March 20th 2012
Welcome to Healthy wealthy beautiful smile and to Dr Christine's blog.
Stress and the dental office
Few of my patients realize that when they open their mouths and I perform a routine yearly or bi- yearly examination I am looking for more than cavities, gum disease, and failing restorations.
Indeed , these though important and keenly detected in my examination may be simply, a SYMPTOM of a deeper and more sinister underlying root cause. It is my job to determine whether, that is indeed the case.
OK let me back up a bit. Almost 20 years ago I saw my first stressed out patient. I came to realize that a high proportion of patients who visited the dentist were somewhat anxious. Some had had unforunate childhood experiences that contributed and subsequent visits had reinforced the anxiety. I took it upon myself to study ways to relieve their stress and to do whatever i could to make them replace the old negative images in theirr mind with positive vibrant and vivid ones. I had so much success with one technique that I began to use it almost exclusively. It was called desensitization and was linked to relaxation therapy and focused on breathing techniques.
But then as time went on I began to notice a growing trend in patients who were not nervous of the dentist at all but were revealing signs of acute stress as they lay in the dental chair. One of the classic symptoms is the clasping and unclasping of hands, the clenching of teeth rendering the edge borders of the tongue a scallopped shape rather than round and smooth.
However what I found interesting was when I asked these patients if they were nervous the answer was negative. It slowly began to dawn on me , that for once (phew!) I the dentist was not causing this emergence of stress symptoms.....showing up in my office.
Now my underlying aim was getting people to .......yes wait for it... floss and brush properly. Really that was all I was after, so they would not come back to me with cavities, but I began to realize that I could not get them to participlate in my preventive regime if I did not at least attempt to participate in helping them help themselves alleviate one of the most deadly silent epidemic that is sweeping our world today.......the stress epidemic.
It is everywhere you go. You can feel it in the air , the rushed feeling that lingers through the day , the sensation of "what's next ?". People rush from A to B never really being present in that journey.
The symptoms of stress manifest in today's phobic and non phobic patients in the following ways
scallopped tongue
dry mouth
linea alba ( cheek biting)
gingivitis and bleeding gums
bad breath
constant clenching
shallow breathing patterns
zooning out
Yes indeed . I want to talk about each one of these symptoms in some detail so I think i will take them one by one between now and the end of March .
But first allow me to address this "stress epidemic".
I t has swallowed us up in epic proportions . We RUSH everywhere. We bombard ourselves or rather we ALLOW ourselves to be bombarded with constant EMAILS, TEXTS, MEDIA MESSAGES, ADVERTS, FAXES. Our minds are so busy. When do they ever rest?
How many of us clear our minds deliberately and renew them with silence and meditation? An over loaded mind is often the cause of insomnia which decreases our sharpness, immunsystem, efficiency, productivity and joy!
many of us are not truly thriving but simply surviving one day to the next not enjoying what we spend our time doing. Why is that? Many of us live for tomorrow...... the promotion, the raise, the holiday, the new car, friday.........always in the future never in the present. To accomodate this fast paced live style we adopt faster ways of doing things ....like texting 3 people at the same time whilst talking on the other phone and faxing with our elbow (ok slight exageration). And let's not forget call waiting........
We eat fast, eat fast food, eat a host of sugary refined foods beverages which not only decrease our immune systems but dehydrate us making our oral cavity a haven for cavity causing bacteria and our breath dreadful!
I could go on.....but I think you get my point....right ? Then join me I am a general family dentist in Edmonton Alberta and I will be breaking down these points right here on my blog.
Talk to you again soon and remember:
Our promise to you is that we will give you something to smile about!
