Horizontally Impacted Wisdom Teeth on Both Sides

An interesting article titled “Impacted Third Molars, A Rare Occurrence of Identical Bilateral Impacted Mandibular Third Molars in Linguo-Buccal Location: A Case Report” written by Shaul Hameed Kolarkodi and et al. appears in Cureus (vol. 13, no. 12, e20858). The article describes the case of a 20 year old man who had bilateral horizontally impacted lower wisdom teeth which found on a panoramic radiograph and also later confirmed with cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) imaging. In the article the authors described how impacted wisdom teeth are when they cannot erupt into the proper position. They mention how doctors encounter many types of impaction of wisdom teeth teeth and mention how having horizontally impacted lower wisdom teeth on both sides is rare. Impacted wisdom teeth can happen due to a lack of space or a pathological change that can disrupt the … Read more

Charli XCX Latest Celebrity to Have Wisdom Teeth Removed

Charli XCX is the latest celebrity to have wisdom teeth removed. In the past many other celebrities who have had wisdom teeth extracted have been discussed on this site. See for example the posts Celebrities who have had Wisdom Teeth Extracted and Recent Celebrities to have Wisdom Teeth Removal. Charli XCX, who real name is Charlotte Emma Aitchison, is a 30 year old English singer and songwriter. Charli shared a photo of her lying in a hospital bed on Thursday January 5th, 2023. In the photo she is seen with with giant gauze pack in her mouth, a monitoring device connected to her forehead, one shoulder falling out of her hospital gown, and the other shoulder with a blood pressure cuff. In the caption of the photo Charli said, “all my wisdom has gone. dumb and inexplicable decisions only from now on.” Charli … Read more

Looking at the dentition of several million year old skull

An interesting article titled “Preliminary paleohistological observations of the StW 573 (‘Little Foot’) skull” appears in eLife written by Amélie Beaudet and et al. (March 2, 2021). The article explores initial results an X-ray based imaging investigation of the skull of a 3.67-million-year-old Australopithecus specimen which is a prehuman ancestor known as Little Foot. In the study the authors presented initial results of the investigation of the dentition and cranial bones of Little Foot. Little foot was found in a cave in the 1990s in South Africa. It took 15 years to completely remove Little foot from the ground and is regarded as the most complete skeleton of the early hominin lineage leading to humans. The researchers brought Little Foot’s skull from South Africa to the U.K. to scan it with a synchrotron x-ray microcomputed tomography system. The authors were able to, for the … Read more

If you Have Bleeding Gums you May Need More Vitamin C

An interesting article titled “Bleeding tendency and ascorbic acid requirements: systematic review and meta-analysis of clinical trials” written by P. P. Hujoel et al., appears in the 2021 edition of Nutrition Reviews (Vol. 79, no. 9, pp. 964–975). The authors sought out to conduct a systematic review and meta-analysis of controlled clinical trials on whether ascorbic acid also known as Vitamin C supplementation leads to less bleeding of the gums on gentle probing also described as gingival bleeding tendency and (2) to relate Vitamin C plasma levels to bleeding of the eye known as retinal hemorrhaging. In the study, the authors investigated 15 prior clinical trials in six: India, Indonesia, Italy, Germany, the United Kingdom, and United States, with 1,140 participants with 97.4% of them being healthy, with measures of gingival bleeding tendency. The authors also looked at data from … Read more

Dental Anxiety for Post Traumatic Stress Survivors

An interesting article titled “Dental anxiety in relation to torture experiences and symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder,” written by Høyvik et al. appears in the European Journal of Oral Sciences (vol. 127, pp. 65-71, 2019). The article sought to explore dental anxiety amongst those who have suffered torture experiences and have experienced symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The article describes how in recent years Europe has received an increase in refugees and asylum seekers from countries experiencing war. As a group these refugees and asylum seekers have a high amount of mental health issues which could be due to experiencing stressful events in their life such as torture. The authors state: “Several aspects of the dental visit resemble the torture situation. The patients may feel tied to the dental chair and are literally underneath health personnel in white coats … Read more