Shadowing Case 4: Going Through "Drills"

06/10/23

In today's shadowing case, I witnessed a fascinating case involving a surgery. A 45 year-old patient experiencing bone loss had developed a serious infection.

The Issue

There are fibers attached to teeth to keep it in place, but when those fibers detach from inadequate care, such as brushing and flossing, the fibers permanently detaches from the teeth. This leads to the tooth to loosen, which would further cause bone loss. As the patient approaches his middle age, bone loss is one of the oral issues that are in high risk of developing. The loosened tooth in the gums can cause other issues, in this case, infections. The patient did not experience much pain, except for a sharp, temporary pain when eating cold foods.

Pieces of infected gums from tartar in the back molar of the patient

The Cause

In addition to age, the patient had other causes that contributed to bone loss. Constantly grinding his teeth, the patient had low bone exposure of his teeth and destroyed his gums. Fortunately, though close, the nerves had not been exposed.

The Procedure

Materials used for the procedure

The patient first had a teeth scaling, which is a deep cleaning (especially below the gum lines) to remove any tartar. The first symptom the patient exhibited was excessive bleeding during this process. This indicates infection and inflammation.

Then, Doctor Kwon began by numbing the gum around the infect area in the back molar. Then using dental elevators (not the ones you ride on), she carefully cut the gums to loosen the infected tooth. Using dental pliers, the molar was removed.

The image to the right displays the patient's molar that was removed. However,

The removed molar had a visible infection and remaining tartar that likely caused the infection

Doctor Kwon mentioned that the infection had spread to the gums beneath the tooth. Using the same procedure, pieces of infected gum were removed as well.

Final Instructions and Practices

The patient was informed of a list of rules to prevent future issues.

- No eating small grain foods like ground beef, rice, and chilly flakes

- No carbonated drinks

- No smoking

- No hot foods

- No spicy foods

- Eat foods that can ease the pain like smoothies and ice cream

- No heavy lifting

Although bone loss can be unpreventable, we should all start practicing healthy oral maintenance routines that could keep our teeth strong in the meantime.

Oral health is FOR.ALL!