Tooth or consequences: The costs of poor dental fitness - The traditional divide between dentistry and medicine is shrinking as data accumulate linking oral health with overall health.
This entry was posted on 2/25/2008 3:29 PM and is filed under ARTICLES.
A few years ago, an extremely sick, 2½-year-old boy came to the Houston office of pediatrician Ray Wagner, MD, with a 105-degree temperature. The illness, which required five days of hospitalization and a course of intravenous antibiotics, got its start in an infected tooth; which, in turn, resulted from poor dental hygiene and a lack of dental care. Dr. Wagner, who was then an assistant professor at the University of Texas Medical School, decided to use this case as a hook for an educational session on oral health.
"We discovered that early childhood caries [tooth decay] was the most common chronic disease of children," he said. "We were all shocked."
Now a staff physician at El Rio Community Health Center in Tucson, Ariz., he is one of more and more physicians who are looking at patients' mouths and teeth before moving on to their throats. These doctors are motivated by both firsthand experiences and the scientific literature documenting that health in this area makes a difference to the whole body.
An increasing number of physicians are educating patients on cleaning teeth and gums and advising parents on reducing the risk of transmitting cavity-causing bacteria from their own mouths to their children's. Fluoride varnishes are being applied to teeth in doctor's offices, and dentists are being added to the list of specialists consulted as needed.
"The mouth is part of the body," said Wanda Gonsalves, MD, associate professor of family medicine at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. She began her career as a dental hygienist. "I'd really like dentists and physicians to co-ordinate more and not have the mouth treated as a totally separate entity."
