EARTOOTHACHE! Man has Tooth Removed from Ear 33 Years Later!

We've discussed some pretty bizarre things here, including a tooth intentionally lodged into an eye and various organs removed via the mouth. Well, today's story comes to us from England and involves a Stephen Hirst, a former miner (those guys are so popular right now!) who had an earache for 33 years.  Or was it a toothache? For the sake of simplicity, I'm going to call it an eartoothache.  It's like the manbearpig of orofacial pain.

The pain began around age 14.  He suffered from frequent infections, and would literally bang his head into the wall because it hurt so much.  Over the years he's had countless doctor visits but nobody was ever able to spot the tooth.  Until just recently, when a nurse cleaned his ear out with a suction tube, inserted a microscope, and simply removed the tooth with some tweezers.  Rather than totally freaking out, the calm nurse simply stood there and looked at it in disbelief.

The biggest question is, of course, HOW did his tooth get lodged in his ear canal?  Mr. Hirst recalls an accident in his youth that involved him falling between two desks at school and smashing the back of his ear against a desk.  How that would cause a primary tooth to end up in the ear is anyone's guess, but my theory is that it somehow became lodged in the opening of the Eustachian tube, causing a series of recurring episodes of inflammation which somehow moved the tooth along until it came to rest just behind the eardrum.

For the full story and pictures, visit the Daily Mail.

Teeth: the Historians of the Body

Thanks to Shakira, we all know that "hips don't lie".  While we each have our own experiences regarding the deceptiveness of hips, today's post proves to us that teeth don't lie.  In fact, the teeth are key players in piecing together some of history's mysteries. 

In 2005, archeologists discovered the "Boy with the Amber Necklace" buried within 3 miles of Stonehenge.  They estimate him to be about 14 years old at the time of his death, and surmise that he was an important individual based on his rare jewelry.

 Recently scientists were able to pinpoint where this boy came from - thanks to his teeth!  Redorbit.com explains the process as follows:

As tooth enamel forms in the first few years of childhood, it stores a chemical record of the environment in which the individual lives. Two of the chemical elements found in the enamel (oxygen and strontium) exist in different forms, or isotopes.
The levels of the isotopes found in enamel are informative to scientists analyzing them.
Most oxygen in teeth and bone comes from drinking water -- which is derived from rain or snow. In warmer climates, drinking water contains higher levels of heavy oxygen (O-18), compared to light oxygen (O-16) found in cold climates. So comparing the oxygen isotope ratio in teeth with that of drinking water from different regions can provide information about the climate in which a person grew up.
Strontium -- found in most rocks in small amounts -- also varies according to local geology. The isotope ratio of strontium in a person’s teeth can provide information on the geological area from which an individual lived as a child.
By combining the analysis of both elements in the teeth, archaeologists can point out particular regions where a person may have been raised.

 This has helped shed some light on the importance of Stonehenge.  It turns out that the Boy with the Amber Necklace came from the area of the Mediterranean Sea. Another Stonehenge corpse, known as the "Ansbury Archer" underwent the same testing, and his teeth revealed him to be from the Alpine Hills of Germany.

Read more at Redorbit.com.

Also of interest is this article from the Guardian.

You Might be a Hygienist if.....

Recently, the facebook page for "Dental Hygiene" posted that as their status and left it open to the fans.  The responses were pretty entertaining, and here are some of the more popular ones, as judged by other fans:

You always carry floss in your purse and look at people's teeth when you meet them.

fulcrum when you put on lipgloss

Your back is killing you right now!

The smell of Listerine turn you on.

You get excited when calculus goes flying!!!

you know that calculus isn't math!

You smell perio while in a group of people and desperately look (sniff) around until you figure out who it is.

you laugh at the Braun Oral B commercials claiming to be dentist #1 recommended toothbrush. Ummmm.........who's with me on the Phillips Sonicare???

you watch people on the dental aisle while at the store to see which products they buy and have to resist telling them to buy something else because you think it's better

You ask a patient how many times a week they floss, as your gloves are filled with blood, only to hear 'at least 4 or 5'... And you try to keep a straight face without saying 'liarrrrr'...

When you can't help but go down the dental isle just to look.

You know what " PITA" stands for.

you can't find a job!

Just further evidence that you can't stare at teeth all day without becoming a little bit quirky.  Read all the clever responses here.

MC Mong's Dental Draft Dodging

We all know and love hip-hop star MC Mong, right?

Ok, for those of us who live outside of Korea, he's like their Justin Timberlake - known for his comic disposition and upbeat songs.  MC Mong's real name is Shin Dong-hyun, which begs the question, with a name like Dong-hyun, why would you even need to come up with a stage name?

Anyhoo, the reason he showed up on my radar is that he got himself into a little trouble.  He recently had three healthy teeth extracted in order to physically disqualify himself from Korea's mandatory two-year military requirement that all able-bodied males must fulfill. 

The news stories (AP and Korea Times) don't specifically mention a dentist being involved, but both use terminology along the lines of "had healthy teeth extracted" rather than "pulled his own teeth".  I don't have enough information to form a strong opinion regarding the dentist, but at the very least this brings up some serious ethical questions regarding non-maleficence vs. patient autonomy. 

Ochocinco loses Quatro

Ah, the beauty of twitter.  Allowing our favorite stars and celebrities to share otherwise personal moments with the world.  How else would you have ever seen photos of Cincinnati Bengal's wide receiver Chad Ochocinco posing with his wisdom teeth and exclaiming how awesome the sound was?

From his twitter page:
  

Why am i recording this entire procedure, sending a picture, don't open if you don't like the sight of blood 8:55 AM Sep 14th via twidroid

Awesomeness , you can hear the tooth tearing away from the flesh http://twitpic.com/2odntw 9:10 AM Sep 14th via Twitpic

That smile is still on point, lost my wisdom teeth doesn't mean I lose my wisdom http://twitpic.com/2odo7b 9:11 AM Sep 14th via Twitpic

How else would we have seen pictures of Demi Moore making fun of her toothless smile, and how else would we have realized how intelligent Lindsay Lohan was when she claimed to have post-extraction "phantom tooth pain"?  Brilliant!

On that note, the Dental Ninja has decided to stealthily venture into the world of twitter.  Twitter will allow me to share more with less.  You see, my busy schedule as a daytime dentist/nighttime ninja allows me to blog about one or two stories each week.  Generally for each story I share, there are 4 or 5 items of interest that don't make the cut.  Henceforth I shall tweet them to you.

Follow me, the Dental Ninja, @dental_ninja

Introducing "Diastema"

Maybe I didn't give the movie "Zoolander" enough credit. Rather than simply an entertaining comedy, stories like this one have helped me see it as more of an exposé of the weird world of fashion - a world I admittedly don't understand.  Think about it - ask yourself which is more bizarre, Jacobim Mugatu (pictured above) launching the clothing line "Derelicte" inspired by the homeless vagrants of NYC, or David Delphin (pictured below) paying an orthodontist to intentionally separate his central incisors as a metaphor for the separation he was feeling after his father's death.  This, to accompany the launch of his new clothing line "Diastema".  I'm not joking.  He named the clothing line diastema.

Delphin is unfortunately inspiring others in the modeling world to follow suit.  This has been covered by many media outlets this week, but the original story appeared here in the Wall Street Journal, with a nice sideshow of what gap-toothed models look like. 

Sidenote - at age 22 when I set my sights on a career in dentistry, I had an orthodontist close the gap in my front teeth.  I had two reasons:  1) I realized that nobody would trust a dentist with crooked teeth and 2) fixing my smile could only improve my chances with the ladies.  Maybe on some subconscious level I was doing this to symbolize the closeness I felt with my then (and now) living father.  On second thought, I'll stick with the first two reasons.

Chilean Miners and Underground Toothaches

Unless you've been living under a rock for the past month, by now you've heard about the men trapped in a collapsed Chilean mine.  (Pun intended).  In case you haven't, let wikipedia catch you up on the story.

The gist of it is that one month ago the roof collapsed, leaving 33 men stuck 700 meters below the surface.  They have enough room and they seem to be pretty organized, having divided themselves into various groups in charge of care packages, security, and health.  Experts are predicting the men will likely be stuck until sometime in December.

After two weeks, contact was made via a small bore-hole and the men were able to communicate with the outside world and request supplies.  The first necessities they asked for were oxygen tanks and toothbrushes!  Hooray for healthy teeth! 

Unfortunately, with that many men stuck for that long, a couple of them have already developed toothaches.  Yikes.  According to the national emergency office, "...some of them have started to feel dental discomfort, on which the relevant treatment will be carried out."  I would imagine one of the next care packages they get will include some pain killers, anesthetic, extraction instruments, and a few pages of detailed instruction on how to remove a tooth.  I'd even throw in an Ipod with video clips demonstrating proper tooth removal!  Either way, my heart sure goes out to these men and I hope and pray this story has a happy ending.