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.

If money grew on trees and everyone loved teeth.

I love teeth. I'm not sure how true that is because if I loved them so much I wouldn't have taken so many of them out over the years, right? Well not so much as they say. Some teeth are just too costly to repair, some are non restorable and some are even removed on young people for orthodontics. A few folks even have extra ones, you be surprised how many folks have few or more than the most often seen 32.

But what I don't like about teeth is when people have to make financial decisions while making dental decisions. Sometimes this is due to neglect and others its just a lack of education or even bad luck. But money doesn't grow on trees and nothing is truly free. Often I hear "well I didn't have insurance for a long time" but if asked many of these folks with dental problems have nice clothes and cars and the latest Apple or samsung mobile device with its data plan and a nice protective case. In a lot of cases a monthly cell phone bill is more than the recommended twice a year cleaning.

Even if dental care or medical care were free people would probably still go to bed after a tasty Coca-cola or as it could also be described carmel colored, acidic, high fructose corn syrup beverage. Many of these carmel soda pops can be used to clean the build up off of batteries, yet many are surprised they are bad for their teeth. So even if money grew on trees many of the people that don't visit the dentist wouldn't have great teeth because they don't love them. But I'm sure they would have nice cars, clothes and cell phones or Ipads or whatever was cool to have in their social network and socio-economic area. We've been playing a wide mix of music these days but it seems Dave Matthews has snuck back into rotation and also up front the hygiene area and reception seems to have added in some country music to its mix: a little more Toby, Kenny and Sugarland seems to be floating around the office. I've been stuck on the last two Eric Church albums.

Why do I need to quote the textbook to insurance companies?

Today I ran into a situation where I new what needed to be done for the patient's best interest.
I knew that my prosthodontics professor from dental school would also agree. I knew that if I looked hard enough I could find a quote in the dental text book exactly explaining the reason for the the procedure.
Sure enough I had better line up all these references, have them sworn in, a notary on hand to stamp it and possibly video testimony in order to get this patient's dental insurance to do their job: pay their portion.It is amazing the time, effort, employees, and general attentiveness required to get dental insurance companies to help take care of the patients who pay their salary. I can't imagine the effort we take applied to lets say getting that fender fixed after your fender bender in front of the grocery store. I'm pretty sure it would be easier than getting that occlusal guard payed for for the patient with the bruxism problem.
I guess these are problems that only a percentage of the population ie dentists can complain about. But really what it leads to is less care and more trepidation and trouble for the people receiving and delivering the care.
On a musical note we have been listening to a lot of Texas singer song writers like Townes Van Zant, Jerry Jeff Walker, and Robert Earle Keen. We've also thrown in a dash of early 90's rock like Soul Asylum and the Spin Doctors. Fourth Of July

It's Monday in the Dental office!!

Mondays and Fridays alike can be very crazy with emergencies at the dental office. Luckily today we have had only a few. I am reminded of a particular situation that rings true with almost all of my experiences with maintaining anything that you would like to have for a long time. The same can be said of one's teeth. I pride myself on being able to "make things work" for people and fitting great dental work into their budget.

That being said we had a situation today where we tried to make something work for someone instead of doing what I had recommended a short while ago.....and now we are exactly where I thought we would be with that person's dental condition. We need to as much as possible do the best thing we can the end result is much more important than either "insurance coverage" or deductibles. Duct taping things together is not the way to get a reliable result. The final solution is much more important than "what's the cheapest thing" and the "cheapest thing" is most often not the best thing.
    In the office we've mostly been listening to Pandora stations of Christmas music, either a She and Him Christmas station or an Anita Baker Christmas station.
She & Him - The Christmas Waltz by MergeRecords