Our local ABC affiliate ran an investigative story on TV today that made me think I was in the middle of a big CE lecture with blown-up pink on the edges and all white and brown in the centers. Dental closeups! Yeah, I should probably put a porn-type filter on my email box when those “identify this lesion” photos pop up because they are just so gross to look at when I’m not in my Dental Frame Of Mind.
I saw three severely decayed mouths in super-close detail on local television, and felt sorry for everyone eating lunch during their noon hour that caught the show, too.
The gist is that these men were serving in Iraq almost ten years ago and now all their teeth are rotting and breaking and hurting and the VA won’t pay to get them fixed up.
As much as you want to feel bad for these guys, and I do, there’s a big part of me wondering what questions aren’t being asked. They’ve never done meth, they don’t complain about severe dry mouth. That’s about all the evidence I heard. What about medications that may be causing an acid imbalance in their saliva? What are their soda habits? How well did they keep up with their dental care the first five years since Iraq?
Watch this video, or if you just want to get through this quickly and avoid an orthodontic commercial, go read the transcript here.
The station will be airing another segment tonight so I may post it online tomorrow that may answer some of these questions and get to the bottom of this Medical Mystery and our pathetic excuse of a government that lets this happen to innocent people (not necessarily my view, but possibly the witch that this investigative report is trying to hunt down).
I’d love to know your theories too, post them here, maybe we can all figure this out together with our Holmesian powers of deduction and ultimately solve this conundrum for these unfortunate men.
Update:
Here’s the second segment of this story (Go Dr. Beadle!) where stress is cited as a major factor in causing tooth loss. I guess it could, in a roundabout way. You’ll find the transcript of this story here, for those of you who aren’t in the mood for a movie.
Joe Collett says
I served in Operation Iraqi Freedom from 05-06. My teeth were always perfect. Brush and floss twice per day and no smoking or eating sweets. I’ve always been health conscious and never had any problems out of me teeth before. In the last 15 years since my return, I’ve lost four teeth and had two root canals. I’m self conscious now and I don’t want to smile.
Teddy says
I had perfect teeth at 18.in 1990, then 9 months of drinking bottled water during Desert Storm and eating MREs.When returned stateside at 19, had like 5-6 cavities, that had to be fixed, 1 root canal done, and 3 crowns. Today, I’m going back to the Dentist possibly for and extraction or root canal under one of those crowns. I started reseaeching and read this article. Apparently, the US government started including xylitol gum in the MREs. They were aware of the issue of tooth decay from MREs and drinking bottled water (non-flouride) and decided to mitigate the effects by giving uus gum.
Robert Burrows says
I went to Iraq in 1990 with good teeth when I cam back my dental check up showed I had three broken teeth and the dentist asked if I could prove that it happened when I was in Iraq Military escape from having to fix the
Robert Burrows says
I’ve had the same problem in my physical before I left for Iraq my teeth were in good shape when I cam back I had four teeth that were cracked and the dentist asked me if I could prove it happened in Iraq since then I hade several teeth break and finally had to have them all my teeth removed????