Stephen Heiden camped out the afternoon before the Mission of Mercy free dental program opened its doors at 6 a.m. Friday.

The La Crosse man wanted to make sure he was seen by one of the hundreds of dental professionals volunteering their time and skills in the first of its kind program in Wisconsin.

He couldn’t remember that last time he had seen a dentist, but he recalled one tooth extraction cost him $330.

“Before that, a long time ago, I had an extraction for $60,” Heiden said. “It had gotten to the point that I really needed to see a dentist and couldn’t afford it.”

He said he has a job that pays $9 an hour, but he has no medical or dental insurance.

“My bills I can afford to pay, but that’s about it,” Heiden said.

Heiden waited at the head of the line for 13 hours until the doors opened for the first of two days of the dental project. He was the first to be seen by a dentist, and he proudly kept his No. 1 card.

“He really needed to be seen,” said Karen Spitzer, a La Crosse dentist who filled six cavities for Heiden to start her day.

Spitzer said she could only spend a maximum 45 minutes per patient, but advised Heiden that he could go to the end of line and come through process again for more care.

That’s exactly what he did.

Heiden said he even waited longer so he could see Spitzer again. She filled a few more cavities for him.

“I’ve seen a lot of cavities, and I’ve pulled a lot of teeth,” Spitzer said. “I pulled 13 on my last patient.

“It’s been very rewarding,” she said. “I’ve had patients cry, and I received a lot of hugs.”

Heiden said he had nine cavities filled. He was especially worried about a front tooth.

“If I didn’t have this opportunity, I could have lost that tooth,” he said.

He said he couldn’t believe all the help he received and how he was treated with dignity and respect.

“I have not felt good about my smile,” Heiden said. “Actually I felt ashamed of it.”

Heiden said he hopes to start seeing a dentist regularly.

“I don’t want dentures. Now I hope I’m able to keep my own teeth,” he said.

Heiden was so grateful, he became a volunteer that day at the dental project and ran errands and escorted other patients.

He returned the next day, his 45th birthday, to volunteer again.

Someone brought candles to light on a piece of cake, and others sang “Happy Birthday” to him.

“I wanted to help someone else to give back for the help I received,” Heiden said. “This has been the most amazing gift I have been given.”

It’s amazing to me that dental care can be a gift when it should be a right. Stand up and tell your legislators that dental access should be a priority.

Government promised low-income people dental care and has yet to deliver.

This report from a prospective study discusses the status of a group of 20 single maxillary sintered porous-surfaced (SPS) dental implants after 7 to 9 years in function restored with screw-retained crowns (see also Periodontology). Twenty patients each received a single SPS implant placed in a two-stage surgical approach; 65% replaced premolar or molar teeth, while the remainder replaced anterior teeth,” scientists writing in the International Journal of Periodontics & Restorative Dentistry report.

“Patients were examined annually. Standardized radiographs were used to assess peri-implant crestal bone levels and to determine an implant success rate. Jemt Papilla Index scores were used to assess the extent of papilla reformation between each implant and its two contiguous teeth. After 7 to 9 years, 17 implants were available for assessment (one patient had died, and two patients had moved away). One implant was removed after the 9-year visit because of progressive bone loss, giving a survival rate of 92.9%. The failure of this implant was related to deficiency in initial alveolar ridge width with loss of the remaining thin buccal cortical plate. With the exception of the failed implant, no significant changes in mean annual crestal bone loss were noted from years 1 to 9, giving a similar success rate (92.9%). Jemt Papilla Index scores of 2 or 3 were assigned for the majority of papillae,” wrote K. Macdonald and colleagues, University of Toronto.

Dental health care experts are concerned.

“I think a lot of preventative care has become affected by people’s economic situations,” said Randall Lawson, a doctor of dental surgery and owner of College Avenue Dental in Jacksonville.

“I have two hygienists that do preventive care, cleanings, et cetera, and they have seemed to become less busy as of late.”

He said although the summer time is busier due to children being out of school, his office has seen more cancellations than usual.

William Weller, a doctor of dental surgery with an office on West Lafayette Avenue, has seen a similar trend at his practice.

“Whenever we have a downturn or anything like this there are several things that happen,” Dr. Weller said. “Probably the most significant is people looking for ways to cut corners — looking to delay or postpone their six-month checkups. It’s kind of unfortunate because yes, they’ll save 100 bucks on a checkup but they’ll pay later.”

Dr. Weller said the people he and his fellow dentists treat in the area, for the most part, “are really honest people.”

“If they don’t have the money they don’t want to come in and incur a debt,” he explained. “Which is laudable to some degree, but something that we worry about.”

They worry for many reasons.

One, most patients end up paying more when they do get back in the chair because problems like cavities, gum diseases and cracked teeth go undetected and get worse.

Patients are also skipping an oral cancer screening when they skip a check up, Mr. Weller said. “It’s rare, but serious.”

Dentists also worry from a business perspective. When the economy does turn around, the their offices will face a pile up of patients who avoided care.

Elective dental work has also apparently been affected by the economic slowdown.

“People seem to be delaying elective sorts of things, cosmetic services, whitening procedures,” Dr. Lawson said. “Currently it’s just being delayed but eventually it might end up being abandoned.”

Dr. Weller said he has seen patients cancel appointments to have their teeth capped.

Another indicator of how bad the economic situation is, Dr. Weller added, is the number of patients deciding to have teeth removed rather than treated and saved.

“Root canals and crowns can cost $1,000 to $2,000,” he said. “When insurance first began to become popular, the maximum annual coverage was about $1,000 to $1,500. Today it’s still $1,000 to $1,500. Now, you can easily reach that with one tooth.”

economy downoral health

Keeping your teeth brushed and flossed can cut down on gum disease, drastically reducing risk of heart attack and stroke, dentists have warned for years. Now researchers at West Virginia University have found a clean mouth may also help preserve memory (see also Gum Disease).

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a $1.3 million grant over four years to further build on studies linking gum disease and mild to moderate memory loss.

“Older people might want to know there’s more reason to keep their mouths clean — to brush and floss — than ever,” said Richard Crout, D.M.D., Ph.D., an expert on gum disease and associate dean for research in the WVU School of Dentistry. “You’ll not only be more likely to keep your teeth, but you’ll also reduce your risk of heart attack, stroke and memory loss.”

Crout will share the grant with gerontologist Bei Wu, Ph.D., formerly of WVU and now a researcher at the University of North Carolina; Brenda L. Plassman, Ph.D., of Duke University, a nationally recognized scientist in the field of memory research; and Jersey Liang, Ph.D., a professor at the University of Michigan. Wu is the principal investigator.

The team will look at health records over many years of several thousand Americans.

“This could have great implications for health of our aging populations,” Crout said. “With rates of Alzheimer’s skyrocketing, imagine the benefits of knowing that keeping the mouth free of infection could cut down on cases of dementia.”

The research builds on an ongoing study of West Virginians aged 70 and older. Working with the WVU School of Medicine, School of Dentistry researchers have given oral exams and memory tests to 270 elderly people in more than a dozen West Virginia counties.

Funded by a $419,000 two-year grant, they’ve discovered that about 23 percent of the group suffers from mild to moderate memory loss.

A blood draw is also part of the study for research subjects who agree.

“If you have a gum infection, you’ll have an increased level of inflammatory byproducts,” Crout explained. “We’re looking for markers in the blood that show inflammation to see if there is a link to memory problems. We’d like to go full circle and do an intervention — to clean up some of the problems in the mouth and then see if the inflammatory markers go down.”

Researchers don’t yet understand whether microorganisms in the mouth create health problems or whether the body’s inflammatory response is to blame. It may be a combination of both. Researchers also don’t know much about mild to moderate memory loss, even though the connection between severe dementia and gum disease is well-known, Crout said.

In the future, dentists may routinely administer memory tests to their older patients, he said.

“A dentist may see a longtime, older patient with an area of the mouth that’s showing signs of inflammation because of not being properly cleaned daily,” Crout said. “Many times we as clinicians, however, don’t think of this as due to a memory problem. The patient may not be flossing or brushing properly as we have instructed they should. But this research indicates that the problem may be due to memory loss as opposed to noncompliance.”

This news release was issued on behalf of Newswise(TM). For more information, visit http://www.newswise.com/.

Keywords: Aging, Alzheimer Disease, Cardiology, Central Nervous System Disease, Dementia, Dentistry, Gum Disease, Heart Attack, Memory Disorder, West Virginia University Health Sciences Center.

how to brush your teethdental health

Sunstar Americas, an oral care company whose brands include GUM and Butler, has tapped into the probiotic frenzy sweeping through the aisles of the retail space, by developing the new GUM PerioBalance supplement for oral health.

The World Health Organization and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations define probiotics as “live microorganisms, which, when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit on the host.” In addition to some dietary supplements, some foods containing probiotics include yogurt and cereal bars (see story, page 130).

Positioned as “one of the first probiotic supplements specifically created for oral health,” the daily supplement comes in a mint-flavored lozenge and is made with a patented key ingrethent called Prodentis. According to the company, clinical tests have shown the supplement to reduce moderate-to-severe plaque and promote healthy teeth and gums in 28 days.

The new GUM PerioBalance is available online at www.drugstore.com or at www.periobalance.com and at Baiteli Drugs stores in the Seattle area. It is expected to be available nationwide in 2010.

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