Rheumatologic Diseases Can Initially Present Like Neurological Disorders

Research appearing in the Current Neurology and Neuroscience Reports have shown that lupus and other rheumatologic disorders can initially present as neurological disorders such as headaches and seizures which can lead to a few months of a delay in proper diagnosis. Rheumatologic diseases include autoimmune and inflammatory disorders of the joints and soft tissues, such as systemic vasculitis, lupus, and ankylosing spondylosis. More than half of lupus patients have headaches and a third have migraines. Around 1.5% of lupus patients have a headache that is persistent, severe, and intractable and does not respond to narcotic medications. Up to 20% of lupus patients have seizures and 1/3 of lupus patients have cognitive dysfunction. Up to 20% of lupus patients experience mood disorders such as psychosis. Patients who have systemic vasculitis can have headaches, stroke like syndromes, seizures, and optic neuropathies. Around 1/3 of … Read more

Proper Dental Care Can Lead to Less Respiratory Infections in the ICU

A study appearing in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology suggests that proper dental care can lead to less respiratory infections in the intensive care unit (ICU) of a hospital. The study was conducted by Brazilian researchers who used an observer-blind randomized clinical trial to analyze data from 254 patients who stayed in a ICU for at least 48 hours. The patients were randomized to receive enhanced dental care by a dentist or to receive standard oral hygiene by a nurse. Enhanced dental care included teeth brushing, tongue scraping, atraumatic restorative treatment, removal of calculus, extraction of teeth, and topical application of chlorhexidine 4 to 5 times a week. Regular dental care consisted of mechanical cleansing using gauze which was followed by chlorhexidine 3 times a week. The patients who received enchanced dental care were 56% less likely to develop a respiratory … Read more

Is Not Removing Wisdom Teeth Causing Harm?

An interesting article titled “Is official advice about NOT pulling out wisdom teeth doing more harm than good?” appeared earlier this year in February 2015, on the DailyMail over at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2946498/Is-NHS-causing-agony-telling-dentists-not-pull-wisdom-teeth.html and written by Cara Lee. The article questions whether or not the year 2000 guidelines from the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) went too far with preventing wisdom teeth extractions in teenagers and young adults. In these guidelines NICE said that the practice of prophylactic removal of pathology-free impacted third molars should be discontinued in the National Health Service in the U.K. Hence only wisdom teeth with problems should be extracted. In the article on the DailyMail there is a discussion of a 31 year old male who never had wisdom teeth extracted in his teens. Now he needs his wisdom teeth extracted and the molars … Read more

Seventeen Year Old Minnesota Teen Dies After Wisdom Teeth Extraction

A few weeks ago in June, 2015, a 17 year old Minnesota woman died about a week after having wisdom teeth surgery. Near the end of the wisdom teeth surgery her blood pressure increased, her pulse dropped, and she went into cardiac arrest. She then was transferred to a hospital and suffered from seizures and swelling in her brain until passing about a week later. It is not clear what caused the death to occur. She could have possibly had an undisclosed heart condition that has occurred in other cases. It is possible for a patient to only become aware of an asymptomatic and abnormal heart rhythm once they come in for a surgery. I have discussed other deaths from wisdom teeth removal on this website (see http://www.teethremoval.com/death.html). Based on numerous studies and publications I have said that around 1 … Read more