dentist

What Dentists Should Say to Patients when Something Doesn’t Go Right

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Unfortunately dentists and oral surgeons don’t always have all procedures go as planned for their patients. For example, when it comes to wisdom tooth surgery, it is possible for the wrong set of wisdom teeth to be removed as is discussed on the wisdom teeth complications page, see https://www.teethremoval.com/complications.html. Since procedures don’t always go as planned, on this site before guidance for patients who want to be very defensive has been provided, see the post The Defensive Patients Guide to Wisdom Teeth Removal. While patients can sometimes be bad actors and deny that certain information was provided to them prior to a procedure (see the post Patient Recall During Informed Consent for Wisdom Teeth Surgery), dentists and oral surgeons also can behavior badly such as by telling patient’s after their procedure that their condition that resulted could not have possibly … Read more

COVID-19 Leading to More Orofacial Pain

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An interesting article titled “The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Orofacial Pain Practice: Perceptions from a Convenience Sample of Orofacial Pain Practitioners,” appears in the 2022 edition of The Journal of the American Dental Association written by Fernanda Yanez Regonesi and et al. The article sought to explore the impact of COVID-19 in patients impacted by orofacial pain. In the article the authors analyzed voluntary anonymous online survey data from those who participated in a webinar from the American Academy of Orofacial Pain (AAOP) on orofacial pain, headaches, and sleep care during COVID-19. The authors used statistic tools to analyze the responses from the AAOP members to questions relating to orofacial pain practices and perceptions about patient symptoms. A total of 111 practitioners completed the survey from the 617 it was sent to. A total of 47 of these … Read more

Does a Parasite in the Mouth Contribute to Periodontitis?

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An interesting article titled “Entamoeba gingivalis Causes Oral Inflammation and Tissue Destruction,” appears in the Journal of Dental Research written by X. Bao and et al. (vol. 99, no. 5, pp. 561–567, 2020). The article seeks to explore the protozoan Entamoeba gingivalis (E. gingivalis) in inflamed periodontal pockets. In the article, the authors sought to validate the frequency of the Entamoeba gingivalis by analyzing the gums of 158 people with periodontitis and healthy controls using polymerase chain reaction and microscopy tests. A total of 107 of the people in the study were healthy controls while 51 had periodontitis. For those healthy control patients, E. gingivalis was detected in oral cavities in 15% of these patients. For those with periodontitis, E. gingivalis was detected in 77% of inflamed periodontal sites and 22% of healthy sites. The authors state “In conjunction with abundant … Read more

Panoramic X-Ray Showing Tooth Inside Chin Lights up Internet

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A man posted an image of a panoramic x-ray of his mouth in the midlyinteresting channel on Reddit and this caused the internet to light up. The Reddit user u/super9mega posted the x-ray with the caption “There’s a tooth in my chin.” Reddit users were quite amazed and the post has racked up over 50,000 upvoes and over 2,000 comments. The user explained that the tooth is not causing him any discomfort and he was not aware that it even was present prior to the x-ray he received by his dentist. It seems the consensus by the man’s dentist and also those commenting is that it would do more harm than good to attempt to remove the tooth. With wisdom teeth it is somewhat common to see completely horizontal wisdom teeth that do not erupt. Embedded teeth like this tooth … Read more

North Carolina Oral Surgeon Loses License Forever After Death of Patient who Received Dental Implants

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An oral surgeon in North Carolina was forced to give up his license in August 2021. The reason was due to an order signed by the North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners that was the result of an investigation of a patient the oral surgeon had treated for dental implants who died as a result of the treatment. The patient that died was a 53 year old cardiologist in North Carolina. The oral surgeon had had his license for roughly 20 years when he had to give it up. On July 30, 2020, the oral surgeon administered anesthesia and sedatives to the cardiolgist for dental implant placement. Close to the end of the surgery, the cardiologist’s oxygen saturation and heart rate dropped to life threatening levels. The oral surgeon attempted ventilation, by trying to intubate the patient with an … Read more