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world is a cruel place filled with jokes and jibes about the teeth. It is a world of missed dates, of melancholy: It can be a time when a lifetime "complex" is formed. Even for those children fortunate enough to be in a family able to afford orthodontic care, there is this ego problem. Picture a pretty girl; young, full of hope...bashful, perhaps a bit shy...a girl with a beautiful smile when she is moved to smile. Now...picture the same girl with braces, that hideous row of metal pickets across the teeth. Now she's stopped smiling, fearful that all she has to do to lose everything in her society is to open her mouth. The psychological impact of such unnecessary hardware sales, especially on the young, is something we will never be able to measure as we can measure the hundreds of thousands of dollars poured into the hardware game each year. But...it is there, and it is real. And, if the profession would get honest about it and stay honest about it, most of it is wholly unnecessary. There is one other bad side effect of such hardware. By now you are really familiar with the cause of dental disease: Germs, which find safe harbors in which to build their colonies. Can you think of a better place than to get behind all that wire and harnessing? Think of how hard it is to get the teeth really clean in those areas... All of this could be prevented, usually, if the general practitioner would pay attention to what he sees inside the mouth of a six to eight year old child. During this critical time, between baby teeth and permanent adult teeth, the problems that can be prevented have their onset. A predictive graph can be made by the dentist, which will tell him with great accuracy how the teeth are likely to develop. In other words: When a child is between the age of six and nine, the general practitioner should be able to predict whatever orthodontic problems are likely to develop. As an example, the crowding caused by wisdom teeth coming in might be forcing other teeth into incorrect alignment. Removal of the offending (and unnecessary) teeth would remove the pressure. Natural growth and development takes over, then...very much similar to the way trees will grow toward their life-giving sunshine; will send roots toward their water supply. Proper 65 growth is natural: In the example above, the horseshoe-shaped encirclement of muscle... the cheeks, the tongue...would exert an unceasing, gentle and wholly natural pressure, slowly but surely forcing the growing teeth into their natural positions. Even if the situation is already so severe that unaided nature cannot correct it, the general practitioner can help with inexpensive and impermanent appliances. All of these things can be done, and done well, by a competent general practitioner. There is no genuine reason...we think there is no excuse...to ignore these problems as they develop, only to refer the young patient to a specialist when it's too late for mother nature to do anything about it "with a little help from her friends.'' The other part of "the hardware game" that people are most familiar with is the denture racket. There is no other name for it: It is a racket, pure and simple; one which costs America literally millions of dollars a year in unnecessary expense. The dentist buys a set of dentures...upper and lower...for not to exceed fifty dollars; usually less. These he "fits" into your mouth. The charge: Anywhere from $250 to you name it. The sky is the limit; go for all the traffic will bear. Why not? There is no law against what the dentist charges or does (or doesn't do) with respect to dentures. In fact, the A.D.A. is so pleased with this side of the business, they've actually set up a specialty for it. It's sort of a reward system: When a dentist has been a good drill-and-fill man for years, when he's played the A.D.A. game by the rules and been a "good boy," there comes a time when he's getting on in years and needs a safe, sure and above all easy way to rake in the income to which he's become accustomed. What better way than to specialize in dentures? If you could average two hundred dollars or more per patient clear profit what would you do? That, of course, is provided your conscience had become so hardened and blistered over the years of general practice that it didn't bother you to sentence each and every one of your patients to an average 10 years deducted from their natural life span. --And, of course, provided it didn't prick your sense of decency to charge a margin of profit above and beyond anything in the plumber's wildest dreams... And, finally, it would have to bother you not one little bit that you first have to yank out every tooth in your patient's mouth...the good, the bad and the indifferent...before you can slap in that pile of junk plastic that costs less than fifty bucks wholesale... The A.D.A. and your local dentist will tell you that it takes a great deal of skill to properly "fit" the dentures; that's why, they'll say, it requires the learned judgment and steady hand of a doctor. Bullroar! The doctor is in and out of the room while the dentures are being "fitted," but he doesn't have to be: That's window dressing. That lady in the green smock that had you "bite down" on some gunk... she's the one who "fitted" your dentures. All that was required was to take an impression to send off to the factory where the false teeth are made. The dentist gets them back, UPS, and sets up an appointment for you to come in to be cared for. His skill, essentially, is in knowing how to open the package without your seeing it...and, if he has a busy denture practice, perhaps in keeping track to be sure that Mrs. Jones' teeth don't end up in Mrs. Farley's mouth... 66 There's an entire town in the Carolinas with a major industry in "fitting" cheap dentures. The co-author made a trip there, once, to get some firsthand knowledge about how they operate. The lady at the front desk made an appointment for the next day, and answered questions: "Are you sure the doctor will be able to remove all my teeth tomorrow morning?" "Yes, sir," she answered. No problem! She didn't even ask how many teeth I had, and there are only four missing...only two that would have been good to save, had I known about Oramedics years ago. Next question: "How long will it take, after the extractions, before I get my false teeth?" Answer: "Oh, you get them the same day...it will be all finished before noon..." How much? Well, the entire thing would cost less than $200.00; extractions, false teeth...the works. Is it any wonder that people drive here from almost all over the country when it's "finally time" for false teeth? They can still save money, even when you consider the expense of traveling... This office was owned and operated by a doctor of dental surgery. Think about the implications: A man who has a license which should be trusted is running a money mill with one single purpose: To yank teeth and sell dentures. Carried to this extreme, it's fairly easy to spot the cupidity and gross money hunger that motivates these people. We can easily see how "wrong" it is to simply, on demand, pull all the healthy teeth in a man or woman's mouth and put dentures into place. But...what's the difference between the money mill, which is at least honest enough to deliver precisely what it advertises...and your local general practitioner, with his pious statements about prevention and dental care, etc., etc? Any dentist who willingly seeks denture business, no matter how much he'd like to hide it, is doing the same thing as these denture mills: He has found some way to ignore all the truth about [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ] |