wisdom teeth extraction

What to Do about the Fourth Molar: Similar Management Strategies as the Third Molar aka Wisdom Tooth?

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So wisdom teeth are also known as third molars but did you know that there are also fourth molars in a small subset of patients? A recent study was performed by the United States at an Air Base in Japan which is currently in press to appear in the Journal of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery titeld Prevalence and Management of Fourth Molars: A Retrospective Study and Literature Review by Khurram M. Shahzad and Lawrence E. Roth, 2011. In the study conducted 409 patients were referred for a third molar (wisdom teeth) consultation. Two of 227 white patients (0.9%) had a fourth molar and 6 of 94 black patients (6.4%) had a fourth molar. One of the other 84 patients (1.2%) also had a fourth molar. Of these patients with a fourth molar 5 out of 9 (55%) had only 1 … Read more

Do I Really Need to Remove My Wisdom Teeth?

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A few days ago an article titled “Do I Really Need to Remove My Wisdom Teeth? appeared in Community Magazine by Jacques Doueck located at http://www.communitym.com/article.asp?article_id=101936  The article opens with “I was prompted to write this article because of two adult patients who suffered severe damage, infection, and swelling because they delayed taking out wisdom teeth. One of them actually broke his jaw because of a wisdom tooth that should have been removed long ago. The patient, 48 years old, lost both teeth and the fractured jaw forced him to eat baby food for six months. The other patient was 65 years old and had to have the wisdom tooth and the adjacent molar removed.” This opening in this article kind of cracks me up because both of these patients are quite old, especially the 65 year old. Of course we … Read more

How to Improve Your Chances to Win a Dental Malpractice Lawsuit

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Tom over at OralAnswers has previously written a post on how to win a dental malpractice suit http://www.oralanswers.com/2010/07/sue-your-dentist-and-win-malpractice-lawsuit/ I also discuss on my U.S. Legal System and Medical Malpractice page http://www.teethremoval.com/legal_system_medical_malpractice the 4 elements you must prove to have a chance at winning a malpractice suit. (1) the doctor to provide a standard of care to patients in the locality where the treatment occured (legal duty) (2) the doctor breached that standard of care (3) an injury causing damages (4) the breach of the standard of care was the proximate cause of the injury. Now as is quite clear on my site I disagree with the current ‘standard of care’ of removing healthy wisdom teeth in young healthy patients in the U.S. This is not the standard of care in the U.K. I wanted to touch on an additional element in … Read more

Are Dentists Ethical or Scam Artists?

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Recently The Journal of the American Dental Association has been running some “Ethical Moments” regarding dentists. This is purely propaganda and should not be taken at face value. For example Jeffrey C. Esterburg wrote an article titled Are Dentists Losing Their Status as Professionals? (J Am Dent Assoc, 2011; 142, 1084-1085). He opens up the article saying “As a new dentist, I am becoming increasingly concerned that what it means to be a dental professional is being lost in the eyes of the public and our vendors and consultants.” He goes on to discuss some conflicting pressures he is faced with running his dental practice. He then goes on to discuss the American Dental Association Principles of Ethics and Code of Professional Conduct. He closes the article by saying “The size of our hearts defines our success much more than does the size of our practices, homes or bank … Read more

Focal Infection Theory

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I think it is important for everyone to read over the article on Wikipedia regarding focal infection theory http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Focal_infection_theory. Focal infection theory (FIT) is the idea that a local infection affecting a small area of the body can lead to subsequent infections or symptoms in other parts of the body due either to the spread of the infectious agent itself or toxins produced from it. Let’s look at an article from 1938 by Russell L. Cecil and D. Murray Angevine, “Clinical and experimental observations on focal infection with an analysis of 200 cases of rheumatoid arthritis,” Ann Int Med 12(5):577-84 “But even in America, the home of focal infection, scientific men are becoming a little wearied of the universal acceptance of a theory as though it were an established fact. For example, one of our leading pathologists has satirically described a focus of … Read more