justin Rader DDS
GenerationsDentalCDA.com
Thursday, May 25, 2017
Dental Neglect can make people sick.
Our Teeth Are Making Us Sick
The left side of Jacquelyn Garcia’s face throbbed fiercely. She had tried taking Tylenol and Excedrin for the pain, but threw them up. On a Monday morning straight after working the night shift as a custodian, she rushed to the N.Y.U. emergency dental clinic. Here a student delivered the verdict: decay so deep it had reached the nerve. The tooth needed to be pulled.
Paradoxically, this could make her mouth worse off. Dentists say pulling a tooth can lead to a cascade of other problems: the teeth start shifting, the bone diminishes, the skin sags and the risk of gum disease increases. But Ms. Garcia didn’t have any choice. Her tooth had been rotting from the inside out for more than a year. She didn’t have dental insurance and didn’t want to pay the high fees until the pain had surged and she couldn’t stand it anymore.
As Americans debate medical coverage, the problem of our teeth has remained almost entirely unaddressed. About 114 million Americans don’t have insurance coverage for their teeth – more than twice the number of people who didn’t have health insurance before the Affordable Care Act.
“Oral health is a neglected issue nationally,” said Julia Paradise, an associate director of the program on Medicaid and the Uninsured at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “This is a big problem. The mouth and the head – mental health and dental health – somehow remain outside of what people think of as general health.”
Lots of people (including politicians) think of dental care as a luxury – pleasant, sure, but not vital. But that’s just not true, experts say. Gum disease can increase the risk of heart disease and diabetes, and among pregnant women it is correlated with lower birth weights for their babies.
“It’s a lot more than just having a pretty smile,” said Peter Polverini, a dean emeritus at the University of Michigan School of Dentistry. “It’s not uncommon that you wind up with people being hospitalized because they can’t afford care.” Emergency room visits for dental problems – when teeth are often too ruined to save — cost the U.S. health care system an estimated $1.6 billion a year.
It’s virtually an accident of history that dental care isn’t considered part of medical care. The medieval barber-surgeon used to attend to all the human ailments that required a knife: bloodletting, tooth extraction, shaving. In the 1840s in the United States, the heirs to the tradition wanted to become professionals; they didn’t want to keep wandering from town to town selling their services. They asked physicians at the Medical College at the University of Maryland if they would include dentistry in the medical coursework, but the physicians refused. Soon after the dentists opened a separate dental school nearby.
This “historic rebuff,” as some historians have called it, is the creation myth of modern dentistry. The central tension in the tale – the separation between doctors and dentists (and the health of the mouth and the health of the body) – continues to plague patients today.
Obamacare doesn’t require plans to include dental coverage for adults and Medicaid has no required adult dental benefits, so coverage varies widely state-by-state, and even year-to-year. In addition, more than 51 million people live in federally designated “dental professional shortage areas,” where there are simply not enough providers to cover the need, according to Mary Otto’s new book Teeth. In many places, Medicaid offers such skimpy reimbursements that dentists don’t want to participate.
Experts have long observed that people’s teeth both reflect and reinforce poverty.
“I’ve been a public health researcher for about 25 years. I’ve worked with a lot of different populations of people,” said Harold Pollack, a scholar of poverty at the University of Chicago. “One common element of every severely vulnerable population I’ve worked with is people always have bad teeth. And they have always borne a real stigma for that.”
In New York, non-profits, teaching schools, and clinics that receive federal money have popped up to fill the demand for care, but the result is a patchwork system.
At the N.Y.U. School of Dentistry, some patients suffer traumatic injuries, but others simply never had preventative care and have reached the point of emergency. Dr. Laurie Fleisher, the amiable director of urgent care, recalled seeing a sixteen-year-old girl who hadn’t been to the dentist in five years. She came to the clinic in terrible pain. Neither the mother nor her daughter had realized how bad the damage to the girl’s teeth was, and soon they were both crying.
“I have to turn away sometimes, walk out,” said Dr. Fleisher. “Because I cry.”
In attempts to cheaply stem tooth pain, patients sometimes make their problems worse. Dr. Fleisher said she regularly sees patients crush aspirin onto their gums, hoping to soothe their mouths; instead, it burns away the gum tissue.
At the Institute for Family Health clinic in Harlem, which receives federal funds to treat the uninsured, a couple described taking two buses and a train from Long Island to reach an affordable dentist.
Dentists at the Institute recently saw a 12-year-old girl with such swollen gums that they wrote a case study about her to teach other medical professionals. “Kate,” as they refer to her in the study, had dental troubles that were affecting nearly every aspect of her life. She weighed only 69 pounds, likely because she was drinking liquids to avoid chewing. She barely spoke and rarely participated in school; her mother said she was bullied.
In the South Bronx, Diana Cardona works as a dentist out of a giant blue truck, in a program run by the Children’s Health Fund and the Children’s Hospital at Montefiore. The program gets federal funds to serve poor communities.
“Can you fix this?” a woman once asked as she spat six crowns into her hand one by one.
Dr. Cardona sees patients who haven’t been to the dentist in decades, who tell her they don’t want to work in the front of the office, or talk to people, because they’re too humiliated by their teeth. They fear that rotting teeth will be seen as evidence of poverty, homelessness, or bad hygiene. (“My family’s distress over our teeth – what food might hurt or save them, whether having them pulled was a mistake – reveals the psychological hell of having poor teeth in a rich, capitalist country,” the essayist Sarah Smarsh wrote.)
Dentists and public health officials say ignorance and indifference are primary reasons dental care still isn’t included in general healthcare nationwide. Burton Edelstein, a professor at Columbia’s College of Dental Medicine, recounted a visit to lawmakers, seeking an adult dental benefit.
Lawmakers quickly rebuffed him, he recalled, saying in effect, “Dental doesn’t matter. Adults can take care of themselves.”
So the advocates tried again, pitching a dental benefit for disabled adults to the lawmakers. That didn’t work. Finally, they proposed something even more minimal: dental care for pregnant women. Lawmakers refused.
As Julia Paradise from Kaiser noted, “Unlike a lot of chronic disease where we’re still struggling with the science of how to prevent these diseases, we know how to do this in oral health. This is actually a problem we can solve.”
https://kristof.blogs.nytimes.com/2017/05/23/our-teeth-are-making-us-sick/?emc=eta1&_r=0
GenerationsDentalCDA.com
Justin Rader DDS
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