DentalBuzz - a jolt of current…

Nice product presentation on the left, don’t you think?

Now what exactly are they? The latest in clear maxillary molar implants?

Wrong. You stick them in your ears. You. The dental professional.  Yes, you, the person who is losing their hearing and doesn’t mind spending about a grand to protect what’s left of your stereocilia.

Not losing your hearing? Then prove it to yourself. Take the test below in a quiet place. Naturally you need to have speakers turned up to about medium to hear all the frequencies. The higher ranges are what are known as the “mosquito” ringtones, which are outside the audible range of people over 30, and often used by the young-uns to send stealth text messages to each other.

There have been a few inconclusive studies published in the dental journals this decade about the concern that high decibel-level noise is an occupational hazard in dental practices. We thought that now would be a good time to gather a little of our own anecdotal evidence, and see how dentists’ hearing stacks up to the general population.

Play each of these tones to yourself and then please fill out the anonymous survey below so that we can publish the results in a future post.  

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You’ve watched way too many movies.

If you’ve got images of Star Trek’s Geordi LaForge, nerdy sidekicks in 80’s new-wave glasses a la John Hughes’ teen films, or the horrors of Total Recall memory augmentation burned into your retinas, then please, let those prejudiced views slide gently outside of your peripheral vision and consider that Virtual Reality glasses may actually be good and cheap enough these days to make them part of your patient comfort collection.

 We want to heavily discourage dentists from spending thousands of dollars in wall or ceiling-mounted screens just so that patients can have something to look at besides your ugly mug while you’re fixing their teeth.

We’re not kidding.

The problem with screens like that, during dentistry, is that your head keeps getting in the way while your patient is trying to remain distracted.

There’s lots of other details that can end up complicating the whole thing, so instead of making this a gripe session about overbloated dental amenities, we’ve created a few tracks that will make it inexpensive and easy for you to start using VR glasses in your practice.

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In so many ways, the BrytonPick is the best all-around new product in patient oral health care. 

It’s Green: One pick is reusable for up to 30 days.

It’s Cute: The BrytonPick looks like a little boomerang.

It’s Practical: Patients who absolutely will not use dental floss will be thrilled that a new option is available for food removal. This means they can stop using paper clips, business cards, matches, and fingernails.

It’s Portable: the BrytonPick comes with a credit card-sized carrying case.

It’s Brandable: the back of the carrying case can be printed with the name of your dental practice.

It’s Affordable: BrytonPicks each cost less than $2.

There’s only one problem: It’s made of metal, which makes it hard to watch the video on the BrytonPick website without getting that watery-mouth, galvanic shock sympathy shudder.

Seriously tweaked patients are bringing their iPhone accessories to dentists nationwide.

The newest iPhone almost fits in the original iPhone dock. Almost, but… no.  And MobileMe still doesn’t sync iTunes remotely, so users are either stuck with purchasing the 3G dock for $29 or sticking it to Apple by creatively finding ways to carve out the plastic edges of their old ones.

Desperate for something to drill on, dentists affected by the recent economic downturn have begun aiming their burs outside of their patients’ mouths and are now the prime facilitators of this dock modding craze.

The unnamed dentist pictured above performed the service as part of a “teeth fixin” deal. He is now questioning his decision to allow photography during the modification due to the large number of geeks currently hanging out in his reception area.

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Hi. I’m a very sad American Indian. I am crying because I just learned that my children have Bisphenol-A in their dental sealants. BPA is bad. It means my boys might end up with man-boobs.

This is about dental pollution, people. It may be ignored by mainstream science, but this problem is real enough to sell newspapers, magazines, and make you read online articles.

What I’ve Heard About Dental Pollution

Everywhere I go I hear about how it’s not fair that the citizens of cities have no choice about the fluoride in their drinking water. Sure, it makes teeth stronger, but there’s a conspiracy of pollution! And it’s the people who are so poor that they can’t even afford cups, they have to tilt their heads sideways to drink under the sink faucet, they are the ones who get the most fluoride in their bodies.

Does fluoride save lives like chlorine does? Wait, I didn’t say that, because it’s going to sound like I am in favor of putting poisons in the water. 

You dentists also are protecting the right to fix the holes in people’s mouths with evil substances. If you drill a tooth and put in a silver filling, you have to make the filling soft with toxic mercury. Why can’t you just heat up the silver and pour it in the cavity?

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