The Tea(th) – 9th Ed: OxyCodone No Longer Condoned

What is ‘The Tea(th)’ you ask? It’s our way of bringing some dental news, current events, and clinical pearls to the palm of your hand. With a little added humor and satirical stanzas, of course! We know your life is busy and no one has time to read a newspaper nowadays, so we aim to make this brief yet informative, and above all piping HOT!

In this week's edition: OxyCodone No Longer Condoned, Fluoride is Safe F[lu]or Everyone, Jean is scared with the dental hand mirror than full mouth of exos, Composite Stick No More, and more!

OxyCodone No Longer Condoned

Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, has agreed to plead guilty to criminal charges related to its marketing of the addictive painkiller, and faces penalties of roughly $8.3 billion, the Justice Department announced on Wednesday. Research estimates that since 1999 nearly 500,000 Americans have died at the hands of opioids. So let’s *hope and pray* this kickstarts a wave of further government regulations on opioid-producing-drug-manufacturers to alleviate a separate pandemic that has been raging our country for more than two decades now.

Fluoride is Safe F[lu]or Everyone

Yep, you guessed it, despite nearly a century’s worth of research showing the beneficial dental health effects of fluoride when carefully regulated and consumed we’re still trying to convince the powers that be to classify it as such. Ahead of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s (NASEM) annual meeting the ADA asked the National Toxicology Program to reclassify fluoride from a ‘presumed neurotoxin’ to an ‘unknown neurotoxin.’ If we can presume that fluoride is ‘neurotoxic’ then I might as well presume that my ex-girlfriend was ‘neurotoxic’ too. Sure she might have made me feel crazy and the relationship was toxic, but just because things didn’t work out doesn’t make her neurotoxic. That’s just not how *checks notes* science works NASEM…but we didn’t think we’d need to tell YOU that!

Entertainment

UNTOLD STORIES OF BOB & JEAN

Real patients, real stories, fake names.

Jean sits down in my chair for her 6 month exam/eval. I review her medical history, the updated radiographs, and ask if she has any chief complaints. This is the first time I’m seeing Jean and as I’m about to complete the Head and Neck exam I see her wince and pure fear on her face. I stop immediately. Try to calm her nerves, ask her about her phobia, explain it’s okay and extremely common, and see if there’s anything I can do to alleviate it. It seems like Jean is back on board so I move forward.

Despite having to employ some serious positive reinforcement, Tell-Show-Do, and for the first time since peds in third year contemplate what Frankl Classification I’d give her, we get through the exam. I tell her all looks good, review some OHI, and ask if she has any questions. Jean, VERY SERIOUSLY, says, “Yes. Don’t you think it would be a whole lot easier if we just pull all my teeth to avoid this in the future?” I nearly fell off my chair. I wanted to be like, “Girl you were scared of my hand mirror but want to do a full mouth of exos?!?!” But instead I smiled, told Jean that was certainly not necessary, and as long as she maintains good OHI she shouldn’t need to worry about major dental treatment.

Pearls

Composite Stick No More

We’ve all been there, whether it’s a beautiful anterior Class IV or straight forward posterior Class I. You have the tooth ready to restore, acid etched, rinsed and dried *vigorously,* primed and bonded (air thinning, of course) and light curing for 20 seconds. You pick up that composite gun, dispense a big ‘ole glob, and put your plastic instrument on it to make some ‘noice’ anatomy. Except…then it sticks…and pulls…and ruins…EVERYTHING! Next time, before you put that plastic instrument on the composite, dip the tip of it in some extra bonding agent. Not only will this prevent it from sticking and pulling, but it also helps to better seal those margins.

meme of the week

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