dental visit

Taking Antibiotics Before Dental Visits Unnecessary in the Majority of Cases and May Cause Serious Side Effects

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Whether or not someone should or should not take any antibiotics prior to dental visits such as wisdom teeth surgery is often a question that comes up. The purpose of doing so would be to potentially prevent an infection from developing from teh dental procedure. Research spearheaded by a group at the University of Illinois at Chicago shows that in the majority of cases antibiotics given before dental visits are not needed and instead can lead to serious side effects. The researchers presented results in October 2019 during IDWeek 2019, which is the Infectious Diseases Society of America’s annual meeting conducted in Washington, DC. The researchers also presented results in an article titled “Assessment of the Appropriateness of Antibiotic Prescriptions for Infection Prophylaxis Before Dental Procedures, 2011 to 2015” published on May 31, 2019 in JAMA Network Open (Suda et … Read more

American Dental Association’s New Position on Dental Visits

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A few months ago the ADA (American Dental Association) released a press release regarding the frequency that patients should be seeing a dentist. This is located over at http://ada.org/8700.aspx. I meant to comment on this earlier, but didn’t get a chance. In a previous blog post earlier this year, located over at https://blog.teethremoval.com/looking-at-the-concept-of-prevention-in-dentistry/I mentioned an article by retired dentist Jay W. Friedman, DDS, MPH. I also provide a quote from the article where he says that semiannual cleanings are unnecessary in some patients. In the risks of keeping wisdom teeth page, when updated in 2011, I added a section discussing dental examination intervals. This was because I had reviewed National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (note NICE was renamed in early 2013), policy over at https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/215663/dh_126005.pdf which states “The actual interval should be a clinical decision by the dentist … Read more

Dental Cleanings May Reduce Stroke and Heart Attack Risk

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A study in Taiwan looked at those who have had professional tooth scraping and cleaning performed and found that they had reduced risks of stroke and heart attack. The study showed that more frequent scraping/cleaning was associated with more reduced risk compared to never having teeth cleaned/scraped or occasionally having it performed. The study looked at over 100,000 people and found that if either a dentist or dental hygienist scraped and cleaned teeth those people in that group had a 24% lower risk of a heart attack and a 13% lower risk of a stroke when compared to those who never had a dental cleaning performed. The people in the study were followed for an average of 7 years. The study was conducted using data from the Taiwan National Health insurance data base. One of the researchers was Emily (Zu-Yin) … Read more