Wisdom Teeth

Dentists Overprescribing Opioids to Adults in the U.S.

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In the past on this site, some studies have discussed how dentists and oral surgeons may be prescribing too many opioids to their patients. For example see the posts Important Studies on Opioid Prescribing: Implications for Dentistry, Do Oral Surgeons Give Too Many Opioids for Wisdom Teeth Removal? and Opioid Prescriptions From Dental Clinicians for Young Adults and Subsequent Opioid Use and Abuse. Now a new study has recently appeared in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine titled “Overprescribing of Opioids to Adults by Dentists in the U.S., 2011–2015”, written by Suda et al. (pp. 1−14, 2019 in press). The study found that between 25% and 50% of opioids prescribed to adults by dentists in the U.S. are overprescribed. This is important because dentists are responsible for prescribing 10% of all opioids to patients in the U.S. The authors feel that urgent … Read more

Woman wins $10,000 for funny video after wisdom teeth surgery

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A senior in high school from Colorado has won $10,000 for a video she submitted to the ABC television show “America’s Funniest Home Videos” (AFV). She had her wisdom teeth extracted in April 2019 and her younger brother taped her for several hours after the surgery. The woman had four severely impacted wisdom teeth extracted and had to receive extra painkillers as a result. This caused her to have some hilarious reactions while driving home after the surgery that were caught on tape. In the video, the woman’s mother removes a wad of bloody gauze from the woman’s mouth which causes her to shriek thinking that her tongue was being removed. The woman won the $10,000 prize on the January 5th, 2020, “America’s Funniest Home Videos” show, Season 30, Episode 10 titled “Prank You Very Much, Kids Getting Upset for Dumb … Read more

Dental Drills Leading to Thermal Burns

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In the past a discussion of thermal burns occurring after dental procedures and in particular wisdom teeth removal has been made. In one post it was highlighted how such thermal burns can lead to teasing and unwanted nicknames. A few other cases of thermal burns are discussed on the wisdom teeth removal complications page. In the past a discussion has also been made about how search engines including Google and Bing present differing results for the keyword “thermal burn wisdom teeth” in their image searches in the post titled The Search Engine Battle: Are you Paying Attention?. Since that article was published in late 2013 and it is now 2020, over 6 years have passed and as such revisiting this is warranted. In the past in late 2013, Google had ineffective results for the keyword “thermal burn wisdom teeth” in … Read more

How Reliable is Online Information Regarding Dentistry and Wisdom Teeth

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It it important that patients exploring dental topics are not being led astray by questionable information on websites. An interesting article titled “The reliability of online information regarding orthognathic surgery available to the public” written by Cobb and Scotton appears in the 2013 edition of Oral Surgery (vol. 6, pp. 56-60). The article discusses how the internet is increasingly being used to access health information and explores the reliability of information on websites regarding orthognathic surgery also known as corrective jaw surgery. The reliability of online information regarding wisdom teeth removal has been explored by this site before in the past, see the post Some New Wisdom Teeth and Dental Information Websites. The post discussed two websites that used to be accessible but have since been deleted that provided some questionable information on wisdom teeth. In addition a PhD Thesis … Read more

Cold Therapy after Wisdom Teeth Surgery Meta Analysis

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An interesting article titled “The Effectiveness of the Cold Therapy (cryotherapy) in the Management of Inflammatory Parameters after Removal of Mandibular Third Molars: A Meta-Analysis,” written by Fernandes et al. appears in the International Archives of Otorhinolaryngology vol. 23, pp. 221–228, 2019. The authors set out to compare whether cryotherapy also as known as cold therapy has an effect on clinical outcomes such as pain, edema (swelling), and trismus (mouth opening) after wisdom teeth surgeries. The authors searched scientific literature for clinical trials on the use of cold therapy for pain, trismus, and edema following wisdom teeth surgery. They searched in electronic databases covering the time period up until March 2018. The authors first identified 1,080 studies. They then removed duplicates and articles that did not meet their inclusion criteria. They authors arrived at 11 studies that met their inclusion criteria … Read more