Ice cold, delicious and full of acid. Also sugar.

It’s like this…drinking a lot of pop can cause cavities. The more pop you drink, and the slower you drink it, the greater your chances of getting cavities.

I’ve written about this before. A lot, actually. In fact, many of my patients get sick of me telling them about it. But hey…I’m a doctor. I’ll bet diabetics get tired of hearing their physician tell them that they need to lay off the M&M’s and donuts, too.

I recently examined a patient who admitted to being a serious on-the-job pop drinker. He told me with no prompting that he was done with pop. He didn’t like how it made his teeth look. So, of course, I took a picture.

"pop cavities" (click to enlarge)

He had a few things going on that are classic for pop drinkers:

• front teeth: He had quite a few cavities, but they were limited mostly to his upper front teeth. If you think about it, that kind of makes sense. When you sip a highly acidic and sugary beverage what does it hit first? Your upper front teeth. So that’s where the acid and sugar starts to work.
• “white spot” lesions: This is the chalky, white spotting that you can see on tooth enamel that has been partially dissolved by acid. The good news about white spot lesions is that with some intensive fluoride treatment they can be reversed. However, continued acid and sugar will cause a white spot lesion to turn into a…
• “pop cavities:” That’s just what I call them. This is the yellowish-brownish hole you can see once the acid has really broken through the enamel of your tooth. The second layer is darker colored and much more susceptible to the acid. Once you lose your enamel, that tooth is a much greater risk to form a pop cavity.

So, are you a pop drinker? You ought to check out your front teeth in a mirror. Or, better yet, come in the office and let us take some photos. We can take a look at them together on the iPad and see if you’ve got any “pop cavities.”

Did you find this post refreshing? Fizzy? Annoying? I’d love to hear about it! You can share any Mead Family Dental post with a “Like” on Facebook, a “+1″ on Google+ or you can even “Tweet” it with Twitter! All you need to do is hover over the heart shaped button next to the title of the post. Or you can leave a comment by clicking on the balloon shaped icon next to the title.

If you’re looking for a dentist in Saginaw, we’re always happy to accept new patients! You can request an appointment online or call the office at (989) 799-9133. And, as always, you can email me at alan@meadfamilydental.com. I always answer my own emails!

Do you have that "new filling feeling?"

Have you ever had a new filling or crown placed that felt kind of foreign? It was smooth as silk, it wasn’t pointy and the bite felt just right. But yet, it was different. Your tongue acted like it would never get used to it, constantly running circles around the newness of it.

Do you remember what happened to it? Yup. You forgot about it. A day or two later, it didn’t feel new. How does that work? I mean, two days ago you were pretty sure that you were going to need to call the dentist. There had to be something wrong with this weird new filling. But now you’re not even sure what tooth it is. How bizarre is that?

It’s actually not bizarre at all! In fact, it means your nervous system is working just perfectly.

Neural adaptation or sensory adaptation is a change over time in the responsiveness of the sensory system to a constant stimulus. That’s a very fancy way of saying, “you just get used to it.” Our nervous system is constantly taking in all kinds of sensory data. What we hear, what we see, what we smell, taste and feel are all giving constant input to our brain. The thing is, not all of this information is all that important at any given time. So the brain has to be able to filter out the stuff that isn’t important while keeping track of the sensory information that is.

Once the brain and nervous system has figured out which information isn’t important at the moment, or salient, it can filter this information out. That way the brain can focus on more important sensory input.

"this is going to be cold!"

My favorite example of this adaptation has to do with swimming in the lake. Each 4th of July weekend for as long as I can remember my cousins and I spend as much time as we can in the lake. Even in early July, when the temperature is in the mid-80′s that lake always feels really cold. At first. If you creep into the lake slowly, just a couple steps at a time, it stays excruciatingly cold. But the longer you’re in, and the more of your body gets wet, the less cold the water feels. Pretty soon, we’re splashing around in the water like it was a bathtub. What happened? Did the water change temperature? Probably not. We just got used to the temperature.

There are probably great survival reasons for our brain to be wary of the shocking cold we feel when we make our way into the lake. We have to maintain our temperature between certain parameters and if our brain feels like this is threatened, it’s going to continue to sound the alarm. After you spend a little time in the water and your survival doesn’t seem threatened, the temperature stops being such a salient stimulus. Your brain begins to focus on other things, like the squishy bottom of the lake or your cousin attempting to dunk you.

So, back to that new crown or filling. It feels new and weird for a little while because it’s a constant and different stimulus to what your brain had been used to up to that point. The longer it stays there without causing a big problem, the more your nervous system discounts the stimuli coming from the touch receptors in your lip, cheek and tongue. Over time, the new filling begins to feel like the norm. Most of the time my patients have gotten very comfortable with their provisional (temporary) crowns and will have to go through the same process with their new crown.

So the next time you have some dental work done and your tongue keeps telling you that there’s something funny going on, just remember that it’s just like jumping into the lake. After a little while, you’ll get used to it!

Did you find this post interesting? Silly? Earth shaking? I’d love to hear about it! You can share any Mead Family Dental post with a “Like” on Facebook, a “+1″ on Google+ or you can even “Tweet” it with Twitter! All you need to do is hover over the heart shaped button next to the title of the post. Or you can leave a comment by clicking on the balloon shaped icon next to the title.

If you’re looking for a dentist in Saginaw, we’re always happy to accept new patients! You can request an appointment online or call the office at (989) 799-9133. And, as always, you can email me at alan@meadfamilydental.com. I always answer my own emails!

"not acceptable!"

This report comes on the heels of ABC’s coverage of “dental x-rays causing brain tumors.”  It seems that dentists are getting all kinds of help from ABC news to tarnish our images this month! Like we needed it! So why won’t dentists take care of these needy kids? Is it that they don’t care? Or maybe they’re just unwilling to make less money while helping poor people. Either way, dentists are clearly bad guys.

I can only speak for myself. I’ve discussed this with other dentists often and most tend to agree with my perspective, though. I do take limited amounts of Michigan’s version of Medicaid dental coverage for kids/adolescents/young adults. Why don’t I take more? Here’s a few of those reasons:

• limited services: This is probably the main reason that I’m hesitant to get more involved with these programs. I have a toolbox that I bring with me when I treat patients. (Not literally…I actually have an office!) I have a lot of different treatments to offer for different dental problems. Some of these tools work better in some situations, some work better for others. In extensive problems, some of these just aren’t workable. One of the things that frustrates me is that Medicaid will pay for a root canal procedure to save a tooth, but they will not allow you to restore the tooth appropriately after the root canal treatment! A lot of teeth that end up requiring a root canal have lost a lot of tooth structure. A filling is inadequate for these teeth, but that’s what is covered. If I go ahead and do what I feel as appropriate, the program will not cover it and it becomes the patient’s responsibility. Most patients aren’t willing or able to pay for the appropriate treamtent. So, my toolbox gets much smaller for patients using these programs.
• limited payment: The fees that the Medicaid programs pay are low. That’s what everyone knows. The news programs always say this, but they never dig any deeper than that. To be specific, Healthy Kids dental in Michigan reimburses my office at about 50% of my regular fee. People hear this and think that dental offices make 50% less when they see kids on the Healthy Kids program. That’s not accurate. Most dental offices are small businesses run to make a profit. A dental office needs to collect a certain amount of money just to pay rent, utilities, equipment costs, employees…the basics. This is called overhead, and every business has it. You need to average a certain number of dollars for each unit of time in order to keep the doors open. If you don’t average this amount, the office doesn’t make a profit. Some offices can change their overhead structure by working more quickly, seeing more patients, using less expensive materials or paying their employees less to make up this difference. I won’t do that. I don’t want to have to change the way I treat patients to be able to participate with the program. My patients expect amazing service and a certain atmosphere and I’m not willing to sacrifice that. You may think that makes me a snob, but I think my patients appreciate it. So, when I see Healthy Kids patients, I’m working for free. The good news is, overhead is figured on an average, so I’m willing to take a loss on some patients. But as I mentioned before, I limit the number of patients I will see on the program.
• ethical traps: Medicaid programs give each provider dentist a particular menu of procedures and their associated codes that are covered benefits. It could be tempting for a dentist to “overuse” a code that they wouldn’t normally charge separately for. I’m not saying that it’s wrong to do so and I’m not saying that it is common. All I’m saying is the that the temptation to “overcode” can be there.
  

  All kids deserve healthy teeth!

• dental prevention: Most dental diseases, especially in children are 100% preventable. These programs are at their absolute best when they are used for prevention: specifically early childhood examination and education of good dietary and brushing habits. Unfortunately, most people end up in need of these services after a child has problems, often really bad problems. The horse is already out of the barn at that point. These programs become much less helpful for those patients, and they will often need extensive care that can only be handled by pediatric dentists.

This is where I’m coming from. I’m not sure it would be a satisfying answer for Diane Sawyer. It’s a lot better TV when you can point the finger of blame at a particular group, especially when a lot of folks are pretty anxious about that group in the first place. The news media plays a story that riles people up, and then they forget about it. In the mean time, people look at dentists as greedy and uncaring. If you feel like dentists aren’t doing good things for poor kids, you need to ask yourself: in the same position, would you be willing to work for free? How much work would you be willing to do for free?

The Michigan Dental Association will be sponsoring it’s first Mission of Mercy in June of 2013. These amazing events allow Michigan dentists to see around 2000 patients in a weekend for no charge. Next year’s Mission of Mercy will be held on campus at Saginaw Valley State University. I’m planning on being a part of the 2013 MOM. I think this kind of event is an effective way to help people who might otherwise not be able to get dental care. So Diane Sawyer might have it wrong about dentists!

Did you find this post frustrating? Thought provoking? Angering? I’d love to hear about it! You can share any Mead Family Dental post with a “Like” on Facebook, a “+1″ on Google+ or you can even “Tweet” it with Twitter! All you need to do is hover over the heart shaped button next to the title of the post. Or you can leave a comment by clicking on the balloon shaped icon next to the title.

If you’re looking for a dentist in Saginaw, we’re always happy to accept new patients! You can request an appointment online or call the office at (989) 799-9133. And, as always, you can email me at alan@meadfamilydental.com. I always answer my own emails!

I have this on my wall. No, really.

Two weeks ago the dental community was in an uproar. Morning news shows were making claims that “dental x-rays cause brain tumors” and “dental x-rays are linked to brain tumors.” What made dentists so mad? For one thing, dentists are an easy target. Many people have had bad experiences with dentists, many people are afraid of shots and a lot of folks associate toothaches with dentists. Dentists have baggage, and this news story didn’t help. So we’re kind of touchy.

There are a couple problems with the Yale research that these news stories were based on. First, the methods used in the study were questionable. But even if the results had been accurate, the news media took “x is related to y” to mean “x causes y.” This is a conclusion that the data do not support. There’s a lot more work that would need to be done before that conclusion would be fair. Just because red cars are twice as likely to be in accidents as blue cars, you cannot assume that the color of the car is what’s causing all the accidents!

Humans are kind of funny that way. Our brains love to “assign a cause.” We like to take two things that are proven to be related in some way and jump to a conclusion. Usually the conclusion we jump to is: “one thing is caused by another.” Dentists do it, too.

A recent statement from the American Heart Association has taken the dental world by storm over the last few days. Apparently the assumption that many dentists made about periodontal disease causing heart disease was firmly clarified by the AHA:

“The message sent out by some in health care professions that heart attack and stroke are directly linked to gum disease can distort the facts, alarm patients and perhaps shift the focus on prevention away from well-known risk factors for these diseases.”

Boom. That seems very clear to me. The statement continues:

“Although periodontal interventions result in a reduction in systemic inflammation and endothelial dysfunction in short-term studies, there is no evidence that they prevent ASVD ["atherosclerotic vascular disease" aka heart disease] or modify its outcomes.”

From what I can tell, the American Heart Association is saying “don’t use heart disease as a scare tactic about gum disease.” I think that’s fair. I’ve noticed for years that some dentists have played a little fast and loose with the relationship between gum disease and heart disease. The truth of the matter is that gum disease and heart disease share quite a few risk factors: smoking, age and diabetes to name a few. Gum disease is worth treating in its own right. Potential tooth loss, pain and bad breath are pretty compelling reasons to keep your gums healthy. It’s just that dentists were getting comfortable lumping potential systemic problems in with the other problems gum disease presents as a selling point to the treatment. This is intellectually lazy and we need to re-evaluate it.

Perfect

The moral of the story is this: “is linked to” does not mean “is caused by.” Even when your brain really wants to take that leap, you need to take a step back and really look at the relationship between whatever variables are connected.

Did you find this post interesting? Thought provoking? Tedious? I’d love to hear about it! You can share any Mead Family Dental post with a “Like” on Facebook, a “+1″ on Google+ or you can even “Tweet” it with Twitter! All you need to do is hover over the heart shaped button next to the title of the post. Or you can leave a comment by clicking on the balloon shaped icon next to the title.

If you’re looking for a dentist in Saginaw, we’re always happy to accept new patients! You can request an appointment online or call the office at (989) 799-9133. And, as always, you can email me at alan@meadfamilydental.com. I always answer my own emails!

Today I got a suggestion from a Facebook friend:

“Al, I’ve seen the phrase ‘levels of radiation that are so small as to be insignificant’ used a fair bit in the last few years. Particularly in relation to the Japanese disaster and the observation of levels of radiation around the world due to it…I think it would be instructive to have hard numbers to compare to background and other common sources that are considered safe.”

I agree. I’ve been explaining how safe x-rays are to patients for so long, I’ve kind of forgotten about the actual amounts of radiation that we expose them to. So let’s talk a little bit about radiation.

Electromagnetic radiation like visible light and x-rays travels in waves. And I have a cool graphic of it.

Electromagnetic radiation, or EMR, is any form of energy that travels in a wave. Visible light, radio waves, microwaves and x-rays are all forms of EMR that are common to us. The different types of EMR are characterized by their wavelength and frequency. Longer wavelength radiation like radio waves and have a lower frequency and are considered “low energy.” The shorter the wavelength the higher the frequency of the energy and generally these are “higher energy.” Very high energy like x-rays and gamma rays that can cause an electron to break away from an atom are considered ionizing radiation. These are the kinds of radiation that can cause health problems. Too much ionizing radiation can cause damage to the DNA in a person’s cells, which can lead to tumor formation and even cancer. The high energy state of x-rays is also what makes them so useful for seeing structures inside the body. Visible light is stopped by the skin and soft tissues around your bones and teeth, but x-rays can penetrate through them to show us things that we cannot see with visible light alone.

Harm from radiation sources is “dose dependent,” which means that more is worse. So in order to maintain safe levels of radiation in the dental office we need to know what kind of dose that we’re giving. The dose of radiation is measured in millirems or mrem. You can actually calculate common radiation doses using this chart from the American Nuclear Society.

So what is a “safe” level of radiation dosage? According to the American Nuclear Society the average level of radiation per person in the United States is 620 mrem/year. The safe allowable dose for people that are exposed to radiation in their work (nuclear plant workers, radiology technicians) is 5000 mrem/year.

Here are some examples of radiation dosages for different common exposures:

• 1 bitewing or PA dental x-ray: 0.5 mrem
• 2 hours in a jet plane: 1 mrem
• 1 panoramic dental x-ray: ~3 mrem
• living in a stone, adobe or concrete house (instead of wood frame): 7 mrem/year
• a full mouth set of dental x-rays: 9 mrem
• chest x-ray: 10 mrem
• 1 pack of cigarettes each day: 36 mrem/year
• chest CT scan: 700 mrem
• whole body CT scan: 1000 mrem

These numbers reflect conventional film x-rays. Many dentists use digital x-ray technology which needs significantly less radiation to make x-ray images. In some cases the amount of radiation needed is 80% less than conventional film radiography, which would yield even lower radiation doses.

How much is too much?

Even though dental x-rays have an incredibly low dose of radiation, it makes sense to limit the amount of radiation as much as possible. Patients with a proven track record of low decay rate are an example of a type of patient that may not need diagnostic x-rays each year. Other diagnostic methods like high magnification with intense lighting, evaluating saliva flow and dietary evaluation can help determine a patient’s risk for new decay. For patients who have experienced cavities recently or new patients that don’t have a track record with their dentist, taking dental x-rays on a regular basis is necessary diagnostic tool.

So what’s a patient to do? How do you know if an x-ray is necessary? You need to ask your dentist. And if you don’t feel like your dentist is hearing you, perhaps you need to find another. Having a relationship with a dentist whose opinion you trust is a great way to know that you’ve found a good balance between too many x-rays and not enough information to prevent dental problems.

Did you find this post helpful? Zealous? Wonderful? I’d love to hear about it! You can share any Mead Family Dental post with a “Like” on Facebook, a “+1″ on Google+ or you can even “Tweet” it with Twitter! All you need to do is hover over the heart shaped button next to the title of the post. Or you can leave a comment by clicking on the balloon shaped icon next to the title.

If you’re looking for a dentist in Saginaw, we’re always happy to accept new patients! You can request an appointment online or call the office at (989) 799-9133. And, as always, you can email me at alan@meadfamilydental.com. I always answer my own emails!

Can this cause brain tumors?

A new study attempting to correlate dental x-rays in the past to an uncommon benign brain tumor was published today. And the headlines are scary! A cursory Google search of todays news yields these headlines:

• “Are Dental X-rays Causing Brain Tumors?” (reported by KGO-AM)
• “American Cancer Society study links dental x-rays to tumor” (reported by ABC Action News)
• “Dental x-rays linked to common brain tumor” (reported by Reuters)
• Early Dental X-rays Linked to Brain Tumors” (reported byABC News)

You get the picture. If you read the headlines and listen to the superficial news story you could walk away with the message that “dental x-rays cause cancer” or more likely “dental x-rays = bad” and “avoid dental x-rays.”

I am a dentist. I use digital x-rays to help me diagnose dental problems all day long. I really don’t want to think that all these x-rays I’ve taken over the years are causing horrible things to happen to my patients. I think it’s worth taking a good hard look at how the research was done and what it really says.

• studying “past exposure”: The newly published study deals with past exposure of x-rays. Current standards for film x-rays use much less radiation than past standards. Digital x-rays use much, much less than current film x-rays. So any findings of this research only deals with your exposure in much earlier life. Technology  has essentially solved the problem of higher exposure to dental x-rays already.
  

  Do you remember?

• using patient’s memories: The new study is a case control study. Case controls are useful, but are one of the weaker forms of medical evidence out there. The study compared two groups. One group was composed of patients who have already been diagnosed with a meningioma and the other group of patients did not have the condition*. The researchers asked the patients in the study to remember how often and what kind of dental x-rays they had in the past. So the data for the study was dependent on what the patients remembered. Can you tell me what kind of x-rays you had in 1995? Can you tell me whether a panoramic x-ray was taken instead of a full mouth set of x-rays? I’m not critical of the study being done nor of the researchers. That is how case control studies are done. I’m much more critical of how the media is portraying this evidence.
• type of tumor: A meningioma is a “benign”/rarely cancerous tumor. It is the most common brain tumor. Meningiomas are tumors that occur in the membranes lining the brain and spinal cord. They can range in severity from occult (the patient didn’t know that they had the tumor) to life threatening. Common complications are seizures, localized neurological problems (muscle spasms) and they can cause increased intracranial pressure. Depending on their location they can “crowd out” vital structures of the head and neck. More severe meningiomas often require surgery, and sometimes radiation therapy. The cause of this type of tumor is not well understood, although there is evidence that genetics plays a part. The current study was done in an effort to understand potential causes. I don’t mean to downplay the seriousness of a meningioma. Since I originally wrote this blog post I have heard from many survivors of meningioma and they assured me that I definitely had downplayed their severity, and for that assumption, I apologize. The most severe type can be debilitating and even life threatening. Luckily, the majority are not this serious. The bottom line…dental x-rays don’t cause cancer, they don’t cause brain tumors and this research doesn’t claim that they do.
• “is linked to”: The media loves to make the connection that “A is linked to B.” It makes great headlines. But it almost never means what the media portrays it to mean. “Is linked to” is not the same as “is caused by.” “Is linked to” or “is correlated with” only means that there is a relationship between the two factors. The new research shows that there is a relationship, but it’s not reasonable to assume that one causes the other, yet. More research will be done that may help us refine our understanding of these relationships, but until then…don’t assume!

So, should you have a talk with your dentist about x-rays? Absolutely! Should you avoid them at all costs? No. Not at all. The amount of radiation used with digital x-rays is so small as to be considered insignificant. The amount of radiation from dental x-rays is surprisingly low relative to some other common exposures…you might be surprised! Treatment or lack of treatment should be based on the amount of risk that the treatment can cause. A frank discussion with your dentist should help you understand that modern dental x-rays, particularly digital x-rays, are a very low risk diagnostic tool that offer great preventive benefit.

Did you find this post helpful? Silly? Scandalous? I’d love to hear about it! You can share any Mead Family Dental post with a “Like” on Facebook, a “+1″ on Google+ or you can even “Tweet” it with Twitter! All you need to do is hover over the heart shaped button next to the title of the post. Or you can leave a comment by clicking on the balloon shaped icon next to the title.

If you’re looking for a dentist in Saginaw, we’re always happy to accept new patients! You can request an appointment online or call the office at (989) 799-9133. And, as always, you can email me at alan@meadfamilydental.com. I always answer my own emails!

*  Actually, the group was assumed to not have a meningioma…the researchers took the patient’s self reporting of no meningioma as the same as “no disease.” Since often the condition displays no symptoms, this isn’t a good way to choose a control group.

• Be a great example: Your kids see and hear everything that you do. And they somehow always repeat what you’ve said at incredibly bad times (think “daddy doesn’t like Grandma’s cooking” at Thanksgiving dinner). So they see how you take care of your teeth, too. They notice if you brush and floss often, or not. They’ll see you chew sugarless gum after meals and will probably want some, too!
• Get your teeth fixed: tooth decay and gum disease are a bacterial infections. They are transmitted in a similar fashion to a cold. The bugs that cause tooth decay are almost always transmitted from mother to child, although anyone who is a prominent care provider (dads, grandparents) can also transmit them. What I’m saying is that your kids will have your bugs. What determines what kind of bugs you have? People who have lots of cavities, particularly lots of untreated cavities will have nastier bugs. So, if you’ve got a history of lots of cavities or you have work that you need to have done, you probably have nastier cavity bugs. And you’ll probably transmit them to your kids. The moral of the story…have your teeth fixed and your kids will have healthier teeth.
• Bring ‘em in early, and often: The American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD) recommends “first visit by first birthday.” Practically speaking, you should bring them in once they have their first tooth. And they should be checked every year after that until they start having their teeth cleaned, which is usually around the age of 4. Having a dentist look at your child’s teeth often can help find problems while they’re small. Since baby teeth are actually more susceptible to cavities than adult teeth, this is pretty important.
• You brush their teeth, then let them brush their teeth: It’s great to raise independent children. It’s great that they want to take care of themselves. But you need to brush their teeth. An adult should brush first, then the kiddo brushes second. Parents, you’ll need to brush with a firm hold on your little cherub’s head. And you need to retract (pull apart) their lips with the hand that you’re holding their head with so that you can see the surfaces of their teeth. As one pediatric dentist once told me, “if you can’t see what you’re brushing, you’re not brushing it well.” Once you’ve scrubbed all the surfaces, then let the child have a chance to do the same thing. How long until they’re old enough to brush on their own? Well, my oldest is 4 years old and I’m thinking it’s going to be 6 more years of me using the “loving headlock” on him.
  

  No bottles in bed!

• Don’t put a baby down with a bottle: Don’t get in the habit of putting your baby down with a bottle. Once they get used to it, it’s much more difficult to break the habit, so don’t do it! Even if you’re giving them formula or breast milk, there are still sugars in them that can be turned into acid by cavity bugs. Pediatric dentists often times call the massive tooth decay found in very young children “baby bottle tooth decay” for a reason. If you have to put a baby to bed with a bottle, use only water!
• Reduce the juice: When you think of fruit juice you think of “wholesome” and “healthy.” When I think of fruit juice I think “tons of sugar” and “high acid content.” Kids should have limited fruit juice intake. It’s really tough on teeth and almost always has a lot of added sugar. I know it goes against how fruit juice is marketed, but it’s true. Eating fruit = great! Drinking fruit juice = really bad for teeth. If you want to give your kids juice, do it at meal times…not snack time!

If you do these things the risk factors for cavities and other dental problems can be reduced significantly! So when you’re waiting for your baby to have their cleaning finished you can sit back, relax and know you’ve done your job. Ahhhh! Doesn’t that feel better?

Did you find this post helpful? Informative? Bone headed? I’d love to hear about it! You can share any Mead Family Dental post with a “Like” on Facebook, a “+1″ on Google+ or you can even “Tweet” it with Twitter! All you need to do is hover over the heart shaped button next to the title of the post. Or you can leave a comment by clicking on the balloon shaped icon next to the title.

If you’re looking for a dentist in Saginaw, we’re always happy to accept new patients! You can request an appointment online or call the office at (989) 799-9133. And, as always, you can email me at alan@meadfamilydental.com. I always answer my own emails!

Note the swollen jaw and poor attitude towards preventive dentistry

Sasquatch sitings in central Michigan are rare. Particularly in the Saginaw Valley. Saginaw hasn’t had any reported sitings of the ape-like cryptid since 1937. However, that’s not to say they aren’t around. As recently as 1977 they’ve been reported in the thumb, so I never doubted that they were around.

I’ve always taken a special interest in sasquatches due to their love of sweets. Anyone with even a passing interest in cryptozoology knows that a bigfoot won’t pass up a chance to gorge on honey or other sugary treats. So it’s no wonder they suffer from toothaches. The team here at Mead Family Dental have let it be known that we’re happy to see any creatures suffering with toothaches, and apparently word gets around.

"They're closed?"

On December 13, 2011 we found what we’re pretty sure is a sasquatch print. We figure that the poor ‘squatch had a toothache and caught us on a Thursday afternoon after we’d left for the week. Since most sasquatches don’t have smartphones (poor reception in the wooded and mountainous areas they inhabit) he wasn’t able to call the emergency number at (989) 488-7665. I feel bad about that. I hope this poor bigfoot knows that we’re happy to see him and take care of any of his dental needs if he’ll just drop us a line. Maybe he’d prefer to make an appointment online. I’m not sure.

We went ahead an made a cast of his footprint. We’ve got plenty of dental stone and we wanted to let people know about sasquatches and their dental problems. So, we’ll have the cast of this poor suffering bigfoot available to look at all April long. Drop by to take a look. I think you’ll be impressed.

Unfortunately, we haven’t heard from him yeti.

First, look at this website on your computer. Then…pull it up on your phone.

We just optimized the site to work well on whatever screen size you’re using. One more way for you to get in touch and one more way to make us your Saginaw dentist!

Let us know what you think! If you’re looking for a dentist in Saginaw, we’re always happy to accept new patients! You can request an appointment online or call the office at (989) 799-9133. And, as always, you can email me at alan@meadfamilydental.com. I always answer my own emails!

Really, I don’t like being the square who tells you that your pierced tongue is a problem. I’d love to tell you that there’s no risk to your teeth and gums. But I’d be lying. It’s not that every single tongue or lip piercing is going to break a tooth, but you increase your risk significantly by doing it. Just like drinking a lot of pop increases your risk for cavities. In fact, oral piercings increase your risk of several dental problems.

"Doc, I'm terrified of needles!"

If you’ve ever been around someone with a new piercing, you’ll find that people play with them. It’s a new and different feeling and it’s your tongue’s job to make sure it checks everything out in your mouth. So you’ll clack that thing against your teeth. Or you’ll push it up against the roof of your mouth. You’re going to mess around with it. Worse than that is the fact that you have these two weighted masses (one on the top, one on the bottom) on either side of your tongue that can affect your tongue’s proprioception. Proprioception is a very fancy word that describes the way your nervous system just knows where it’s parts are. The reason that you can touch your nose with your eyes closed is because you have proprioceptive nerve cells that describe to your brain where your finger is compared to your nose. It’s like the body’s GPS system for it’s parts. Adding a tongue stud throws these proprioceptive nerves off the same way holding a barbell in your hand would throw off that little “touch your nose with your finger” exercise. The likely result is that you’re going to accidentally bite that thing or whack it against a tooth. Do this enough times and you’ll probably break a tooth.

an odd place for a tooth to break

I recently saw a patient who had a broken tooth that was sensitive. I see a lot of broken teeth, but this one was broken in an odd place. So I asked him if there was a great story…and there was. His answer, “I used to have a tongue piercing. It broke that tooth, so I took it out the day I broke it.” So, there you have it. He decreased his risk of another broken tooth by taking it out!

There are little strings that attach your lower lip to your jawbone. Look in a mirror while you pull your lower lip forward and you’ll see them. These things are called frena (singular: frenum). Some folks have a frenum attachment that’s pretty close to the gum line of their lower front teeth. If you add a lip piercing, you can get a pretty consistent tug on these frena. And sometimes, the gum tissue starts to recede around those front teeth.

It's all fun and games until your gum starts receding

This kind of aggressive recession actually causes you to lose the bone that supports those teeth. What can happen then? You could lose those teeth. Often the procedures needed just to hang onto those teeth (gum grafts and other reconstructive procedures) can be expensive and unpredictable. So again, having this kind of a piercing isn’t a guarantee that you’ll have these problems, but it increases your risk of problems significantly.

Finally, the piercing procedures themselves have a great risk of infection. I’ve been told that the people that do piercings take great care to make sure that they use clean and sterile instruments and I have no reason not to believe them. But even the cleanest and best procedures done by folks with high levels of training are at risk for infection. Most people wouldn’t choose to have surgery on their lip or tongue without a good reason. But oral piercings are essentially surgery, or at least the healing that you must do is the same. All surgeries have risk of infection, and piercings are no different. Worse than that, someone who’s gone through the decision to have a piercing and the procedure itself isn’t likely to take it out. Even if it’s the problem causing an infection!

"I didn't sign up for an infected tongue!"

What can I say? I’m a buzz kill. Oral piercings increase your risk of broken teeth, gum problems and infection. You shouldn’t do it. But if you do, realize that there are problems, sometimes expensive problems, that you may have to deal with! On the other hand, I want you to know that if you have a problem with a piercing, I’m happy to help. I’ve treated many people with complications from piercings and I can help if you’ve had a “piercing induced problem.” You can easily request an appointment on the website or call us at (989) 799-9133. We’re here for all of our patients…even those with piercings!

Did you find this post helpful? Silly? Earth shaking? I’d love to hear about it! You can share any Mead Family Dental post with a “Like” on Facebook, a “+1″ on Google+ or you can even “Tweet” it with Twitter! All you need to do is hover over the heart shaped button next to the title of the post. Or you can leave a comment by clicking on the balloon shaped icon next to the title.

If you’re looking for a dentist in Saginaw, we’re always happy to accept new patients! You can request an appointment online or call the office at (989) 799-9133. And, as always, you can email me at alan@meadfamilydental.com. I always answer my own emails!