Had a pretty interesting day today at the office. Morning was pretty normal, drill and fill, check hygiene, extract a tooth etc. Nothing too out of the ordinary.
Pretty normal lunch. Trolled around on CP, ate an apple and a handful of wheat thins.
Then the afternoon hit.
I see inmates from the county jail here in town if they have a tooth ache or something, sheriff or deputy will call up and bring them up in shackles and the whole bit. It's not big deal, most of them are just happy to get out of pain and it's not a problem. So dude comes in, my assistant goes in to ask the normal "which tooth is bothering you, let me get an xray, blah blah". I was in the lab doing something so I wasn't really paying attention. She comes in and says "doc, you will need to come look at something" to which I responded "he need a tooth out, which tooth is hurting"?
"All of them". Huh, ok, weird response but lets go check it out. Sure enough, continued meth use pretty much causes things to not go so well intraorally, so he was pretty much decayed out and most teeth were broken off to the gumline (google meth mouth if you want to see it, i'm not messing with photos). Asked if I could extract all 26 teeth he had left in the 30 minute block we had on the schedule for him.
I laughed, said "nah, which one hurts the worst, we'll take that out". He pointed to one, I numbed it up, used an elevator to take it out, about 30 seconds worth of pressure and it was pretty lose. 2 teeth next to it are super mobile and infected (which starts draining as I get this one out, that smelt nice) so I told him he was getting 2 free extractions since he was already numb in that area and they were loose and I was right there, no harm no foul.
It's always fun when we see the inmates, the Sheriff comes up and sits in the room with them all serious, then when I come in the room we talk about hunting or why the Chiefs always break hearts or something.
He breaks down and starts crying thanking me, that he already felt better (if you saw the amount of infection I drained, you'd see why) and asked if he could make an appointment for when he got out. "Sure, how long you think you'll be in this predicament".
"I figure 4 or 5 years, you scheduling ahead that far yet"? Told him nah, just take care of himself and come see me when he gets out.
Next patient is an amish guy (we have a fairly big amish community near us), super nice guy, needs a crown. Asks if he can barter instead of pay, I ask what is in it for me, said he'd bring me a dozen eggs every week for 6 months (they have chicken barns or something) or I could have a quarter of one of the cows they're butchering. Sold, eggs and beef for a crown, sign me up.
Only problem with that is he scheduled an appointment for himself, but brought 4 other family members who all needed work done.
So we had a waiting room full of inmates and Amish this afternoon. Thought that might be a good name of a band or something. [Reply]
About a year ago I had a patient of ours come in with swelling above her upper left lateral incisor. Presented as a typical abscess, needs a root canal or extraction. Anterior teeth (front teeth) generally have a single nerve and single canal so the root canal is fairly easy. Shes a sweet older lady who's been in the practice for years, so I told her I'd do it here. Took some more xrays and did some testing before diving in and for some unknown reason.....it just didn't present as a normal abscess to me. The tooth tested non responsive to cold and percussion (teeth with normal pulpal response will respond to cold, the cold won't linger and it will go away once cold is removed from tooth) so I though, yep abscess.
Anyway, I just didn't feel comfortable with it, so I sent her to the Endodontist (root canal specialist). Close friend of mine in Springfield, does a great job, send alot to him. Anyway, he takes a cone beam 3d scan and does the root canal, but the lesion looked a little different to him as well so he sent her to the ORal Surgeon for a biopsy just to be safe.
Surgeon he sent her to is another close friend, he called, "it's probably just a lipoma, shouldn't be a problem to remove but we'll biopsy".
Comes back as Lymphoma. She sees oncology tomorrow.
Hate it for her, but I guess things worked out how they should in terms of us working together for the patient. [Reply]
About a year ago I had a patient of ours come in with swelling above her upper left lateral incisor. Presented as a typical abscess, needs a root canal or extraction. Anterior teeth (front teeth) generally have a single nerve and single canal so the root canal is fairly easy. Shes a sweet older lady who's been in the practice for years, so I told her I'd do it here. Took some more xrays and did some testing before diving in and for some unknown reason.....it just didn't present as a normal abscess to me. The tooth tested non responsive to cold and percussion (teeth with normal pulpal response will respond to cold, the cold won't linger and it will go away once cold is removed from tooth) so I though, yep abscess.
Anyway, I just didn't feel comfortable with it, so I sent her to the Endodontist (root canal specialist). Close friend of mine in Springfield, does a great job, send alot to him. Anyway, he takes a cone beam 3d scan and does the root canal, but the lesion looked a little different to him as well so he sent her to the ORal Surgeon for a biopsy just to be safe.
Surgeon he sent her to is another close friend, he called, "it's probably just a lipoma, shouldn't be a problem to remove but we'll biopsy".
Comes back as Lymphoma. She sees oncology tomorrow.
Hate it for her, but I guess things worked out how they should in terms of us working together for the patient.
That sucks but if you just hillbillied it out of there she wouldn’t have known. [Reply]
Originally Posted by O.city:
I'm so ****ing tired of hearing "I just hate dentists, no offense doc, but I hate everything about what you do and this place".
Well, mrs denture lady who is unable to be pleased by anything I do, I hate you too.
Not to bag on you good sir but when I was but a young child a dentist of supreme adventure told my parents I needed 4 molars removed because they were blocking teeth coming in behind. Guess what never came in behind? My perfect gay TV star white pearls never came in and I was never offered any leading roles. So I became a cop :-) [Reply]
Originally Posted by OnTheWarpath15:
Bumping this to say if you need dental work, O.City and his merry bunch of pretty hot hygienists make even the most anti-dentites happy.
Farms out his root canals, but can’t blame him for that.
Also got to see one of his old Eagle Rare decanters.
O. city,
What do you think of using a Waterpik in comparison to standard flossing?
I got a Waterpik (full sized version) when I had braces several years ago. The dentist office personnel acted as though it was okay for when I had braces but they would prefer that I use standard floss after the braces were removed.
Lately, though, they seem to be all in on a Waterpik. And I suppose that may have something to do with the fact that Waterpik claims that it is better than standard flossing. I recently got a portable, handheld Waterpik and while it is not quite as good as the full sized one, it is good and simple. And works much better for my small bathroom sink. [Reply]
Eh honestly I don’t have much of an opinion either way. I think they’re bother equally pretty good at what they do, kinda patient preference
Only thing with a water pick is be careful not to turn it up too high, can cause some gum recession. Like a power washer on paint, something’s gonna give [Reply]
So I have a practice in a city setting, as well as one in a rural area close to where I live. Come up here a few days a week....I enjoy the change up.
Anyway, I get here this morning to open up and there's a homeless (I'm assuming) sleeping by my front door. I was able to get in the door.....what's the protocol here on this?
He's not hurting anything but he moved down in front of the salon next door and is back asleep. [Reply]
Originally Posted by O.city:
So I have a practice in a city setting, as well as one in a rural area close to where I live. Come up here a few days a week....I enjoy the change up.
Anyway, I get here this morning to open up and there's a homeless (I'm assuming) sleeping by my front door. I was able to get in the door.....what's the protocol here on this?
He's not hurting anything but he moved down in front of the salon next door and is back asleep.
Protocol in Lawrence, KS is to give them the keys to your place, all of your money, food, and to put them on your insurance policy. [Reply]
Originally Posted by O.city:
So I have a practice in a city setting, as well as one in a rural area close to where I live. Come up here a few days a week....I enjoy the change up.
Anyway, I get here this morning to open up and there's a homeless (I'm assuming) sleeping by my front door. I was able to get in the door.....what's the protocol here on this?
He's not hurting anything but he moved down in front of the salon next door and is back asleep.
Contact the police and report that you have a homeless man loitering around your business. Many times they will help get the person to a shelter. [Reply]
The neighbor to us is a Lawyer's office, his receptionist was getting here the same time I was. She said she had handled it before so she called and took care of it. [Reply]
Originally Posted by LoneWolf:
Contact the police and report that you have a homeless man loitering around your business. Many times they will help get the person to a shelter.
Originally Posted by RockChalk:
Protocol in Lawrence, KS is to give them the keys to your place, all of your money, food, and to put them on your insurance policy.
