Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Thursday Thirteen - Things I learned from my dentist

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Disclaimer: These are opinions and stories offered by my dentist. Do your own research before making any decisions.
  1. Always brush with a soft or extra soft bristle brush. You clean wood floors with a soft broom and not sandpaper, right?
  2. Medium and hard toothbrushes should be banned like cigarettes. He thinks that the toothbrush industry keeps making them because of market demand, regardless of the evidence that proves that they damage teeth. The only thing they are good for are cleaning your car wheels.
  3. Just because the masses think something is popular doesn't mean they are right. This is why Google is bad. (He has a lot of other internet conspiracy theories as well).
  4. The Philips Sonicare toothbrush was developed by mimicking ultrasonic dental tools that are used by professionals, but they require proper technique that most people don't use. For more on this debate, see my previous post about Sonicare vs. Rotadent.
  5. Medium/hard and Philips Sonicare toothbrushes take off a thin layer of enamel so your teeth feel smooth afterwards. Teeth are not supposed to be smooth and this means that the teeth are eroding. Eventually the enamel becomes so thin near the gum line that it causes tooth sensitivity that is not reversible.
  6. Amalgam fillings have a 150 year history where composite have only 30 years. This means amalgam fillings are better because they are time tested.
  7. The amount of mercury in amalgam fillings have gone down from the days when they were mixed by the dentist in the palms of their hands because they are premixed now.
  8. The chemicals used in composite filling are still changing and the long term effects have not been established.
  9. Composite material for fittings are still not ideal as the shrink during the curing process. He places the light on the other side of the tooth to draw the filling in as it shrinks toward the light.
  10. He was extremely surprised that my company covers 100% for composite fillings and only 30% for amalgam, where it is usually the other way around. Let's not go into the $500+ dental bill I got for the kids last year because they put in amalgam fillings without asking first (another dentist whom we've since left regardless of their cool salt water aquarium).
  11. There was a dental office that centered its business on replacing all amalgam fillings with composite ones. They created a sense of panic in people by installing a complex vacuum system to capture the mercury released into the air. Eventually the American Dental Association shut the office down.
  12. My dentist successfully diagnosed two pregnancies based on the state of a women's gums before they knew.
  13. Serious medical conditions such as heart disease and cancer are often linked to gum disease. Sometimes the earliest symptoms appear as a decline in oral health.

8 comments :

Juliana RW said...

wow...great dentist you have

Will you visit mine Thanks

Juliana RW said...

wow...great dentist you have

Will you visit mine Thanks

Anonymous said...

My dentist is always going on about hard and medium brushes. It's nice to know he isn't the only one.

Anonymous said...

Yeah mine too! And always talking about how important tongue health is. He actually gave me a "tongue squigi" from dentist.net and "Dr Collins Restore" toothpaste to remineralize my teeth from hard brushes!!! Both have been working well.

Tina@ SendChocolateNow said...

Interesting about the Sonic Care. I have one, will have to check into that. As for the amalgam, sounds like he has bought into the ADA rhetoric on that one. My dentist has a sign above the toilet in his bathroom that says:" Why is it you can be fined thousands of dollars to flush a material down the toilet that no one cares is put in your mouth?" Or something like that. My dentist doesn't use amalgam at all, only composite. I have two kids with autism, so that suits me just fine.

Anyway, my TT is up, come see.

Anonymous said...

#12 is interesting! I sure don't learn 13 new things when I go to my dentist.

Bernard Windham said...

The information on amalgam provided by the dentist is known and documented to be blatantly false.
There was documentation that mercury is highly toxic, and dental amalgams unstable, and evidence of harm published in Dental Journals and Medical Journals from the 1800s, with thousands of such studies and gov't agency confirmation that amalgam is the largest source of mercury in most people and also in sewers, etc. by the late 1900s.
www.flcv.com/AmalHist.html & www.flcv.com/damspr1.html & www.flcv.com/indexa.html & www.flcv.com/damspr2.html
As seen in the above URLs, there is scientific consensus on these issues, with other countries banning amalgam use or limiting use or mandating warnings. Due to special interest influence, the U.S. is the last major bastion of use for this obsolete and highly dangerous material.

Bernard Windham said...

Regarding electric tooth brush use; it has been documented that dental office cleaning devises and electric tooth brushes and diathermy devices and electric hair dryers are dangerous to use for those with amalgam fillings, since mercury is a gas at room temperature, and EMF currents are documented to cause galvanic currents which pumps the mercury into the oral cavity and from there on to other parts of the body
www.flcv.com/AmalgamP.html & www.flcv.com/galv.html &
www.flcv.com/dental.html