How about that Weather?

It's the Polar Vortex here in Louisville and school is closed. I know its affecting things in Louisville when I visit the local Target to find it praticaly empty. Who would have ever thought that anything could keep people out of their neighborhood Taaaarget, as I've heard it pronounced. I am an avid follower of the daily and weekly economic news and I often stop and consider how the economy and our lives and workplaces are affected by weather.

A great example is last winter and spring was unseasonably warm year which allowed a lot of extra construction and new housing starts which helped fuel the growth of our economy and its recovery. This year it is quite different over nine thousand airline flights are cancelled. I will be interested in seeing the economic effects of this Polar Vortex has had on our U.S. economy.

Our offices are open because we love what we do and there are people that are willing to brave the ultra cold temperatures to care for their teeth.

What is cosmetic Dentistry?

I am reflecting on cosmetic dentistry today. We seated a denture last week and as I have mentioned before this was indeed cosmetic dentistry. But above all it was just good solid dental care. The individual needed their remaining teeth removed and we did that and placed a very beautiful full complete denture in place. The patient is very pleased and his smile looks better than it has for years.

This is a point I often make when I can to our team and patients. Cosmetic dentistry is not a specialty of dentistry, it is not a group, or test or a badge, it is an attitude and that attitude is reflected in everything from the shade of a composite filling to the all of the many other items we do in our offices. Whitening, Invisalign, and even dentures are cosmetic procedures.

Many people think of dentistry as a want based purchase in parts of the areas we draw our patients from here in Louisville. Others view it as a need based purchase because they understand that the health of their mouth and surrounding oral soft tissues affects their entire body. Educating patients to these facts is part of our job every day. Our work isn't just in the procedures we do to care for our patients, it is in educating them and passing along our decades of experience to them on a daily basis.

The Whole Body Connection

There is new information every day on how much our bodies speak with our environment and within separate parts with each other. I recently read a study and keeping in mind it was only one study, that showed a connection between depression and the degradation of DNA within the cell.

This particular study normalized for other factors such as alcohol, diabetes or other systemic diseases. This is also only one study, but I believe that many many years from now we will know just how important everything from mental health to diet to sun exposure and family time is directly important to health. In this case the scientists studied the decay rate of a particular protein called a telomere. I have always been interested in DNA and cellular biology, even as a child, In this case telomeres are proteins that actually help hold together our double stranded DNA within our cells.

DNA is the instructional code that tells every cell in our body how to build proteins and eventually organs and then the entire body. In this case it was found that people with depression had a faster decay rate and thus less inability to hold the DNA together.

More study will be necessary but this does not surprise me. We know that Oral Health or lack there of has an effect on diseases such as Heart Disease, Diabetes, and now we now that unhealthy gums are linked to Alzheimer's Disease.

It is basketball season her in the state of Kentucky and things will soon be heating up between the Cardinal and Cats Fans. Our offices gladly support both teams, even though both of our Doctors attended the University of Kentucky, we live here in the land of the cards so we show them the respect they deserve as last years National Champion.

Technology in Louisville

I don't often get the time I want to simply explore business and technology news and my city. I was able to get some time today to just sip coffee and wait for the laundry to dry and just explored. First there was already not news to me about the new venture of the Hammerheads and Game owners over in the Loop area of the Deer Park neighborhood of Louisville. Those that know me are aware that I am a foodie and am a real nosey person when it comes to new places opening and in general all food related news. These guys really appear to have a vision to bring friends along the way with them and when I've seen them interact with Anthony Lamas about food and food shows they all seem to embody a joy of cooking and good food you can't have without being genuine.

I also saw that our Mayor Greg Fisher was speaking at the Code for America Summit in San Francisco. The good old fashioned curmudgeon in me asked exactly what our tax dollars where doing sending this fine man to the west coast....but then I just quieted down and started reading the article about his discussion of transparency in government and just took it al in. After that I read about and jumped to something very interesting.

This particular web page(or startup I'm not really sure) let's one input their zip or address to get crime stats and news very hyperlocal. It even told me about a new BBQ place I had heard of in the neighborhood that I wasn't quitte sure where it was located, and it gave me the opportunity to jump to the BBQ place's Yelp. This service seems ready to really make life hyperlocal it is called Louie Watch(beta). Look for it and I think you will at the very least find it interesting.

I always try to give a feel for what I am listening to and today the is a double live Album by the Tedeschi Trucks Band. THese two make great music as well as a beautiful family. I remember hearing stories back in the day of the two performing gigs in Louisville or Lexington and when one was performing the other might be hopping in their Volvo wagon and driving to the other city to perform. I don't know how true that is but I like to imagine these two awesome musicians having a wonderful family at home as well as on the road. Sounds like a movie screenplay to me...but what do I know. I have been a fan of Derek since he was practically a prodigy playing with the Allman Brothers and I saw Suzanne Tedeschi way back in the day in Lexington, what a soulful voice she brings to their sound.

Challenging yourself to help others

I'm back in the office today after a very short vacation(ie 3 days off) and our second patient today was a special needs child. It's really not fair to refer to him as a child as he will be 18 any second now. He is very heavily Autistic and non verbal. Which makes, as you can imagine doing dental treatment a real challenge. We get better and better at it and in fact I feel we have a special rapport. Through the years, due to a fall in the past, he has needed a crown and then eventually an extraction of a front tooth. His parents care very deeply about this young man's appearance so we chose to do an implant some time in the past. I went to the operating room with the Oral Surgeon who at the same time removed his wisdom teeth and we placed the implant, which I later restored. Due to a functional habit of some grinding and actually percussing his front tooth, fractures developed in his crown and a decision to make an abutment and crown that were one unit was made. To make it slightly less technical, an dental implant has three parts generally the part placed within the bone(like the root of a tooth) and the abutment which is the sub structure upon which the dental crown is placed.

So for him the substructure and the crown were manufactured as one unit to give it strength and that unit will be torqued into his dental implant. The reason I wrote this headline is because it is always a challenge to choose to take care of patients who require more. More diligience, more heartfelt worry, more management, more sedation, more learning....more chair side manner.

But in my mind that is why I chose to become a Dr., Dentist, care giver, whatever title I really wear. I chose to do two years of elective residencies that often placed me in situations where I was very, very challenged. And doing those things made things like taking care of this patient less of a choice and more of a responsibility. At the end of the appointment, or day this is why we choose to take care of other people. Its not always easy, and its often not even profitable. And more than I like its not even appreciated.

But when I return from time away from my office, team, and patients I find this why I am doing exactly what I am doing. Without this part of my life I am not sure whom I would really even be.

I've been playing a lot of smooth jazz by Fourplay today not just to relax folks but also because I did a lot of reading while listening to it yesterday and its a chilly rainy day outside and it seems to fit.....

P.S. I've got to figure out a new way to embedd music but needless to say I recommend you tune into Fourplay's version of Stevie's Higher Ground on youtube or somewhere.

P.S.S. I'm going to learn how to format this darn blog one of these days.