Posted by alexandra_k on August 26, 2017, at 20:42:17
In reply to Re: Flouride Tablets? » baseball55, posted by alexandra_k on August 26, 2017, at 19:30:23
I'm curious about this since I haven't been to the dentist since I turned 18 and I remember that for a few of my 6 monthly check-ups the dentist had hemmed and hawed about whether this or that or this other place could use a filling.
I have had tooth pain, at times.
I have tried to research things... So I might be able to make an informed decision about it all... I could probably scrape together the funds for a check-up, at least if that is the thing that I need to do... I think you can get some assistance with dental from Work and Income...
I have tried to research things to see whether that is the thing to do, however... Because there is just so much money to be made... People selling toothbrushes and cleaning products. Dentists trying to sell their services.
The dentists got me going back to them before I turned 18 because I thought there were holes they needed to keep their eye on.
And then the government got it's record of my adult dentition when I turned 18 to use in forensic contexts.
Or whoever it is that has access to / control over that data...
What was in it for me - again?
I'm not usually a psychopath... But I'm learning... Perhaps I'm learning not to be taken for a fool...
I studied some Biological Anthropology and we had access to quite a few teeth. Most of them were from skeletons who (in life) would have been poor people from India. I was surprised at how even though they had calculus buildup between the teeth... Even though they had localised discoloration from pipe smoking... The teeth were pretty white. Compared to my teeth. Compared to most peoples teeth in our class.
We had access to lots of photographs, too. You can estimate the relative age at death of skeletal remains from traditional hunter-gatherer populations by looking at the wear on the occlusal surfaces of their teeth, you see. The enamel wears off the top of the teeth much more significantly than a more modern western diet since their diet is less manually pre-processed. They have bits of grit and rocks and husks on things etc. You can see the dentine that lies under the enamel. You can see how the dentine remodels and compacts harder over time so as to protect the pulp cavity with it's nerve and blood supply.
What our diets have that their diets don't is a greater proportion of refined sugars and carbohydrates. The bacteria that live in the mouth really feast on those substances and they produce acid as a byproduct of their metabolism and that acid eats away at the surfaces of our teeth (enamel and dentine). So... The utility of brushing is mostly about gently does it for a longer duration while the biofilm gunk dissolves.
I know that we did hear about how traditional peoples used to have some terrible things happen with uleration right up into their jaw bone etc and it seems true to me that these cases are largely prevented these days via antibiotics and / or propholactic removal...
It seems less clear to me that these things are prevented by the routine filling that we engage in.
Do you remember when we used to fill people's mouthes with mercury? Then we found mercury was toxic. Who would have thought mercury would be toxic?! What do we fill them with these days? What reason do we have to believe that it is any the less toxic?
It makes you easier to identify on autopsy, however. Even if there are less teeth...
poster:alexandra_k
thread:1094577
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20160906/msgs/1094654.html