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As a dental nurse I know that many people neglect their teeth as they “are not as important as the rest of your body” or “they are not at the top of your list of priorities” I often cringe at parents who are sitting in the waiting room with a child in pain from toothache but because the child may be a little hungry or thirsty then they obviously have to eat sugary sweets or “fizzy” drinks!!! Do they not realise that this is exactly the same sugary sweets and “fizzy” drinks that probably caused the child to be in pain in the first place.

Health authorities all over Scotland have tried different tactics to try and bring some sort of end to the growing amount of children with tooth decay. In some areas of Scotland 60% of toddlers have tooth decay.

Recently I found this article which states that “A dentist can save your life” People do not realise that you can actually DIE from an infected tooth:

Ken Michener’s tooth had been hurting off and on for months, and the pain was intense one Monday night in August. So Michener, 31, of Naperville, Illinois, who worked night shifts at a company that manufactures vitamins and dietary supplements, left at 3 a.m., halfway through his shift. At home, he tossed and turned. By the next afternoon, he’d found an oral surgeon to pull his sore molar, and started taking antibiotics to beat the bacterial infection and reduce the swelling. They did neither. By Friday, Michener was still hurting, and his left cheek bulged. At a local hospital, his oral surgeon removed another tooth, drained some pus, gave him painkillers and more antibiotics, and checked him into intensive care.

Few mouth infections grow as menacing as Michener’s. But runaway dental infections can be treacherous. They have eaten through the skin in people’s necks, choked off airways, migrated to the heart, burrowed into brains and, yes, even killed people.

Continue reading the article here