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A new article in the New York Times titled “Wisdom of Having that Tooth Removed” written by Roni Caryn Rabin published September 5, 2011, is an interesting articles for those considering whether or not to have healthy wisdom teeth extracted. The article is located at http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/06/health/06consumer.html

The article explores some of the issues regarding whether or not you should or not have have healthy wisdom teeth extracted.

The article discusses how the American Association of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgeons (AAOMS) held a press conference back in October of 2010, http://www.aaoms.org/docs/media/third_molars/key_findings.pdf, in which one of the key findings was

“Retained, asymptomatic wisdom teeth are eventually extracted between 25% and almost 70% of the time.”

The author of the New York Times article questioned AAOMS on this statement which appeared on their website. The response from AAOMS was

“Yet when asked, the association was not able to produce the evidence for these figures.”

The author concludes

“As for my daughter Emma, we have opted for watchful waiting. She went off to college last month, wisdom teeth and all.”

An interesting article by the American Dental Association (ADA) titled “Special Report: An in-depth look at new dental schools” by Karen Fox published September 5, 2011, located at http://www.ada.org/news/6173.aspx explores new dental schools which are now opening in the U.S. This is partly driven due to new academic health centers which believe dental school is essential to their mission.

The ADA is concerned about the opening of these new dental schools as additional dentists can potentially bring down the overall average salaries of dentists.

The ADA is concerned with the extremely high costs of dental education as those who graduate from dental school from public schools paid an average of $124,397 for their education while those in private schools paid $223,788. These high costs can affect how a dentist practices. The ADA is also concerned with the research that may not be conducted by these new dental schools. The ADA is further concerned that many of these new dentists will work in more affluent areas and not serve those most in need of dental care in undeserved areas. The ADA maintains that it can not control the supply and demand of dentists, although I do not entirely agree.

“But it’s up to the governing board of an institution of higher education to decide to open or close a dental school. “The ADA has no role in the creation of new dental schools. A professional organization cannot control supply and demand,” said Dr. Brain T. Kennedy … chair of the ADA Council on Dental Education and Licensure.”

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Recently an article has appeared on DrBicupsid.com titled Swimming in acidic pool nearly destroys man’s teeth written by Rob Goszkowski and posted on September 6, 2011, located at http://www.drbicuspid.com/index.aspx?sec=sup&sub=rst&pag=dis&ItemID=308363
The article describes a case of a 52 year old man who nearly lost the enamel of his teeth in just 5 month by swimming regularly at his home pool.

In fact, while it is widely appreciated that exercising regularly is good for your health you should consider the potential harm of any sort of new exercise program and yes this includes swimming and even walking.

This man was suffering from hemangiomas in his liver and was told by his doctor to stop jogging so he decided on his own that he would take up swimming and in fact would do so for 90 minutes a day at a pool in his house that was not being professionally maintained.

It was found that the reason for his rapid enamle erosion was due to having a highly acidic chlorinated swimming pool (low pH). The normal pH of a pool should be between 7.2 and 7.6 which is considered to be basic.

Image from http://www.flickr.com/photos/gcwest/136945653/ and has a Creative Commons License.

Tom over at OralAnswers.com has also explored swimming and it’s effect on teeth in his article titled Can Chlorine in Swimming Pools Dissolve or Stain Your Teeth? published June 15, 2011, and located at http://www.oralanswers.com/2011/06/chlorine-swimming-pools-dissolve-stain-teeth/

In his article he states:

“This means that in a basic swimming pool, the calcium and minerals present in your mouth will harden onto your teeth rather than dissolve (as they would if the pH were acidic – this is why your teeth dissolve slowly when you eat or drink anything acidic.) “

An article titled Swimmers Risk Stained Smiles, Chipped Teeth http://www.knowyourteeth.com/infobites/abc/article/Default.asp?abc=S&iid=331&aid=1324 updated March 2007, says:

“Athlete swimmers, who often swim laps more than six hours a week, expose their teeth to large amounts of chemically treated water. Pool water contains chemical additives like antimicrobials, which give the water a higher pH than saliva, causing salivary proteins to break down quickly and form organic deposits on swimmer’s teeth. The result is swimmer’s calculus, hard, brown tartar deposits that appear predominantly on the front teeth.”

This is not the first case where dental erosion has occurred due to a low pH in a swimming pool due to inadequate maintenance. This is described in an article called Etiology of dental erosion–extrinsic factors by DT Zero appearing in Eur J Oral Sci, vol 104, no. 2 part 2, pages 162-177,  April 1996.

Hence it is important to know what the pH is of the pool you are swimming in and especially so if you begin to notice some dental erosion.

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Tom over at OralAnswers has previously written a post on how to win a dental malpractice suit http://www.oralanswers.com/2010/07/sue-your-dentist-and-win-malpractice-lawsuit/

I also discuss on my U.S. Legal System and Medical Malpractice page http://www.teethremoval.com/legal_system_medical_malpractice the 4 elements you must prove to have a chance at winning a malpractice suit.

(1) the doctor to provide a standard of care to patients in the locality where the treatment occured (legal duty)

(2) the doctor breached that standard of care

(3) an injury causing damages

(4) the breach of the standard of care was the proximate cause of the injury.

Now as is quite clear on my site I disagree with the current ‘standard of care’ of removing healthy wisdom teeth in young healthy patients in the U.S. This is not the standard of care in the U.K.

I wanted to touch on an additional element in this post to help improve your chances of winning a dental malpractice lawsuit due to the aggressive tactics employed by dentists, oral surgeons, and their staff to prevent lawsuits.

As indicated on my complications page, my personal experience, and doing additional research on Yelp of wisdom teeth extraction oral surgeon reviews, it is quite clear that patients who experience symptoms and complications after having wisdom teeth extracted are sometimes told things to the effect of:

The condition was not related to the surgery, or the problems were not related to the oral surgery, or send us your follow up results/testing from a medical doctor so we can determine IF your problems are related to the oral surgery as we have not heard of that complication happening before.

Remember that dentists and oral surgeons are in the business of pulling out teeth and are hence after profit and protecting themselves from liability which all too often is at the expense of making the patient receiving  fair compensation.

When I discussed my complication of a 24/7 headache that started roughly 2 days after having 4 healthy wisdom teeth extracted with a lawyer it was suggested to me that there WAS NO WAY TO PROVE I DIDN’T HIT MY HEAD ON THE WAY OUT OF THE OFFICE OR SOMETHING ELSE HAPPENED BETWEEN THE ORAL SURGERY AND THE ONSET OF THE HEADACHE. I was unable to receive any compensation for my injuries and continue to have a 24/7 headache and my surgery occurred over 5 years ago.

The only feasible way I see to get around a lot of these issues is to VIDEO TAPE THE ORAL SURGERY AND ALL EVENTS AFTERWARDS FOR AT LEAST SEVERAL DAYS.

I would personally recommend bringing in multiple friends and family members to the oral surgery and video tape the extractions from multiple angles. You will also need to ensure you have at least 1 video camera on you at all times for like I said at least a few days after the surgery.

Now let’s be honest some dentists and oral surgeons will not be welcoming to having multiple people video taping the surgery but this is really the only way within the current confines of the law to help protect yourself and increase your chances of winning a potential suit if a complication were to occur.

Look if your dentist or oral surgeon won’t let you video tape the surgery then I would find a different one or maybe feed them some BS excuse for taping the surgery such as for a class project or something.  Otherwise I would resort to possibly bugging the oral surgeons or dentists office or hiding cameras or something in your clothes.

Current scientific evidence doesn’t support or refute having healthy wisdom teeth extracted http://www.teethremoval.com/controversy.html and this is an elective procedure. If you are going to have it done at least provide yourself the additional evidence of video tape of the event and events following the surgery to help increase your chances of a successful lawsuit if things don’t go as you would hope.

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Last week, I posted a bold video to raise Breast Cancer Awareness http://blog.teethremoval.com/rethink-breast-cancer-your-man-reminder/.

Well in Britain around a month or so ago an extremely bold video was released to raise Testicular Cancer Awareness as part of the Male Cancer Awareness Campaign http://www.malecancer.org. This video features model Rhian Sugden and should only be viewed if you are prepared for the worst. So far it is been viewed over 1.4 million times on YouTube.

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As a dentist you may be put off by the thought of “marketing” your dental business. After all you didn’t major in business, but rather in dentistry. However, marketing your dentistry business is of great significance. The major reason for dental marketing is to get as many patients as you can. This should be the key factor of your marketing plan. To achieve this goal, you also need to set an online platform where you must create a space for professional recognition. So what comes to your mind first? Social media? Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn? Let’s see the consequences.

Undoubtedly, social media has played a great role in how businesses have reshaped marketing. This is why medical marketing on social media is the hype these days. However, creating recognition in a highly competitive market can be exigent. So it’s better to assess your professional expertise and business plan before you make a move.

Which category do you belong to? Are you a type of dentist who is unsure about taking your dentistry profession into the cyber world? Do you feel hesitant about facing a large audience with dissimilar interests? Are you prone to risks and looking for a safer social dental marketing method? Read on to see the fresh ideas we have for you.

Dentists, who have a very doubtful approach towards social media for dental marketing, face three types of risks. These are:

1. The risk of being left alone and unrecognized in a competitor dominant market
2. The risk of being intimidated with similar businesses that have already captured the social media market
3. The risk of receiving anonymous messages that are either irrelevant (waste time) or negative (put a bad name to the business)

These three risks are indeed a matter of consideration associated with social media for dental marketing.  While these threats are logical, it is important to remember that late adopters of latest media trends are likely to put in more effort to catch up. Therefore, social media marketing is considered to be a must for dental offices to show their existence to the world.

Meeting the clients’ demands is never an easy task. You might have to face even worse threats fulfilling the expectations of your clients in dental marketing. Despite the positive results, dental marketing has shown via mainstream social networks, the risks associated with it just can’t be ignored. Social networks are basically designed for people to hook back and enhance their social connections with people they know. Receiving dental web marketing messages on social network sites can be frustrating for them. This may result in excessive negative comments on your page that may eventually discourage all your existing and potential clients to cling on your dental services.

Isn’t it a turn off for all dental professionals to continue dental marketing on social media sites? Isn’t it too annoying to receive low return on investment? Aren’t you afraid to end up mixing your private and professional messages? We have a solution.

The Rising Popularity of Dental Social Networks

Online communities that support the dentistry profession and are designed to help dentists and dental patients to connect are on the rise. Reason? Because these dental networks are exclusively aimed to connect dentists and patients in a more professional way, while also eradicating the threats of social media.

Dental networks are a great dental marketing alternative. Checkdent.com is a newly launched online community aiming to avoid risky DIY dental experiments on social media networks. Since a highly targeted audience is already in search of you, you have an opportunity to directly hit a market where all the people are either dental experts or clients. There are no random users like those on Facebook and Twitter.

Dental networks can be a great way to yield higher return on investment and share expertise and experience with people who are looking out for it. Checkdent.com offers features considering a whole range of marketing for dentist channels such as the dental forum, dental videos or a blog.  A social network is complemented by a dental video encyclopedia, an interactive dentist directory, and an expert maintained forum with regularly updated blogs.

Each of these features offer great opportunities to get the word out about your dental office by placing links that will land onto your own website.

To conclude, dental networks are a fresh new way to promote your dental business. So join a dental network today and make it the perfect market to fit your dental practice.

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