Cats Kisses vs Dog Kisses

Like most kids, my little 3 year old niece loves dogs.  One of my all time favorite memories of when she was little, (as if she's really big now, LOL! ), has been when she visited my house as a wee little thing.  She has always had an advanced use of the English language so when she saw my little dog, she pointed and said really excitedly, "Puppies! Puppies!"  I only have 1 dog but with all the jumping around the dog was doing, it may have seemed like more than one!  She even has a "puppy screen cleaner" on her iPad. It's the cutest thing. It is a puppy that looks like he's licking your screen until it's clean. I think there's also ways to customize your "dog screen cleaner" to be different breeds. My breed would be the Pomeranian screen cleaner except in my case, the Pomeranian would stop midway and bark at you, continue licking the screen, then bark at you again before finishing cleaning the screen.

Speaking of dogs and puppies, my patient this morning reminded me of the difference between being kissed by a dog vs being kissed by a cat. That's rather an odd thought, you may say... Read my latest article and find out what goes through my mind when I'm treating patients! Hahaha!

CATS vs DOGS

Our family has always been a “dog family”.  Growing up, we’ve always had an endless parade of dogs in the house. I don’t remember a time when there wasn’t a dog or 2 around.  We have never owned a cat before. The only cats I’ve seen around are the stray ones walking around the neighborhood or the ones that live in the little neighborhood supermarket. There are so many differences between dogs and cats. For one, dogs are much more slobbery with their saliva. Cats don’t show as much drool as dogs do. When you are kissed by a dog, you walk away feeling like you need a shower but when you are kissed by a cat, it feels as dry as sandpaper.

Today I had a patient come in as an emergency. He doesn’t come in as often as we recommend so I was not surprised when he said he thinks he has a cavity.  After x-rays and an exam, turns out that he had 3 teeth that were so badly rotten close to the nerve that there is a big chance that he would need root canal in the future.  The last time he was in my office was about 1 year ago. How did things get so bad so quickly?

Being a good dentist means being a good detective as well so I asked him a bunch of questions. I asked him about his eating and drinking habits; about his brushing and flossing habits; about his health; about stress in his life; about any new medication he may have been taking; about any harmful habits he may have picked up.  The answers were, No, No, No to everything. Nothing has changed. But finally when I asked him about dryness in his mouth, he said, “Yes, actually, I’ve noticed that my mouth has become quite dry at night to the point when I have to get up and drink water several times a night.”  A-ha! This may be the answer to the puzzle! 

When it comes to saliva, I want all my patients to be like dogs and have lots of saliva.  Saliva protects teeth in 3 main ways. Saliva neutralizes the acid in our drinks and in the foods that we eat. That acid can dissolve away the outer part of our teeth. Saliva turns the pH more neutral.

Saliva also contains chemicals that “heal” early cavities.  They help to strengthen the outer layer of your teeth, the enamel.

After a meal, saliva also helps wash away food bits.  The food that sticks around is used by the bacteria in your mouth. These bacteria cause cavities.

So back to my patient that may need 3 root canals, I put in 3 temporary fillings to see how the nerve will react. If the nerve don’t do well and end up dying, he will need to do root canals.  If the nerve survive, I know both he and I will be very happy. Next month, I will talk about possible causes of dry mouth, what to do about a dry mouth and what happened to my poor patient. I hope he’ll be OK!