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Miscellaneous Information
New Cardiac Guidelines
As of April 19, 2007, the American Heart Association has changed its recommendation for antibiotic premedication before Dental appointments for patients who have a history of Mitral Valve Prolapse or Rheumatic Heart Disease.
Their research shows that although you still might be at risk for "Infective Endocarditis" (IE), your taking antibiotics will NOT significantly reduce this risk. In fact. the overuse of antibiotics carries an even higher risk of complications than IE itself.
So we will no longer be routinely using antibiotics to try to prevent IE in our office. However, each individual case can be different. So we would strongly suggest that you discuss your own personal health history with your private physician to get the proper recommendation for your own individual situation.
Please note that these new guidelines do not affect non-cardiac conditions that might be related to artificial joint replacements.
Please CLICK HERE for more detailed information on these recent changes from the American Heart Association.
antibiotic premedication after joint replacements
The old routine was to cover all patients who have had artificail joints with antibiotics for two years after their surgery. Now those standards have changed. The current recommendation is to use antibiotic premedication forever for any and all dental treatments that are likely to cause some bleeding. CLICK HERE to see the current recommendations.
Is Snoring affecting your Marriage??
67% of all adults snore. And believe it or not, just as many post-menopausal women snore as do men of the same age. This may come as a surprise to many of our wives!?!.
Snoring is caused when the airway in the back of the throat becomes constricted and the soft tissue on the back of your palate vibrates and makes that annoying but all too familiar noise.
The cure to snoring is to open up the airway to keep it from collapsing. However the problem is not quite so simple. Simple Snoring can in many ways be considered just an annoying bad habit, however many people who snore also have a much more serious condition called “Obstructive Sleep Apnea” (OSA). This is where the back of the throat gets so pinched off that less than 20% of the normal air flow is able to squeeze by. Over time. this can be life threatening since it puts an incredible strain on the heart and the lungs to try to compensate for this lack of air flow. People who have OSA have 5 times the risk of having a heart attack or stroke.
This is NOT something that a dentist can diagnose. Only a physician with the use of a “sleep study” (ie. Polysomnogram) can diagnose whether you suffer from OSA.
The best treatment for OSA is the nightly use of a CPAP unit (Continuous Positive Airflow Pressure). This has a success rate if you use it of over 90%, but due to non-compliance its actual overall success rate drops to 68%. A CPAP pumps air thru tubes under slight pressure that you can control to make sure that your lungs have a continual supply of air to breathe.
Any treatment for OSA other than the regular use of CPAP is a compromise, and for a potentially life threatening condition like OSA, I would not recommend any compromises.
But if your physician has determined that you only have simple snoring with no sign of OSA, then there are some measures available to us.
The first, most simple method is to try to keep you from sleeping on your back. You can try to attach a tennis ball to the back of your pajamas that makes it uncomfortable for you to lay flat on your back. If you would like something more sophisticated than this, you can buy a “postural positioning cushion”. For some information on one model that is available for about $100 by clicking here, or if you sew you can make your own. This usually has about a 60% success rate in at least improving the intensity of your snoring.
If this doesn’t satisfy you, the next step to try would be to have a dentist make a “mandibular advancement device” (MAD). This moves your lower jaw and your tongue forward to try to expand the airway in the back of your throat. There are some fairly serious disadvantages to this method that you should discuss with your dentist before attempting this mode of treatment. You and your dentist need to decide whether the advantages of this treatment outweigh the disadvantages of this treatment.
For additional information on Snoring and OSA, please try these websites:
Here are some of the Signs, Symptoms, and Markers for people who “MAY” suffer from Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA):
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You are overweight
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You suffer from either diabetes or asthma
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Restless sleep
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Excessive daytime sleepiness
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Snoring with intermittent pauses
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A man’s neck size larger than 17 inches, or a women larger than 15 inches (it does not matter whether your large neck is due to fat or muscle
Dental Links
American Dental Association
Academy of General Dentistry
"Know Your Teeth"-- an information site for patients
Donated Dental Service: for the past 10 years we have been a volunteer with this Dental Society-sponsored program, also known as "DDS". Click to learn about the program and follow the links to "Illinois" to download an application.
ADA: tips and advice on choosing a dentist.
Checkbook.org: a very good Consumer Magazine covering just the Chicagoland area. They recently published a survey listing their choices for the best dentists in Chicago. They listed 239 in the greater metropolitan area, 46 in Chicago, and only 25 in the downtown Loop area. I am happy to say that our office made this select list. If you would like us to email a copy of this 29 page article in Adobe Acrobat PDF format, please use one of the email links and put "Checkbook" in the subject field.
UIC College of Dentistry: have you been suffering with pain in your head that nobody has been able to figure out? We are very lucky to have an excellent pain center here in Chicago affiliated with UIC dental school. They are highly skilled in solving the difficult pain problems that seem to elude the rest of us mortal dentists.
Illinois Department of Professional Regulation: check the current status of any dentist's license and whether there has ever been any disciplinary action taken against him.
Chicago Interest
Chicago's Millennium Park
Block 37 on Wikipedia:for the most recent plans for developing this block | 