How much would you pay for British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s World War II dentures?  How about $23,750?  Well, that is how much an anonymous private British investor paid for the dentures at an auction last Thursday!  This amount was more than three times the pre-sale estimate.  The bidding took place at an auction house in Aylsham, England where one of Churchill’s half-smoked cigars sold for about $6,000.  His dentures were sold by the family of Derek Cudlipp, the dental technician who made the dentures.  They were kept for years in  a drawer in the Cudlipp home.

A specialist at a British medical museum called the dentures “the teeth that saved the world.”  According to Mr. Cudlipp’s son Nigel, Churchill would flick the dentures out and “throw them across the room” when he was angered at the progress of the allied war effort.  Churchill tore up Mr. Cudlipp’s enlistment papers, saying that the dental technician “would be more important to the war effort if he stayed in London to repair his dentures.”  http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/30/world/europe/30briefs-churchill.html

The singer Patti Smith was the recent commencement speaker at the Pratt Institute in New York.  She took that opportunity to speak of dental care.  No kidding!
Here is the YouTube link: http://www.theawl.com/2010/05/the-patti-smith-pratt-commencement-speech.
Here is her quote: “My greatest urge is to speak to you of dental care.  My generation had a rough go dentally.  Our dentists were the Army dentists who came back from World War II and believed that the dental office was a battleground.  You have a better chance at dental health.  And I say this because you want at night to be pacing the floor because your fuse is burning inside of you, because you want to do your work, because you want to finish that canvas, because you want to help your fellow man.  You don’t want to be pacing because you need a damn root canal.  So, floss.  Use salt and baking soda.  Take care of your damn teeth.”
Great words of wisdom! - but the audience laughed.  She was spoofing the commencement speech.  But who gets the last laugh?

I was at Barnes and Noble last weekend and glancing through A ticket to the Circus written by Norris Church Mailer, the wife of the late novelist Norman Mailer. Even though I have read several of Mailer’s novels, naturally my attention was drawn to his wife’s discussion of his teeth. Apparently towards the end of his life he had to undergo bypass surgery and his surgeons told him to have all of his teeth removed in order to prevent infection. (Seems extreme.) She writes that that was the beginning of his decline. “His dental implants didn’t take, and he was forced to wear false teeth that never quite fit. He began to lose weight.”

Don’t let this happen to you! Be sure to get quality dental care - take care of your teeth – and keep them for life!

In January, while listening to President Obama’s State of the Union address, I was startled when I heard him say “root canal.” He was speaking about the bank bailout and he said: “I hated it. You hated it. It was about as popular as a root canal.”

Now, as a dentist I am very sensitive about comments that place dentistry in an unfavorable light or that reinforce fears that people may have about dental treatment. So I was dismayed at the President’s choice of words. I was relieved to note that the American Association of Endodontists (AAE) was also dismayed and  issued the following statement: “While we certainly understand the president’s intent, people need to know that root canals don’t cause pain; they relieve it. Root canals may sound daunting, but endodontists can do this procedure quickly, efficiently, and with virtually no pain involved. The result is a restored natural tooth that can at a lifetime.”

I couldn’t have offered a better defense of the root canal! Root canal treatments save more than 17 million teeth every year. I wonder if the President offered an apology to the AAE!

A letter to the editor in last week’s New York Times was written by a woman who played college ice hockey in the 1970’s at Brown University, the only women’s college ice hockey team in the U.S at the time. She relates that she encouraged her brother, a varsity hockey player at Colby College, to “get some girls out onto the ice for us to play.” He did, and one of them was their friend Linda Krohn. When Linda’s mother found out she insisted that Linda stop playing hockey so she wouldn’t lose her teeth. The letter adds: “Now I smile with glee that Linda’s daughter, Lindsey Vonn, races down mountains at world-class speeds and that women’s ice hockey is in the Olympics, too.”

And Lindsey still has her teeth! After a recent accident on the ice that left blood streaming down her face she said: “I was just confused. At the bottom I didn’t know what had happened and I was hoping I hadn’t lost any teeth. I am just glad it wasn’t anything major, just a cut.” Vonn said she wears a protective mouthguard which saved her teeth and saved a huge dental bill. Read about athletic guards at: drterryshapiro.com/mouthguards.html.

After her shin injury at the Olympics she said: “My shin was still very painful, but I feel like the injury is finally progressing a bit. The pain level has gone down from a sharp debilitating pain to something that I feel I may be able to grit my teeth through. So that really puts a smile on my face!:)”. I find it intriguing that she used the term “grit my teeth through” because when I look closely at her teeth I see signs of tooth wear – likely from gritting her teeth.

I was at a business meeting this morning speaking to a man with a rather large gap between his two front teeth. We started talking about teeth, and he asked me if I knew that a gap between the teeth had become quite fashionable. I didn’t, so I went onto Google to check this out.

Sure enough a website on global fashion called Refinery29 features an article this month called “Gap Teeth: The Latest Must-Have Accessory?” http://www.refinery29.com/gap-teeth-the-latest-musthave.php. The article includes photos of several models and actresses who flaunt their teeth gaps, including Lauren Hutton, Lara Stone, Georgia Jagger and Anna Paquin. As the author writes, these are “all beauts who know how to work a good gap.” Maybe so, but I can’t help but think their beauty would be enhanced by some excellent cosmetic dentistry.

Unfortunately and all too often, un-cosmetic dentistry, done by dentists without the proper training and experience, gives people an unnatural look. The author adds, “More and more (blessed be!), it seems those hideously super-sized, glow-in-the-dark veneers are being replaced by normal beautifully imperfect canines.” What she may not know is that well-crafted veneers are beautiful and natural looking and undetectable. Check out our veneers and see how naturally beautiful they look.

“Talking Teeth” is the name of a bi-weekly radio program on 91.5 AM hosted by my good friend and colleague (and mentor) Dr. Dean Vafiadis. On this program Dr. Dean discusses issues of dental health. Tonight’s topic was implants; two weeks ago it was periodontal disease; the next topic will be “teeth in an hour.” Dr. Dean is an excellent speaker – always informative and entertaining. He calls the program “Talking Teeth” because he says that teeth talk to him. That may sound funny to the public, but I know what he means. Teeth do talk to me too! They tell me a lot about your habits and your life style. I can tell if a tooth is happy or unhappy or if it needs attention. So check out Dr. Dean’s radio program if you want to learn more about what the best dentistry can do for you.

Several dental colleagues of mine recently went on a mission to Northern Kenya to perform desperately needed dental services.  They told of a local tribal custom of taking infants 1-2 weeks old to a village elder who removes the child’s primary canine toothbuds.  The villagers believe that if these teeth are not removed, the child’s head will develop abnormally and the child will be susceptible to disease.  Another custom is that of taking 10 year olds to have their lower front teeth removed so that a space is created.  No anesthesia is used.  The missing lower front teeth identify a member of the Daasanatch tribe from the village of Illeret.

Low income and low education levels are related to poor dental health.  These villagers live in temporary mud houses called manyattas.  There is an elementary school but education is sporadic because the people are nomads seeking new pastures for their livestock. There is a high incidence of hepatitis, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.  The average life span is 40-50 years.

This week’s attention grabber in the New York Times, is an article “Don’t Forget to Floss. (But, Please, Not on the Subway)” by Lion Calandra. The accompanying cartoon features a man sitting on a crowded subway with a length of floss in his teeth. Of course, I’m excited to see anyone floss – no matter where! But I guess the article does have a point – public flossing is unsanitary. The flosser pulls up plaque and bacteria that can be infectious. And to make matters worse, the flossers often toss the used floss on the floor.

The writer lists other personal grooming activities that are better done in private: like clipping fingernails, plucking eyebrows, squeezing pimples – all of which she has witnessed on the Long Island Rail Road or New York City subways. The author blames YouTube for taking private moments and opening them up for public viewing. So what to do? Obligatory classes for adults on personal grooming and public health? A special railroad car reserved for personal grooming – like we used to have smoking cars reserved for smokers? What next? See http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/11/09/public-grooming-stirs-vigorous-debate/?scp=1&sq=shapiro%20floss&st=cse

The Stony Brook Film Festival opened last night with the comedy “The Answer Man.” Not a film about teeth (except for two ugly veneers on Lauren Graham’s central incisors – wouldn’t I love to replace them for her), but I loved the film for the subplot of the female chiropractor struggling to start a practice. She puts up fliers in the local bookstore, and – in a desperate mood - dresses her receptionist in a vertebral column costume to hand out fliers in front of her storefront office. Hysterical! Sort of like a dentist dressing up as an oversized molar tooth. Not something I can see myself doing! Tonight look out for the vampire comedy “Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Undead” (see my blog entry, “The Sight of Fangs” about vampire teeth).