Category: Oral Surgery
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What to do Before a Patient Starts Cancer Treatments
This guide can be useful for patients who will be undergoing radiation to the head/neck area, beginning to take myelosuppresive drugs, or going to begin chemotherapy. Step one involves getting the patient in for examination at least a month before treatment begins. Coordination with the Oncologist is helpful here to determine where the proposed radiation…
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Treating Medically Complex Patients with Dental Infections
A refresher on some of the conditions, pharmaceutical treatments, and host defenses that can complicate treatment: Part 1- Determine the severity of the infection e.g. How is the patient feeling? How quickly did the infection start? Is there any trismus, dyspnea, dysphagia, malaise? If the infection arose quickly and/or shows signs listed above, the infection…
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Pineapple After A Tooth Extraction?
If you have ever had a tooth extracted, or are in need of one, you may have heard of what NOT to do after the extraction. Things like: No smoking, spitting, or sucking through straws to prevent dry sockets. Avoiding small, grainy, or crunchy foods that can get stuck in the holes where the teeth…
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Diabetes and Oral Health
Diabetes is the seventh most common cause of death in the United States, accounting for more than 87,000 deaths in 2019¹. Unfortunately, diabetes isn’t quite understood by the general population, and many individuals fail to recognize the gravity of the disease on their health. In today’s post, we will explore what causes diabetes, the side…
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What Are Dry Sockets?
If you’ve ever had a tooth taken out, your dentist has more than likely discussed with you the possibility of dry sockets. Dry sockets are nothing to mess around with, and we are going to talk about just what they are and things we can do to avoid them – as well as discuss risk…
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Creating a Flap as Summarized by Contempory Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery
During complicated dental procedures where surgical access is limited, it may be necessary to create a flap. When making a flap for tooth removal, the flap should be ‘full-thickness’ mucoperiosteal flaps. This means that the mucosa, submucosa, and periosteum should be included in the flap. There are various criteria that must be taken into consideration…
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Summarizing the Inferior Alveolar Nerve Block According to the Handbook of Local Anesthesia
For quadrant dentistry, anesthetizing the inferior alveolar nerve is essential. This nerve block is achieved by targeting the nerve as it passes towards the mandibular foramen. The area of injection can be established by three parameters: Height of injection Anteroposterior placement of the needle Depth of penetration The height of the injection should be based…
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The Lingual Nerve
The lingual nerve is a part of the mandibular branch of the trigeminal nerve (V3). The lingual nerve provides general sensory information to the floor of the mouth, the lingual mucosa, as well as the anterior 2/3rds of the tongue. What makes the lingual nerve so special? The lingual nerve has two ‘special’ roles –…
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Local Anesthetics and When to Use Them
What is a local anesthetic? Local anesthetics are one of the safest, most reliable ways to achieve anesthesia in dentistry. Local anesthetics contain three parts – an aromatic group, an intermediate chain, and a secondary or tertiary amino terminus. The portion known as the ‘intermediate chain’ is the basis for the classification of anesthetic, which…
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Extraction of the Maxillary First Premolar
What does the maxillary first premolar look like? The maxillary first premolar has the longest crown of any of the maxillary posterior teeth and has a prominent mesiolingual developmental groove on its mesial side. The maxillary first premolar is single rooted for the first 2/3rds of the tooth – only until the apical 1/3rd does…
Teeth & Chiefs 