Today I had to sit through one of the bloodiest procedures I'll probably ever be conscious for. At seven a.m, I had my to get my teeth and gums deep cleaned. It was an hour of sitting in a dentist chair as my teeth and gums scraped with hand held pickaxes. This whole debacle has brought about an interesting conclusion in my mind.
Dentistry is one of the most primitive forms of medical practice out there.
Medicine and techniques in hospitals grow by leaps and bounds as the years go on. All sorts of new methods and medicines, technologies and tonics, and practices and pills show up with new ways to heal. Disease are treated, and old ideas are thrown away. If there is so much innovation in the physical wellness area of medicine, why does my dentist still rake my teeth with a fancy set of toothpicks?
I'm don't like going to the dentist. That's not to say I don't like dentists as jobs, they provide valuable help to us, but going to the dentist is always the same. Lie about flossing regularly, deal with the same lectures, and have your chompers razed by some other worldly metallic artifacts. Okay, I might be exaggerating a little on that last part, but I'm right on the first two.
Dentists have been saying the same things for who knows how long. Their instructions seem simple, brush twice a day and floss daily. Simply enough right? Not when you factor in people. We're rushed in the morning, basically meaning we'll skip that brushing, and flossing is a beast. Nothing like running bladed rope through your teeth. At this point, couldn't we come up with some more advanced methods for dealing with teeth.
There are all those fancy automatic toothbrushes, I own one myself, and they have their benefits. Here's the thing though, they're still basically just a toilet brush that moves on its own. It's no use unless we put the time into using it. Somehow, I feel like there isn't enough incentive to brush. Dentists aren't helping the need to brush thing. What do you get when you're finished at the dentist's? A small roll of floss, and a pathetic manual toothbrush.
Flossing is also such an issue. It's time consuming, and pretty unpleasant, not to mention really hard to get into. Once you see that string covered in your blood, you can give it up pretty quick. They have those long handled ones that get the cross section of floss, and those are supposed to make it easier. But really, they're end up being just like the regular rolls.
Dentistry as a profession seems pretty technologically stagnate as well. Again, it's always metal picks and that weird rubber brush. Sometimes, added to the fun is a little device that sprays needles of pressurized water, oh joy. These tools are effective, sure, but that doesn't mean they're right for our day and age. A heavy rock was an effective hunting tool back when, but now we've got big shiny guns that can drop a deer at a thousand yards. Where is all the innovation and futuristic methods for dentistry? I think people will take their dental health more seriously if the dentist's office doesn't vaguely remind them of a medieval torture chamber.
Here's what I think we need: an all purpose mouthwash. Rinsing for thirty seconds is easy. If we could develop a mouth wash that killed all bacteria, penetrated the gums, and strengthened teeth, there would be some many more healthy toothed people. Medicine gets easier to use, a few pills takes away a headache for the day. Why isn't there some kind of remedy for tooth decay that works like that? Scientists are smart (usually) and I feel like this kind of product would be easy and profitable to develop.
People are lazy, and most other businesses realize that. They make things easy for the consumer to use so that they can sell more. Dentists need to pander to humanity's lack of motivation and develop a simple, easy to use dental health formula.
On a related note, no matter what innovations there are, I don't think the British will ever have good teeth.
Just something to chew on.
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