Smile Big, Now

I enjoyed this series of posts on Slate about The American Way of Dentistry 2009: A look at the coming crisis.

The author notes that "Everybody knows about the crisis in American medical care. Nobody knows about the crisis in American dentistry," and gives some good detail around the issue.

For example, we're running short on dentists in the U.S., especially in poorer areas. There's also a section on dental insurance, which is largely disconnected from health insurance, meaning that many people just can't afford to have dental problems taken care of even if they have insurance for medical care.

I can speak to that, since I didn't have dental insurance for years. It was an option at my last job, but it cost enough that I decided to just bet I wouldn't need more done in a given year than the insurance would have come to. This worked out OK for me, because I was fortunate (and I floss diligently, let me put in a plug for flossing), but clearly it creates an incentive to put things off.

I'm not sure if they're nationwide, but at least around here, we sometimes see these TV ads encouraging people to get dental care, with the slogan "Oral health is overall health." (They have this clever bit where the word 'oral' morphs into the word 'overall.') Apparently this slogan is true.

It gives me a new fondness for the dental students who come through the library doing research and dropping off their finished theses. Good work, people! Go out there and care for teeth! Also, recruit more of you!

I will happily help you with your research questions, even though they tend to be brutally unsatisfying because you tend to be looking for very specific topics that it turns out no one has ever written anything about. I'm not sure why, I guess you're just lucky like that.

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Oh, How We Suffer!

I am distressed to hear from Well about this downside to the overall awesomeness of life as a redhead: apparently, we don't respond as readily to anesthetic as people with hair of other hues.

The speculation is that a gene mutation associated with red hair is also linked to pain receptors, making the bearers of said genes more sensitive to pain and less responsive to anesthesia. The story specifically discusses the possibility that redheads may be less likely to go to the dentist than other people, perhaps because it's more painful for them.

Distressed though I am on behalf of my color family, I'm not sure I myself got my red from this particular mutation, since I've never noticed that I'm more sensitive to painful stimuli than my dark-haired friends and sisters. In fact, I'm punching myself in the head right now, just for fun!

OK, that part is untrue.

I've never avoided the dentist due to fear of pain, though, and have found the anesthetic used on me to be quite effective. More than once I've bitten half through my lip in the aftermath of a dental procedure because I couldn't feel it (when it's numb, isn't a lip pretty much twice as big as usual, and always in the way of whatever you're trying to say or eat or sip cautiously through a straw?)

More research is clearly called for, given that this is a topic of such obvious importance to the world.

In the meantime, dentists, if you have red-haired patients, give them some extra drugs. Maybe that's what my dentists have been doing with me, and I never knew.

Oh, hey, I did need an extra dose of anesthetic drops at my last eye exam, where they touch that thing to your eyeball to measure the pressure. I kept involuntarily flinching because I could feel it touching. It didn't hurt, exactly, but it felt weird enough that I couldn't keep my head still.

Maybe my variant of the red gene is extra sensitive to eyeball touches, but not tooth pain. I'm telling you, we need more research!

Advice for the Day

You should floss.

I had my 6-month dental check-up and cleaning, and she said she couldn't really find much to clean, so I must floss every day.

Yes I do. Apparently it actually makes a difference!

Pass it on.

My Kind of Dental Appointment

They thought I needed a filling replaced, but then they took a closer look and decided it was OK after all. They just put it on the watch list.

Eeeeexcellent.

The better to eat everything in sight tomorrow. As is our hallowed custom.