Tips to Afford Quality Dental Care

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I was recently alerted to a post on thesimpledollar.com talking about how to afford quality dental care. The link for this post is at http://www.thesimpledollar.com/how-to-afford-quality-dental-care/. The article is written by Chris Sirico and was last updated on June 15, 2017. The article goes into some of the costs for common dental procedures and what you can do if you don’t have insurance. The article also goes into HSAs/FSAs, dental credit cards, dental financing, dental savings plans, dental insurance, and cosmetic dentistry. The article provides a very nice chart about the average cost for various dental procedures with and without insurance. For example the average cost of removing a single wisdom tooth is $416 without insurance and has an average cost of $250 to $750 if you have insurance. As another example the average cost of a surgical tooth extraction is $401 … Read more

Method to Reduce Dental Implant Failure

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Fifteen million Americans have crown or bridge replacements and three million have dental implants. Dental implants can be successful for many patients; however, five to 10 per cent of all dental implants fail. The reasons for this failure are mechanical problems, poor connection to the implanted bones, infection or rejection. When failure occurs the dental implant needs to be removed. The main reason for dental implant failure is periimplantitis. This destructive inflammatory process affects the soft and hard tissues surrounding dental implants. When pathogenic microbes in the mouth and oral cavity develop into biofilms, periimplantitis develop on dental implants. A research team from the School of Biological Sciences, Peninsula Schools of Medicine and Dentistry and the School of Engineering at the University of Plymouth, have joined forces to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of a new nanocoating for dental implants … Read more

The Effect of a Single Dose of Antibiotics Prior to Wisdom Teeth Surgery

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An interesting article titled “A Systematic Review on Effect of Single-Dose Preoperative Antibiotics at Surgical Osteotomy Extraction of Lower Third Molars” appears in the 2016 Journal of Oral and Maxilofacial Surgery and written by Karoline Brørup Marcussen and et. al. (vol. 74, pp. 693-703). The authors sought to conduct a systematic review of randomized controlled trials to evaluate the effectiveness of a single dose of preoperative antibiotics for preventing infection and alveolar osteitis [dry socket] in lower wisdom tooth surgery performed with osteotomy. Using antibiotic prophylaxis to reduce the incidence and severity of postoperative complications in surgical removal of impacted lower wisdom teeth is controversial. All randomized controlled trials  (RCTs) evaluating the effect of all types of prophylactic antibiotics administered 20 to 120 minutes preoperatively versus no antibiotics or placebo on the incidence of infection after surgical removal of lower impacted wisdom up to 1 week after surgery, were reviewed by the authors. In the search, 196 search hits were found. … Read more

Comparing Ibuprofen and Etodolac on Swelling and Pain After Wisdom Teeth Removal

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An interesting article titled “Comparative Assessment of the Effect of Ibuprofen and Etodolac on Edema, Trismus, and Pain in Lower Third Molar Surgery: A Randomized Clinical Trial” appears in the 2016 Journal of Oral an Maxilofacial Surgery written by Julio Cesar Silva de Oliveira and et al. (vol. 74, pp. 1524-1530). The authors set out to explore if ibuprofen or etodolac is more effective in managing pain, swelling, and trismus after wisdom teeth removal. After wisdom teeth removal symptoms such as swelling, pain and limited mouth opening (trismus) can present. Nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) are commonly prescribed for the rapid relief of moderate pain in inflammatory conditions and soft tissue trauma. The mechanism of action of NSAIDs is the inhibition of the release of cyclooxygenase (COX), an enzyme that is responsible for the production of prostaglandins (PGs). Ibuprofen is an NSAID which inhibits COX-1 and COX-2. Etodolac differs from other NSAIDs by being … Read more

Avoiding Amoxicillin During Wisdom Teeth: What are the Possible Problems

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An interesting article titled “Dental Care Professionals Should Avoid the Administration of Amoxicillin in Healthy Patients During Third Molar Surgery: Is Antibiotic Resistence the Only Problem?” appears in the 2016 Journal of Oral and Maxilofacial Surgery written by Othoniel H. Aragon-Martinez and et al. (vol. 74, pp. 1512-1513). The authors attempt to explain why amoxicillin should not be used during wisdom teeth surgery. Amoxicillin is commonly used to prevent infections. Information from high quality clinical trials has shown that amoxicillin is not effective to reduce the risk of wound infections when it is received both preoperatively and postoperatively.  Recent evidence has shown that the administration of 250 mg of amoxicillin in healthy volunteers every 8 hours for 7 days produces  antibiotic resistance. The authors also discuss the topic of dysbiosis. Dysbiosis is a detrimental modification in the composition of the microbiome alongside altered microflora functions, which can be produced by antibiotic exposure, … Read more