Thought I'd give it a try, but somehow, even the first time I used it, it was able to automatically log me into my google homepage. Seems a little odd for a browser that supposedly deletes all session data each time it's closed. No thanks...that one went in the trash...what a load of crap.
My apologies for taking so long to get back to this. I said that I'd address your implant questions, but this past week has been very crazy and the upcoming week looks to be worse. Basically, I may not be finishing this post the same day I start it, so please forgive any redundancies. - But on to implants. This will be a long post since it's such a huge topic, so I'll offer my apologies on that point as well. The answer to your infection question is at the end if you want to skip ahead. The metal stuff is at the beginning. Implants are one of the biggest things in dentistry right now (at least in the U.S.). As you mentioned in your original post, a dental implant is essentially a metal bolt with a crown on it. The use of metal for something such as this is virtually essential. The force a tooth undergoes during normal chewing function is enormous, and we simply don't have anything else (to my knowledge) that will perform the way metals will (i.e. strength and reacting well with the body tissues). The 'bolt' used for dental implants is made of titanium due to its extremely high strength and biocompatability. The titanium screw is then coated with a layer of something, usually hydroxyapatite, but there are many other materials that they use...this is the big area with implants they are trying to advance for a variety of reasons. The purpose of this is to help with what is called 'osseointegration'. Osseointegration essentially refers to how well the body will accept the implant and adapt around it. The higher the level of osseointegration, the better. So what are the benefits of implants? First of all, the only reason we have jaws is to hold the teeth. If you look at the x-rays of a patient who has a denture on the lower jaw, especially if they have had it for a number of years, it is not uncommon to see that the body has resorbed 2/3 of the bone (It's the same on the upper jaw, just easier to see on the lower since there's no other bone down there). When the teeth are gone and aren't putting force on the bone, the body resorbs the bone because it's not being used. If shortly after an extraction I place an implant, that bone will stick around because as you chew on the implant, it puts a force on the bone. It also functions like a normal tooth. You don't have to take it out at night and clean it like a partial. I can go on and on about various reasons why they are great, but I'll stop there for now since those are the big ones. One of the really incredible things with implants is the way the bone remodels around it. All of the bones in your body are constantly being remodeled. That's one of the reasons that bones with small cracks and hairline fractures can often heal on their own. When there is a break, the bone remodels at a highly accelerated rate to heal itself (it's call an RAP - rapid acceleratory phenomenon). This goes on for a short period of time to stabilize the bone and then slows down. The cool thing about implants is that the RAP doesn't stop...ever...so any small fracture that might happen to develop around the implant (which is where a crack would arise due to stress risers around the bolt) would be immediately repaired and not allowed to propagate. I wish I could say that this was done on purpose, but it wasn't. Nobody knows why this happens, but we're glad that it does! Implants are also very successful, around 95% in the lower jaw (only slightly less in the upper jaw - this is because the bone composition is different in the upper versus the lower jaw). Additionally, many of the cases of implant failure are because the patient just didn't keep it clean (i.e. didn't brush his/her teeth). Regarding your question about the possibility of having the implant knocked out via trauma, that is not something that has ever been a big concern. The implant is as stable as any of the other teeth in the jaw. Of course, if you do sustain a blow to the face that knocked out the implant, or any other tooth for that matter, there is always the possibility of infection. Infection of the bo
Let me see if I can tackle your questions for you. First, to address the mercury in your fillings. I'll first say that dentists (especially in the US, to a lesser extent in the UK) are getting rid of the old silver-colored amalgam fillings. From a purely functional standpoint, they did work well, but most patients don't want the metal in their mouth for a variety of reasons. I don't put those things in patients' mouths...period...but I can give you the reasons why they are still allowed and haven't been banned. First of all, the amount of mercury in one of those things is pretty low. The mix is a combination of mercury, tin, silver, a bit of aluminum I believe, and some have some copper in them, though copper is less common anymore. Studies have shown that as the filling sits in your mouth over the course of a number of years that you really don't get any significant amount of mercury leaking out of the filling (there's more mercury in most fish anymore...but that's another tangent). More mercury is released in replacing one than in letting it sit there (though again, a very small amount). There's also a chemical structure issue of mercury versus methyl-mercury. Elemental mercury is able to pass through your intestinal tract without being abosrbed to any great extent. It's methyl-mercury that is actually absorbed. I don't recall the actual amount of each in dental amalgam, but most of it is elemental mercury. The body is able to eliminate mercury via chelation reactions with sulfur compounds. If I remember correctly, one egg has enough sulfur in it to remove whatever little bit of mercury is released into your body from that filling...it doesn't take much. The real way that you get mercury from a filling into your body is when the heat from the dental handpiece vaporizes some of the mercury in the filling and you inhale it. This is one of the reasons why dentists use a water mist and air jet (both of which are built into the handpiece) as well as suction/an evacuator when replacing an amalgam filling. I have two of those old amalgams left in my mouth, and I'm going to be having them removed and replaced with a tooth-colored resin filling myself...and I'm not the least bit worried about the mercury in them. As I said before, the mercury in those fillings has been considered 'safe', but I still don't see a good reason to use it. The reason some dentists stick with it is because it's much cheaper than a tooth-colored resin. Also, admittedly, dentists are typically type-A personalities and don't like change. The profession is changing to get away from amalgam, admittedly not as quickly as many would like. I'm somewhat familiar with the difficulties involving the dental profession in the UK and understand where you're comign from. I hope the situation over there on your side of the pond is rectified soon. Hope that helps for an explanation. I've got someplace to be shortly, so I'll address your implant questions in a later post. If you've got areas that you'd like clarification on or have other questions, let me know.
Let me preface this by saying that I don't know your dentist or the procedure he/she was doing. Different teeth require different ways to get them numb...different injections, different techniques, and different amounts of anesthetic. Certain injections can numb up the entire side if your head, but those are rarely done in a dental practice, and most dentists will go their entire career without using that particular injection. Generally speaking, if it's a tooth on the lower jaw, your jaw on that side, the cheek on that side, and that half of your tongue are going to feel numb. That's just because of the way the nerves run (the nerve that goes to those teeth runs through a canal in the bone and happens to go to part of the tongue, lip, and cheek as well...so you have to get all of those if you want to get the teeth). Teeth on the upper jaw often can be numbed 'more selectively'. In other words, you don't have to numb quite as large of an area to get the teeth numb. If a nerve is adequately anesthetised (i.e. the correct amount of anesthetic deposited at the correct location), it should take 3-5 minutes for the anesthetic to do its job with the usual anesthetic (there are some that take longer, but those are less commonly used). With regards to how much you are given, again, there are a lot of factors that come into play (your size, what injection is being given, etc). Many common dental procedures can be performed with a single cartrige of anesthetic, but some do require a second or perhaps third...depending on the case. Also do note that everyone is 'wired' slightly differently. My mother-in-law has nerves from the upper regions of her spinal cord that go to teeth that they're not supposed to go to...so it requires additional anesthetic to get her numb. The important thing is this...if you feel pain, you should have no reservations about asking your dentist to stop and fix the problem. Part of a dentist's job is to either prevent or to relieve pain...not cause it. I know there are a lot of vague 'it depends on the situation' type of responses here, but perhaps that helps? If you need clarification on anything or have other questions, let me know.
Toxic? Yes...technically...but it's given commonly in many medical facilities across the country including many dental offices...better known as laughing gas. The question is 'toxic in what dose?' The amounts that we're talking about with this are so miniscule it wouldn't matter for the patient. I doubt there would even be a need to monitor oxygen saturation and respiratory rate during the procedure.
I'm a dentist, so I thought I might be able to help out with a couple areas of the discussion. First of all, there's a slight problem with the article. The plasma needle they talk about won't work on a tooth...it's just not possible. The outer layer of your teeth (the enamel) doesn't have any live cells in it (the formative cells die off just before the teeth erupt)...'inducing cell death' doesn't work if there are no live cells present. (The cells that are alive in the tooth are on the outer edge of the pulp, the third layer down, so you have to get through the hard mineralized outer surface first) So this won't replace the drill, but could theoretically replace current electrocautery methods for doing biopsies.
With regards to what's causing the pain when you're getting a tooth filled - If you're experiencing pain when you're getting a filling put in, then your dentist hasn't numbed you up properly. Once you get through that outer layer of enamel, you reach the dentin. The dentin has little tubes running through it that go down to the pulp. When the ends of those tubes are opened up and exposed, the fluid in those tubes shifts and triggers nerve endings in the pulp which your brain interprets as pain (slightly simplified explanation). If you've been anesthetised properly, you shouldn't feel any pain.
Anything else I can help with? Let me know. If I've talked above or below your head, my apologies...trying to make sure it's 'understandable' to all.
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Thought I'd give it a try, but somehow, even the first time I used it, it was able to automatically log me into my google homepage. Seems a little odd for a browser that supposedly deletes all session data each time it's closed. No thanks...that one went in the trash...what a load of crap.
My apologies for taking so long to get back to this. I said that I'd address your implant questions, but this past week has been very crazy and the upcoming week looks to be worse. Basically, I may not be finishing this post the same day I start it, so please forgive any redundancies. - But on to implants. This will be a long post since it's such a huge topic, so I'll offer my apologies on that point as well. The answer to your infection question is at the end if you want to skip ahead. The metal stuff is at the beginning. Implants are one of the biggest things in dentistry right now (at least in the U.S.). As you mentioned in your original post, a dental implant is essentially a metal bolt with a crown on it. The use of metal for something such as this is virtually essential. The force a tooth undergoes during normal chewing function is enormous, and we simply don't have anything else (to my knowledge) that will perform the way metals will (i.e. strength and reacting well with the body tissues). The 'bolt' used for dental implants is made of titanium due to its extremely high strength and biocompatability. The titanium screw is then coated with a layer of something, usually hydroxyapatite, but there are many other materials that they use...this is the big area with implants they are trying to advance for a variety of reasons. The purpose of this is to help with what is called 'osseointegration'. Osseointegration essentially refers to how well the body will accept the implant and adapt around it. The higher the level of osseointegration, the better. So what are the benefits of implants? First of all, the only reason we have jaws is to hold the teeth. If you look at the x-rays of a patient who has a denture on the lower jaw, especially if they have had it for a number of years, it is not uncommon to see that the body has resorbed 2/3 of the bone (It's the same on the upper jaw, just easier to see on the lower since there's no other bone down there). When the teeth are gone and aren't putting force on the bone, the body resorbs the bone because it's not being used. If shortly after an extraction I place an implant, that bone will stick around because as you chew on the implant, it puts a force on the bone. It also functions like a normal tooth. You don't have to take it out at night and clean it like a partial. I can go on and on about various reasons why they are great, but I'll stop there for now since those are the big ones. One of the really incredible things with implants is the way the bone remodels around it. All of the bones in your body are constantly being remodeled. That's one of the reasons that bones with small cracks and hairline fractures can often heal on their own. When there is a break, the bone remodels at a highly accelerated rate to heal itself (it's call an RAP - rapid acceleratory phenomenon). This goes on for a short period of time to stabilize the bone and then slows down. The cool thing about implants is that the RAP doesn't stop...ever...so any small fracture that might happen to develop around the implant (which is where a crack would arise due to stress risers around the bolt) would be immediately repaired and not allowed to propagate. I wish I could say that this was done on purpose, but it wasn't. Nobody knows why this happens, but we're glad that it does! Implants are also very successful, around 95% in the lower jaw (only slightly less in the upper jaw - this is because the bone composition is different in the upper versus the lower jaw). Additionally, many of the cases of implant failure are because the patient just didn't keep it clean (i.e. didn't brush his/her teeth). Regarding your question about the possibility of having the implant knocked out via trauma, that is not something that has ever been a big concern. The implant is as stable as any of the other teeth in the jaw. Of course, if you do sustain a blow to the face that knocked out the implant, or any other tooth for that matter, there is always the possibility of infection. Infection of the bo
Let me see if I can tackle your questions for you. First, to address the mercury in your fillings. I'll first say that dentists (especially in the US, to a lesser extent in the UK) are getting rid of the old silver-colored amalgam fillings. From a purely functional standpoint, they did work well, but most patients don't want the metal in their mouth for a variety of reasons. I don't put those things in patients' mouths...period...but I can give you the reasons why they are still allowed and haven't been banned. First of all, the amount of mercury in one of those things is pretty low. The mix is a combination of mercury, tin, silver, a bit of aluminum I believe, and some have some copper in them, though copper is less common anymore. Studies have shown that as the filling sits in your mouth over the course of a number of years that you really don't get any significant amount of mercury leaking out of the filling (there's more mercury in most fish anymore...but that's another tangent). More mercury is released in replacing one than in letting it sit there (though again, a very small amount). There's also a chemical structure issue of mercury versus methyl-mercury. Elemental mercury is able to pass through your intestinal tract without being abosrbed to any great extent. It's methyl-mercury that is actually absorbed. I don't recall the actual amount of each in dental amalgam, but most of it is elemental mercury. The body is able to eliminate mercury via chelation reactions with sulfur compounds. If I remember correctly, one egg has enough sulfur in it to remove whatever little bit of mercury is released into your body from that filling...it doesn't take much. The real way that you get mercury from a filling into your body is when the heat from the dental handpiece vaporizes some of the mercury in the filling and you inhale it. This is one of the reasons why dentists use a water mist and air jet (both of which are built into the handpiece) as well as suction/an evacuator when replacing an amalgam filling. I have two of those old amalgams left in my mouth, and I'm going to be having them removed and replaced with a tooth-colored resin filling myself...and I'm not the least bit worried about the mercury in them. As I said before, the mercury in those fillings has been considered 'safe', but I still don't see a good reason to use it. The reason some dentists stick with it is because it's much cheaper than a tooth-colored resin. Also, admittedly, dentists are typically type-A personalities and don't like change. The profession is changing to get away from amalgam, admittedly not as quickly as many would like. I'm somewhat familiar with the difficulties involving the dental profession in the UK and understand where you're comign from. I hope the situation over there on your side of the pond is rectified soon. Hope that helps for an explanation. I've got someplace to be shortly, so I'll address your implant questions in a later post. If you've got areas that you'd like clarification on or have other questions, let me know.
Let me preface this by saying that I don't know your dentist or the procedure he/she was doing. Different teeth require different ways to get them numb...different injections, different techniques, and different amounts of anesthetic. Certain injections can numb up the entire side if your head, but those are rarely done in a dental practice, and most dentists will go their entire career without using that particular injection. Generally speaking, if it's a tooth on the lower jaw, your jaw on that side, the cheek on that side, and that half of your tongue are going to feel numb. That's just because of the way the nerves run (the nerve that goes to those teeth runs through a canal in the bone and happens to go to part of the tongue, lip, and cheek as well...so you have to get all of those if you want to get the teeth). Teeth on the upper jaw often can be numbed 'more selectively'. In other words, you don't have to numb quite as large of an area to get the teeth numb. If a nerve is adequately anesthetised (i.e. the correct amount of anesthetic deposited at the correct location), it should take 3-5 minutes for the anesthetic to do its job with the usual anesthetic (there are some that take longer, but those are less commonly used). With regards to how much you are given, again, there are a lot of factors that come into play (your size, what injection is being given, etc). Many common dental procedures can be performed with a single cartrige of anesthetic, but some do require a second or perhaps third...depending on the case. Also do note that everyone is 'wired' slightly differently. My mother-in-law has nerves from the upper regions of her spinal cord that go to teeth that they're not supposed to go to...so it requires additional anesthetic to get her numb. The important thing is this...if you feel pain, you should have no reservations about asking your dentist to stop and fix the problem. Part of a dentist's job is to either prevent or to relieve pain...not cause it. I know there are a lot of vague 'it depends on the situation' type of responses here, but perhaps that helps? If you need clarification on anything or have other questions, let me know.
Woops...sorry 'bout that. Guess that's what happens when I read too fast and don't pay attention! You're right.
Toxic? Yes...technically...but it's given commonly in many medical facilities across the country including many dental offices...better known as laughing gas. The question is 'toxic in what dose?' The amounts that we're talking about with this are so miniscule it wouldn't matter for the patient. I doubt there would even be a need to monitor oxygen saturation and respiratory rate during the procedure.
I'm a dentist, so I thought I might be able to help out with a couple areas of the discussion. First of all, there's a slight problem with the article. The plasma needle they talk about won't work on a tooth...it's just not possible. The outer layer of your teeth (the enamel) doesn't have any live cells in it (the formative cells die off just before the teeth erupt)...'inducing cell death' doesn't work if there are no live cells present. (The cells that are alive in the tooth are on the outer edge of the pulp, the third layer down, so you have to get through the hard mineralized outer surface first) So this won't replace the drill, but could theoretically replace current electrocautery methods for doing biopsies. With regards to what's causing the pain when you're getting a tooth filled - If you're experiencing pain when you're getting a filling put in, then your dentist hasn't numbed you up properly. Once you get through that outer layer of enamel, you reach the dentin. The dentin has little tubes running through it that go down to the pulp. When the ends of those tubes are opened up and exposed, the fluid in those tubes shifts and triggers nerve endings in the pulp which your brain interprets as pain (slightly simplified explanation). If you've been anesthetised properly, you shouldn't feel any pain. Anything else I can help with? Let me know. If I've talked above or below your head, my apologies...trying to make sure it's 'understandable' to all.