Hi and welcome, or welcome back. You are listening to the Perio Patient Podcast, a podcast for my patients and anyone else who cares to listen. My name is Dr. Ben Young and I am a periodontist in private practice in San Antonio, Texas. This is Episode 105, and the title is A Holiday Reflection
But before I go there, I would like to first review with you a little bit about dental implants – how they are different from natural teeth and why this is important.
If you haven’t ever watched my brief video on the cause, treatment, and management of periodontal disease I call “A Tooth Has Four Parts,” then I encourage you to do so. It’s on my website on the front page. Just scroll down a little and you will find it. If it has been a while, go look at it again. It’s a good review and it explains the four parts of a tooth. The part important to the cause and management of periodontitis is invisible to the naked eye. Under a microscope it looks a lot like bone. It is a thin bone-like layer that covers the root and hold little fibers we call periodontal fibers. They attach the tooth to the body. They are shock absorbers. This means if a tooth is traumatized it can get loose and then when the force is removed it can tighten back up. Also, these fibers have a type of nerve that sends location signals to the brain. This is how you know if you have a strawberry seed between your teeth.
Dental implants are different. They attach directly to bone. No fibers. In fact, if fibers form between the implant and bone, the implant will loosen and fall out. Implants can take a lot of force if they run in the right direction – meaning they can take a strong load in the direction of the length of the implant – the direction we call axial. Axial when describing the human body is head to toe. Forces hitting the implant or the tooth the implant is holding from the side weaken the implant and if they exceed the implant-bone connection it will result in a microfracture of bone next to the implant which will be lost and replaced by a soft tissue network similar to the fibers around the tooth. When this happens in an implant, the implant has failed and the only option at that point is to start over.
In addition, there are no specialized nerves around the implant giving the brain information about forces being applied. This means that an implant/crown system can be hitting earlier than other teeth – which is not unusual over months and years of wear of the tops of teeth and crowns to even routine chewing – and the individual will be completely unaware.
For this reason, implants need to be checked annually by your general dentist or prosthodontist to check the bite. An annual x-ray is also a good idea. So, if you have a dental implant or implants, make sure you are having it evaluated every year with a bite check and x-ray.
So, what does it mean to be yourself? And what do I mean by asking the question?
It’s kind of a philosophical question I know, but I think our life circumstances call us all to be philosophers at times. It doesn’t mean we are necessarily good at it, but then it also doesn’t mean that people who might call themselves, or be known by others as philosophers, are necessarily good at it either.
A lot of the frustrations I experience and see others experience in life are connected with the decisions we make. Who we think we are, how we feel about ourselves, affect the decisions we make. For example, I know people who don’t like themselves. They carry guilt or shame perhaps. Whatever it is, and the decisions we make are based on who we think we are or think we should be.
Well, that’s it for today.
This has been The Perio Patient Podcast, and I am still Dr. Ben Young.
Thanks for listening.
Bye for now.
