March 16,2006--Dental

On the third day of our medical/dental mission trip, our team traveled to the town of La Ceiba. The trip took just over an hour, over relatively good roads, at first, following large, slow trucks carrying heavy loads of sugar cane to the mills for processing. Then somewhat better roads for a very short while before the dirt and rock road which took us to La Ceiba. Here we set up our plywood dental chairs on the back porch, using bed sheets to screen the patients form the onlookers. (Always beautiful, curious children). One of my first patients was a three year old boy with all four of his maxillary incisers decayed off at the gum line. His mother wanted us to remove the remaining roots because the boy was having trouble eating and sleeping due to the pain caused by the rotten baby teeth. With the help of the mother and more than one dental assistant we were able to accomplish the necessary task in short order. Needless to say, the bed sheet barrier did not contain the young boys expressions of "why are you doing this to me".
Another patient was a 56 year old lady with a mouth of one much older. All of her remaing teeth were severely decayed with most off at or below the gum line. Seeing the need, I was mentally preparing to suggest that we remove all the remaining roots in the upper right quadrant. To my surprise, she only wanted me to remove one tooth, the upper right first bicuspid which still had part of the crown intact. After discussing this with her through an interpreter, we removed the upper right first bicuspid.
Jim Haller, DDS