"Why You Should Never Get a Root Canal!!!...unless, of course you need one."

"Why You Should Never Get a Root Canal!!!"

 

    Well, except for maybe a few reasons, that I explain below.  I will later explain why my title mocks a lot of other blogs or circulating articles on social media.  A quick word of advice to those individuals:  Don't use an excessive amount of punctuation.  It's juvenile and unprofessional.  Also, the God Father of dental research, Gordon Christensen, DMD, warned me about "W.A.F."

 

Worry.

 

Anxiety.

 

Fear.

 

    Any "doomsday" or mellow-dramatic title may clue you into the fact that you may not be reading a reputable article from a reputable source.  They are aiming for shock value, more clicks, more advertising money, etc. What are reputable sources?  Shockingly enough, Wikipedia is not one.  The Mayo Clinic, the American Dental Association, the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research or other peer-reviewed articles utilizing evidence based dentistry or medicine are reputable sources.  The only way we can all have professional discussions is if we all pull knowledge from fair, unbiased sources.  Googling a bunch of blogs that favor one's opinion isn't a viable debate.  If you have distrust in the aforementioned organizations, I cannot debate some of these issues.  We will be like Mars and Venus!  It is good to be skeptical and raise concerns over certain issues.  But anecdotal occurrences and random blogs do not make a talking point.  I say this respectfully, and urge you to seek second opinions if you do not agree with a first opinion. 

 

 First up, what is a root canal? 

 

    When bacteria infiltrates a tooth and it goes deep enough, it may reach the nerve or pulp.  This deep infiltration cannot just be eradicated by systemic antibiotics.  Why?  The nerves, blood vessels and fluid operate on a one way street in a tooth.  Once bacteria invade the nerve, even in very small numbers, the tooth will eventually become painful or symptomatic.  It's like a closed pressure cooker of bacteria spreading.  The only way to make the tooth pain free yet functional at that point is to remove the nerve inside the tooth, disinfect it, and seal the chamber with a rubbery, bio-friendly material called gutta percha. The term "root canal" describes the anatomical area or tunnel inside the roots of a tooth that houses the nerve.  The presence or absence of a nerve will not adversely affect the day to day functions of a tooth.  Hot and cold thermal sensations will no longer be functioning from within the tooth.  A root canal tooth can still get decay -- so brush and floss. 

 

How successful are root canals?

 

Most studies show a 95% success rate for people of average health, non-smokers, while under regular dental care.

 

1. Decay has spread so deep that you are having unbearable symptoms: throbbing, chronically dully ache, sporadic sharp pain, lingering cold pain (more than just a few seconds) or the feeling of a very "hot" tooth that only ice cold drinks will resolve. In this case, a simple filing won't suffice.  As long as there is enough of a "shell" of tooth left, it will most likely be worth saving.
2. You want to be out of pain, but choose a more conservative, less invasive procedure.  The alternative to doing a root canal is getting a tooth extracted.  This is not always such a easy, painless procedure.  Especially if the tooth is acutely abscessed and you are swollen, etc.  There is an extended period of healing for bone and soft tissue versus getting a root canal.
3. You want to preserve your jaw bone. The only reason you have alveolar bone or jaw bone is because of the presence of teeth.  If no trees were on the side of a river, the soil would wash away, right?  Unfortunately, I see some elderly patients who had lost all their teeth by age 40 or 50.  As you can imagine, there is virtually no ridge of bone left on the lower jaw.  So even the most expensive "Cadillac" of all dentures won't be comfortable.  Eating and chewing with something that moves constantly and has no retention isn't a lot of fun.  I used to work in a nursing home periodically, and it  was very sad to see frail, elderly patients lose weight due to loss of teeth and poor fitting dentures.  Just get them some implants, you say? Depending on their medical status, that may be risky.  Also, implant overdentures are excellent compared to conventional dentures, but are very expensive.  Families have to pay out of pocket for these procedures at a surgeon's and dentist's private office.  They also have to pay for transportation of immobile patients.  Finally, there just may not be enough bone height and width to even do implants on an atrophied jaw.  The World Health Organization recognizes edentualism or loss of teeth as a physical disability.  This is especially true in our elderly population.
4. You want to choose a more economical option in the long run. Replacing a tooth via a dental implant or doing a bridge and cutting into teeth that may be perfectly healthy, is always more expensive than doing a root canal. Depending on the situation:

• Root canal plus a filling: $800-$1200.  If you need a crown, that may be an additional $1,000.
• Extraction at a surgeon plus sedation: $300 - $700.  If you have lost a lot of bone: a bone graft can add additional cost, but is a necessary procedure.  Placement of an implant, sedation again by a surgeon: $1,800 - $2,000.
• The fee from a general dentist for fabricating an abutment (what the "tooth" or implant crown sits on) and a crown: $1,600 or more.
• A partial denture to replace the teeth or tooth: $1,200 - $1,500.
• Brushing, flossing, keeping up with regular check ups every six months and periodic x-rays to hopefully avoid these scenarios: priceless.

Keep in mind that maximums per year for most dental insurances are $1,000 to $1,500.  So this money gets eaten up quickly with any of the above options. The fees I quoted are a generalization.  They may vary highly depending on the region, specialist, quality of work and needs of each patient.  I'm not getting into "fee wars" but feel free to call offices with general quotes for procedures.

 

 But I will be fair and say that there are a few reasons why you may not get a root canal. 

"I may not need a root canal if..."

 

1. The tooth is not restorable.

    Sometimes there just isn't enough solid foundation to build a house.  Would you spend a lot of money building a house near a sinkhole? No.  If you have a tooth that has had many fillings or the decay has gone far below the gum line, rendering only a sliver of natural tooth remaining, it is not wise to invest heavily in a root canal and a full coverage cap or crown.  Also, sometimes an endodontist will see a rather large internal crack in a tooth.  Most endodontists use powerful microscopes which allow them to see down the tiny canals of teeth.  If a tooth is restorable, it needs to have a cap or a crown placed (usually, not always) on top of it.  Studies have shown that if the tooth is sealed properly with a full coverage cap or crown, this is the best way to ensure longevity and success of a root canal treated tooth.

 

2.  There is significant bone loss compromising the tooth.

    Remember the house we were building?  What if we had a solid foundation, but the wood being used to build the house was hollow?  Still not a great long term prognosis.  Your periodontium, or your soft tissue and alveolar bone, is something we always need to address.  You could have no cavities, but if you have periodontal disease that is untreated, the teeth become prematurely mobile and eventually are lost because of lack of support. 

 

3.  You have rampant, uncontrolled decay.

    Now, let's build our house.  It's a wonderful, beautiful functional house.  However, all of the other houses in the neighborhood are foreclosed and vandalized.  So our property value is decreased exponentially.  In some patients who have gone through chemo and radiation treatments, or engaged in methamphetamine abuse, etc., we find extensive "wrap around" decay on nearly every tooth.  Every clinician must work with each patient individually to weigh whether or not one should invest money into saving certain teeth.  If the patient has been in and out of the hospital or has a nomadic lifestyle, they may not necessarily commit to long term follow through care.  So doing a more definitive treatment like an extraction or a denture, is wise.  This leads me to  the last point...

 

4.  You cannot or you have no intention of engaging in routine, preventive dental care.

    I can't tell you how many times I have seen patients who presented to our office with the chief complaint of "my root canal went bad."  Surely, there are times where the quality of work on a root canal can vary and can contribute to a root canal failing prematurely.  But this very rarely occurs.  As a side note, most root canals treatments at our office are referred out to endodontic specialists.  I do smaller anterior teeth and lower premolars.  I firmly believe that if you are a restorative dentist, you ought to spend most of your time doing restorative dentistry.  Of course this philosophy of care may differ if I were in a very desolate area and no other dental care providers could be found for hundreds of miles.

 

    Usually with the root canals that have "gone bad," there is untreated decay that grew and grew over months or years.  This decay spread to the root and caused an abscess or a fractured, non-restorable tooth.  Or sometimes the patient may still have a temporary filling with sterile cotton in the tooth.  We recommend getting a permanent filling in those root canal treated teeth within several weeks after the procedure.  A temporary filling is just that -- temporary.  So after months or years, I'm not shocked to see that it has worn down, or completely worn away.  Then you have a compromised tooth, unprotected, collecting food and debris, causing decay from within an already root canal treated tooth.  This is almost always a bad scenario for patients.  They either have to spend the money to have a re-treated root canal, or spend money for an extraction an implant replacement. 

 

    I'd be remiss without mentioning the importance of preventive and proactive careversus reactive care.  Except for trauma or severe cracks, root canals are not pure "destiny" for everyone.  At one time, an infected tooth was a tooth with a small, manageable cavity.  A relatively easy procedure would have been detected if routine dental care and exams had been done every six months.  A routine filling may be $200 - $400.  Now, a root canal and a crown may be about $2,000 and entail several longer appointments. Like any branch of medicine -- proactive care and preventive care is preferred over reactive care.

 

    And a final segment on what spun me into writing this article. 

 

    A few weeks ago, you may have spotted an article circulating.  The article was written by a Dr. Mercola.  He is a physician of osteopathy.  He is not a dentist.  I will save you the thirty minutes or so that I sacrificed to read it by summing it up.  He says that 97% of terminally ill patients have had root canals.  So by inference, we should believe that all root canals cause terminal illness, or at the very least, are bad.

 

    Please DO NOT google this guy or give him any more hits on the article.  I will re-capitulate a few things about who he is and why his main points are baseless and a bit reckless.

 

•    Dr. Mercola is an alternative medicine proponent.  He is a doctor of osteopathy, not a dentist or endodontist.
•    His main business venture seems to be the "Dr. Mercola Natural Health Center" in Illinois.
•    He was featured on Quackwatch.com due to FDA warnings (2005, 2006, 2011) for "unsubstantiated claims that clash with those of leading medical and public health organizations..."  Specifically, he suggested nutritional supplements could cure or treat cancer.

    So who is this modern day Henry David Thoreau?  A real cowboy of civil disobedience at its best?  Or self serving financial gain?  It's your call.  I'm not into name calling.

 

    One thing is for sure.  He has created quite a following by questioning established norms in medicine.  He's also created wealth and fame along the way. 

 

A few of the extreme claims from his article are listed below.  I may paraphrase, but I'm saving you from trudging through all the minutia:

 

    "Root canal teeth become one of the worst sources of chronic bacterial toxicity in your body."

 

    A root canal treatment debrides the infiltration of bacteria into the vital pulp.  It's a physical removal of the organic tissue within a tooth.  By removing the affected tissue, the bacteria have no "food" and are thus, obliterated.  A diluted solution of bleach is used to eradicate any remaining tissue and bacteria.  An aseptic, biological compatible, material called gutta percha is used to fill the canals, along with an aseptic sealer.  If words like "all natural" or "organic" get you excited, then this material is a party starter.  It's derived from the sap of a tree which produces a rigid, natural latex.

 

    Another newsflash: our bodies normally harbor tons of bacteria.  Most, kept in a delicate equilibrium, are favorable and necessary.  Your gut, colon, and mouth are homes to many bacteria.  They are necessary to the homeostasis of your metabolism and body.  So, my question is: what specific strain of bacteria is exacerbated by a root canal?  If said bacteria is proven to be present in significantly higher amounts in someone's jaw bones, has this bacteria infiltrated other tissues?  How can you accurately test this in vivo?  And what are the specific diseases or conditions that may arise from these chronic bacteria?  Until any of those questions are answered by a double blind placebo non-biased and reputable study, I'm kind of a skeptic.

 

    "93% of women with breast cancer have had root canals."

 

        Wow. Okay, that's a staggering statistic.  However, which study is he referring to? How many women were surveyed or studied? 10? 100?  With a disease that affects so many thousands of women each year, 1,000 or 10,000 aren't enough subjects to draw a general consensus. 

     If a cancer patient has had chemo and radiation, their salivary glands have been obliterated. That means they have no saliva, and no protection against buffering acids. The result? Decay spreading quickly and necessitating a root canal.

 

    If this were such a pervasive and daunting statistic, why have we not seen it studied by the many independently operated non-profit breast cancer research foundations?  These organizations certainly have no motive to sabotage or cover up true concerns like this. 

 

    Additionally, according to the National Cancer Institute, the average age of a woman with breast cancer is 61.  So the average woman with breast cancer is a baby boomer.  One thing that I can tell you anecdotally is that there are many, many baby boomer patients with root canals.  The older one gets, the more likely he or she is to have had a root canal.  What if I said an arbitrary statistic (even if it were proven by a reputable study) like:

 

    "50% of people with a hip replacement have deep fillings."  Therefore, by Mercola's logic, hip replacements must cause teeth to really decay at a fast rate.  No. 

 

    You cannot arbitrarily draw unrelated correlations like this.  I call it "selective statistic editing."  Making the foot fit the shoe instead of the other way around.

 

    "Leaving a dead body part in your body is not a good idea."

 

    We finally agree!  Except that, well, a tooth that has a root canal is not quite "dead."  We don't need to argue about the moral status of the dental pulp here.  However, without the pulp or nerve tissue in a tooth, it becomes more brittle, less hydrated, and lacks sensory ability to hot or cold.  It still "feels' and functions like a real tooth.  True, it is clinically "non-vital." 

     It is actually held in place by a ton of vital, connective tissue and ligaments while in the jaw bone - which are all vital.  Your hair is non-vital protein.  So, my wonderful locks should be plucked out of my head because they are a "dead body part?"  Sinead O'Connor must be INCREDIBLY healthy and progressive in her thinking then.

 

    On a serious note.  Mercola compares the "dead" tooth to leaving a non-vital fetus in the womb forever.  This is so offensive and wrong on so many levels.  I respect teeth - they are my livelihood.  But to compare a complex, ethical, and palliative dental treatment to a lost child in pregnancy, is no comparison at all.  For women who have gone through that sort of awful experience, the mere comparison takes advantage of deep seeded emotions.

 

    I really do believe that Dr. Mercola believes these accusatory statements.  I also believe that he realizes that he has found a cash cow in the industry of dietary supplements.  He is afforded the "luxury" of flying under the radar of the FDA.  But thankfully, he has been appropriately reprimanded for making claims that are a bit too egregious.  I respectfully disagree with him and wish that he would speak with respected and qualified endodontists before spreading more W.A.F.

 

"Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth."

Henry David Thoreau

 

 

 

 

 

Jacquline R. Owens, DMD, MBE

Why I "Pool" Teeth Like a Dentist and Drill Like a Swimmer

Next up: 10 Reasons why I Pool Teeth Like a Dentist...and Drill Like a Swimmer

 

No, I didn't misspell this subject line.  This is a tongue and cheek look at life as a competitive swimmer and a career as a dentist.  If you are a high school swimmer in the state of Pennsylvania, this weekend was a BIG weekend.  It's District Championships.  The last step before State Championships.  My nephew, Ryan Owens, is an extremely accomplished freestyler - much better than I ever was! He won the 100 freestyle and placed a close second for the 200.   He's a great competitor and I wish him the best at states.

 

So let me convince you that this is an interesting topic...

 

1. "Eyewear is critical...and personal."

If you were a swimmer in the 90's and early 2000's like I was, two types of swimmers existed: those who wore Swedish goggles and those who did not.  I would watch the Olympics and idolize those, chic, aerodynamic lenses suctioned around the eyeballs of those athletes.  Maybe it was because anything "Swedish" must be sexy and stylish yet effortless and victorious. These so-called "Swedish goggle wearers" probably sipped organic hipster energy shakes between sets, driving their eclectically decked out SAAB's home from practice, listening to 90's alternative rock.  So progressive, I know.  Maybe they drove a convertible, and the wind recklessly yet artistically disheveled their hair. (Oh, those were the days!) 

 

That wasn't me. 

 

I wore the utilitarian, yet comfortably reliable large-rimmed goggles.  I wear contacts.  Come on, right?  I'd like to hold onto my eyeballs, thank you.  Honestly though, I probably never learned how to correctly wear the Swedes.  But in 14 years of competitive swimming and open water triathlons, I have yet to have these work horses fail.  And on the way home from practice, I rolled through town in a '92 Cavalier.  A four door, mind you.  Anyway, every swimmer has a back up set of goggles, and will profess his or he faith on their philosophy of style and speed.

 

In dentistry, I personally would be hesitant to see a dentist who didn't wear magnification loupes or at least protective eyewear. You can't see what you can 't see.  

Loupes are glasses with high index magnification lenses custom fit and sized according to your hand to eye distance and eye structure.  Because my eyes are close set, I could not wear the incredibly stealth, "Swedish" sporty lenses.  Again, I found myself clinging to the utilitarian yet work horse model of eyewear.  I'm waiting for the Aviator lenses, by the way.  According to In Style magazine, my oval face shape would be best complimented by those lenses.  Priorities.

 

I started using loupes in dental school, but never really appreciated them until private practice. Working on a mannequin in pre-clinic didn't really force me to face the fact that I will need to work around the tongue, saliva, chin tilt, limited range of opening, etc.  Once the mannequins left my life and real, live humans were seated in my chair, I realized that loupes were incredibly vital to keeping my posture (most of the time) and seeing SO much more.  Of equal importance is my light mounted on the loupes.  Imagine going spelunking with no light.  The mouth is a cave and I need some sunshine.

 

2.  "My hair is a mess at the end of the day."

 

Swim caps, pony tails, chlorine, plus highlighted hair = disaster.  This is pretty self explanatory.  After a long workout, I needed about a half bottle of conditioner just to separate my hair so it wasn't a stiff, log on my head.  Then brushing out long hair after my shoulders had been on fire for two hours? It was like my second workout.  Oh, and cap lines on the forehead? Yes, but if you were lucky, they would dissipate after a few hours.  Otherwise, non-swimmers may have just assumed that you like to wear rubber bands on your head like a hipster headband of sorts.

 

Although you see I took time to have professional "glamour" head shots done, I resort to the utilitarian ponytail for my day to day spelunking.  Wearing a light and loupes on my head tend to give the oh-so-desirable fuzzy-wuzzy look by the end of the day.  Besides being OSHA compliant, I just don't think people want your long hair grazing their incisors - no matter how much your locks resemble Heidi Klum or Beyoncé. 

 

3.  "Even though we are on the same team, you're all individually accountable."

I love this one.  A real pearl for your life.  Simply stated yet oh so complex.  Swimming is surely a team sport.  How you perform and rank against others is surely black and white, objective, and unforgiving at times.  The smallest increment in time can be all the difference.  Yet, you are part of a team at the end of the day.  Every swim meet has many individual winners but only one team wins.  You may have gotten first place in every event, but lose as a team because of lack of depth. By having your own race, you have the opportunity to win for yourself, but also for the team.   Creating and fostering discipline in this grueling mental and physical sport, can pay dividends in your academic and professional life.  Swimming attracts certain personality types, that's true, but it also formulates the building blocks for those personalities.  I attribute a lot of my drive in life to this sport.

 

Our staff is our "team" at the office.  With our software and charting, we know who saw the patient, who spoke to them on the phone and when they were spoken to.  We know who did what procedure and are made aware of any special extenuating circumstances.  When we review online comments and rankings, we all think of how we do things great as individuals but also how we can certainly improve as individuals within the context of a team.  Each team member has specific tasks, and the checks and balances ensure those tasks are carried out.  Whether we "win" or "lose," we all learn from each other's actions.

 

4.  "You live by the clock."

Obviously for swimming, this is a clear and present nugget of wisdom.  The clock is our un-biased judge at the end of the day.  It holds no prejudicial thoughts or considerations.  You may have practiced really hard all week, but if your Swedish goggles fill up with water when you dive in, the clock makes no exceptions.  When you are moving through your main set, and you are on the verge of vomiting, but the clock says you only have 3 seconds to rest and take off again, it's not copping an attitude.  The clock is just ticking away.  It's neither representing you nor ridiculing you.  It's Switzerland in a world war.  But it's always consistent and it never stops.  It's your friend some days, an enemy the next.  

 

A vital component to private practice is time management.  Our schedule is done in ten minute blocks.  We try to best estimate the time for a procedure based on complexity, special needs and volume of work.  Usually we are on time.  Sometimes we are not.  After waiting 30-60 minutes at other physician's offices, I can tell you that dental professionals are one of the few branches of healthcare that adhere to a schedule despite being under the gun to do invasive procedures, rather than just paperwork and talking.  We don't want to make patients run late, and I know they try not to run late themselves!  I aim for a calm, inviting environment where I can take my time, yet work efficiently to yield a good service.  If this means that we run a few minutes late, yet catch up in time for the next appointments, then all is well.  We have patients who have demanding careers and obligations, so we do our best to get them out in a timely manner, without making them feel like they are going through a "factory." 

 

5.  "You inhale your fair share of chemicals."

Everyone can smell a swimmer when he or she walks into the room. A wafting aroma of chlorine, bleach or another chemical cocktail of the day.  It's used in sanitation of waste water and drinking water, household detergents, etc.  We learned to live as co-habitants with this hostile warrior in the water.  It absorbed into our skin and our hair.  Yes- what a mess it created for long hair!  

In locker rooms, bleach was the detergent of choice.  Not sure if that was so smart since ventilation leaves much to be desired in most locker rooms.  When our college team went to the Dominican Republic, we noticed barrels of boric acid on the sides of the pool.  Maybe they were just hosting Bill Nye, the Science guy for the weekend.  In any event, if you are a pioneer of shedding toxins in our industrial nation, this may not be an ideal sport for you.

 

Perhaps the same can be said of dentistry.  Although we wear masks that are specified by OSHA, we still inhale our fair share of the chemical perfume counter.  We utilize sodium hypochlorite (yes, it's commonly known as "bleach" -  albeit a very diluted mix) to disinfect root canals and nerve exposures.  The tooth is copiously irrigated with water after disinfection.  

The classic smell of a dental office, classically comes from eugenol. It has a spicy, clove-like aroma.  It's combined with zince oxide to yield a useful temporary or sedative filling in compromised teeth.  If you enjoy a sweetness of sorts, we have Nitrous Oxide ("laughing gas") which some use to diminish their level of anxiety.  All in all, we are like the perfume counter at Macy's but not as glamorous.  

 

 

6.  "Latex is a savior."

And it ought to be.  We need those latex caps to allow our aerodynamic shape cut through the water. Any defect in technique when it comes to water yields far bigger problems versus running or cycling in a poor technique.  Water is much thicker than air, and much more difficult to navigate.  We mimic fish via our NASA-tested $350 body suits, and our $3.00 latex caps.  The alternative is silicone.  The cap is much thicker and longer lasting.  Again, if you are an organic, non-GMO kind of a person, avoid the silicone I presume. 

 

We have phased out latex gloves in many offices due to allergies.  However, the close fit of latex gloves and thinness of them is hard to rival.  Our vinyl and nitrile gloves come close.  But I'd rather avoid an anaphylactic reaction for a patient and deal with gloves that are a bit thicker.  No contest there.

 

7.  "Water. My frenemy."

If it weren't for water, there would be no swimming.  And probably no life form at all, so water wins out here.  Whether you are learning why streamlining is so important or how to do a turn off a wall, or why a "faster pool" is a deeper pool, water is a quiet and mysterious yet powerful friend that you learn to understand.  Part of that is because of the density of water.  Water isn't just "big boned," it is "thick boned."  The most disastrous natural disasters are due to water.  Wind and fire can eventually be dealt with, but water is so powerful.

 

 Water is kind of high maintenance, too.  It can absorb a lot of heat.  But it is also becomes more dense, the cooler it is.  So, it would make sense to compete in hot pools, right? Wrong. As a swimmer, an ideal temperature for competing and working out is about 80-82 degrees Fahrenheit.  That's warm enough.  Recreationally, most of us would want it warmer.  In high school, there usually was a silent war between the swim team and the aqua-cise groups.  They'd make it a hot tub if they could!  But increasing your body heat and basal metabolic rate, results in an excess of body heat from inertia.  We need a sponge that is cool enough to buffer this heat out-put, you know?

 

Water. Such a finicky friend.

 

In dentistry, I have a love hate relationship with it.  I need it to disperse and remove debris or contaminants.  But it can cloud my vision if it's on my mirror and can be a contaminant itself if not kept away from cement and resin bonding.  But saliva is a sort of water, too.  We need saliva to buffer the constant acid attacks that our teeth face each day.  But we don't need saliva to mess with precise crown impressions or resin fillings.  All in all, we both need each other to survive.

 

8.  "Different strokes for different folks."

 

Since I am rather short, I was better suited for a short axis stroke like butterfly.  Obviously, swimmers "find their stroke" after some time. The same sort of idea can be applied in dentistry.  Dentistry is a high anxiety-ridden field of fear for some.  Therefore, it is important to identify those patients before starting out.  Some of them have an innate physically ill reaction to treatment due to fear or past experiences.  Some just get a little uneasy about treatment, but do better with reassurance and encouragement.  Determining what anti-anxiety strategies to employ is determined by the personality type of each patient. 

 

Different strokes for different folks.

 

9.  "Practice doesn't make perfect."

 

Perfect practice may make perfect.  But I don't believe anyone is ever really perfect.  Even if your stroke is technically perfect (very difficult to do), there are so many other variables to improve upon.  Strength. Endurance. Breathing patterns.  Starts and turns.  Mental toughness and performance psychology.  On and on.  Even Olympic Gold Medalists can look back at their races on video and find imperfections.  Complacency can be one's biggest road block to growth.

 

A venerable one once told me: "They call it dental 'practice' not dental 'perfect' for a reason."  I understand why.  Even the most respected and technically sound dentists are constantly working to improve the patient experience and their product.  Our office does at least one continuing education each month.  So many dentists "fly under the radar" and don't stay abreast of changes in the profession.  If you aren't careful, years go by and suddenly find yourself miles behind other practices. For today's savvy consumer, one is made aware of this eventually and may jump ship.  Dentistry changes day to day, and a lack of adaptation to this reflects a feeling of complacency and apathy.  That never leads to perfection.

 

 

10. "Your loved ones are your biggest fans."

 

Period!  If you need this one explained, just email me.

Jacquline R. Owens, DMD, MBE