Isn't flossing not supported by science also, but all the news articles said you should keep flossing?
Perhaps you'll find it useful that a double-blind study found no improvement in outcome from use of a parachute when jumping out of a helicopter.
Routine dental X-rays are not backed by evidence
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Re: Routine dental X-rays are not backed by evidence
#52Isn't flossing not supported by science also, but all the news articles said you should keep flossing?
My most recent trip to the dentist include a brief recommendation to floss, but they weren't really pushing it like they used to.
Re: Routine dental X-rays are not backed by evidence
#53Wow, the US are crazy.
Here in Europe I never heard a dentist recommend that (yearly check-ups yes, of course, but they're manual - and accurate)
Re: Routine dental X-rays are not backed by evidence
#54Earlier quoted context omitted.
My bugbear with dentists in the US (after living my first 30 years in the UK) is that they all continually hassle me to have my wisdom teeth removed. Said teeth have never caused me any problems and are all through the gums. I can only assume it's dogma or an opportunity to bill insurance for costly unnecessary surgery.
>>>I can only assume it's dogma or an opportunity to bill insurance for costly unnecessary surgery. This may be specific to location, but would it be the same dentist recommending the treatment as performing the surgery? Here (BC, Canada) everyone I've known who's had wisdom teeth removed had it done by a specialist, not the dentist that suggested it (which presumably cuts down on self-serving recommendations).
I mean not if the dentist refers them to a specialist. Usually that involves a kickback; there's a whole slew of problems with that in the US with lactation specialists referring parents to dentists over a tongue tie problem without actually viewing the baby.
Re: Routine dental X-rays are not backed by evidence
#55Isn't flossing not supported by science also, but all the news articles said you should keep flossing?
Perhaps you'll find it useful that a double-blind study found no improvement in outcome from use of a parachute when jumping out of a helicopter. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC300808/
That's not at all what that "study" says. It is a critique (in poor taste if you ask me) that everything does not require a double-blind study.
Re: Routine dental X-rays are not backed by evidence
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
https://www.jwz.org/gruntle/wisdom-teeth.html
This guy infamously has a problem with each and every HN user and chooses to display an NSFW image saying such if your request's referrer header has news.ycombinator.com. Don't click.
Sorry, I thought he disabled that.
Re: Routine dental X-rays are not backed by evidence
#57A routine dental X-ray recently caught my failed root canal and the tooth needs to be extracted asap or I risk pain, huge swelling, and nerve damage.
I don't think anyone is arguing that routine x-rays don't ever find something that wouldn't otherwise be found. That would be a pretty amazing and surprising result. But it still can be the case that, for most situations, regular x-rays are not only unnecessary, but can be harmful too.
Re: Routine dental X-rays are not backed by evidence
#58Other outdated yet still routine dental practices include polishing of teeth during checkups for any justification other than cosmetic reasons
My bugbear with dentists in the US (after living my first 30 years in the UK) is that they all continually hassle me to have my wisdom teeth removed. Said teeth have never caused me any problems and are all through the gums. I can only assume it's dogma or an opportunity to bill insurance for costly unnecessary surgery.
They're not a problem until they are. I recently had a molar out likely due to damage from an impacted wisdom tooth I had out years ago. The rear of the molar was compromised on the back, and there was no way to save the tooth. If I had my molars out earlier when I was young, it probably wouldn't have been an issue.
Re: Routine dental X-rays are not backed by evidence
#59> "Financial aspects of dental radiography also deserve further study," Feit added No joke. That is a major money maker. There is minimal cost per-use and your insurance pays $200 for it (my last one was $186.00 for instance). The dentists would be crazy not to recommend them as of often as possible. Fluoride "rinses" are likely up there too. Rinse for a few seconds and they charge the insurance $50 or something for…
At least fouride rinses provide some benefit. Although you can get much more benefit from buying a bottle of Act and rinsing with it every day.
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Re: Routine dental X-rays are not backed by evidence
#60Earlier quoted context omitted.
I had mine done in college. I really didn't want to do it. I would have been totally happy to buck the pressure of "this is what everyone does," but the thing that made me reluctantly agree to it was an explanation that if I didn't, they would bore holes into my then-back teeth as they grew in and I'd have a big problem to deal with. As I understood it, teeth normally grow straight up, but wisdom teeth grow sideways…
It can be true for some people. Look at the lower right one on the xray here: https://www.jwz.org/gruntle/wisdom-teeth.html
Unless you wanna see an adviceanimals take on a hairy ballsack, you've gotta open that incognito.
I don't think Jamie wants HN traffic on his blog.