71–80 of 168 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Teeth themselves maybe, but that's kind of like saying a drill bit is inanimate without moving parts.
But it's not the jaw that fails... it's the teeth, or the tooth-jaw interface. Neither of which have any moving parts!
I'm going to take this moment to rant at dentists! Going to the doctor they get the excuse that they rarely do anything that could possibly hurt. Dentists on the other hand are practically doing minor surgery every time you visit them. I know many of you will never have had any bad experiences at the dentist but I've had tons and what's extremely frustrating is many of them are preventable but dentists seem to have a…
I don't actually agree with your examples but I wanted to add one of my own. I went to a dentist complaining of sensitive teeth. He identified the problem as small cavities caused by chewing in my sleep, drilled them out, and added fillings. A few months later those fillings fell out and I went to another dentist to get them replaced. "You've had large holes drilled on top of your teeth so I'll have to replace them,…
I'm going to take this moment to rant at dentists! Going to the doctor they get the excuse that they rarely do anything that could possibly hurt. Dentists on the other hand are practically doing minor surgery every time you visit them. I know many of you will never have had any bad experiences at the dentist but I've had tons and what's extremely frustrating is many of them are preventable but dentists seem to have a…
Sounds like you have some gum recession ('sensitive teeth'). Brushing vigorously can erode gums, exposing the sensitive parts of teeth. It's very important to brush gently (but thoroughly); not back and forth, rather up and down. Flossing isn't particularly good for gums, either, so best to do it sparingly.
When I see old human skeletons always wonder how they kept their teeth so good. Without toothpaste, toothbrush or floss. What are we doing wrong?
There's evidence that cleaning with toothpaste is no better than cleaning with water alone (keyword for search "dentifrice": https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27513809 There's evidence that plant root fiber toothbrushes are at least as good as nylon bristle toothbrushes (keywords for search "miswak", "chewing stick"), eg: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15643758 (in my personal experience they work just fine, b…
I'm going to take this moment to rant at dentists! Going to the doctor they get the excuse that they rarely do anything that could possibly hurt. Dentists on the other hand are practically doing minor surgery every time you visit them. I know many of you will never have had any bad experiences at the dentist but I've had tons and what's extremely frustrating is many of them are preventable but dentists seem to have a…
Cold helps vasoconstriction. Warm equals vasodilatation equals more bleeding, and increasing the bloodflow makes it easier for the bacteria that will eventually come through microlesions to go around etc.
Things are in a specific way for a reason most of the time.
> It felt like she was taking an ice pick and stabbing my gums.
Yes because that's where calculus accumulates. It's not a pleasant feeling but it's not an unbearable pain either in my experience.
Unfortunately this is an area where the patient or parent often has to make the decision because specialists only know about what they do. As a related example, I asked a dentist and an orthodontist what was more suitable for me, Invisalign or braces. They could each tell me about the time and likely result of their own specialty, but refused to offer any opinion on what was better for me and my situation.
Somewhat related, there was an interesting article about the wildly different advice given to someone who visited 50 different dentists [1].
Bottom line is seek out multiple opinions and don't expect someone else to guide you on the bigger picture.
It always struck me as funny that if you want to get into Medicine you can either do the normal MD course that covers 95% of the body (obviously, you may be able to specialize much later on) OR you can do the other 5% as a Dentist (and again, you may chose to specialize later). Teeth suck, I'm hanging out for "I can't believe they're not teeth" implants so I can stop worrying about the damn things.
The major organs are all over the place. The heart and lungs oh so important, yet they be glorified pressure pumps nonetheless. The liver on the other hand, throw any shit into there and it magically outputs clear lifeforce for the body. Very interesting.
This is from a surgical point of view, as I view dentists also as surgeons in the mechanical regard. You have individual branches when you get into genetics/biology off each individual part, which is a whole different level off complexity.
The brain has neurologists, neuroscientist, psychiatrists and psychologists. Also very complex.
I think another reason might simply be the natural tendency to first tackle which lies in front. While genetics and such are interesting, people need direct help with broken limbs and failing organs, creating a pushing need for people requiring such skillsets. Teeth score the highest in this as well. If u break an arm it's w/e but teeth issues are often felt instantly and persist continuously if not dealt with.
It has always amazed me that teeth have such a high failure rate when they contain 0 moving parts. There's also no biological or chemical processes that need to happen. They're literally just an inanimate object that you use for biting. How can they be so unreliable??
Teeth are also not not moving. During chewing the jaw itself flexes quite a bit, and teeth don't have a rigid connection to the jaw (there is a gap between the root and the jaw filled with collagen fibers), and this flexible connection bears all forces a tooth is subjected to.
I'd also argue that correctly maintained teeth and periodontia are very reliable given their long life span.
Stephan Guyenet had a series of blog posts called "Malocclusion: Disease of Civilization" on dental health. As I remember, as usual, decline in dental health was linked to moving away from traditional diets. The problem with teeth "overcrowding" was linked, basically, to not chewing enough of tough foods. People that ate plenty of tough foods as part of their diets had better developed jaws and space enough for all t…
How about people who chew on gum all day?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There's evidence that cleaning with toothpaste is no better than cleaning with water alone (keyword for search "dentifrice": https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27513809 There's evidence that plant root fiber toothbrushes are at least as good as nylon bristle toothbrushes (keywords for search "miswak", "chewing stick"), eg: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15643758 (in my personal experience they work just fine, b…
Also, isn't the first medical surgery in history, we have evidence of, related to the teeth ?