2 Hours Without Radiation

"2 hours without radiation" as i would quote my sir's saying, Nikhil sir. On October 17th i went to a sub center which located at Shivapur, an hour journey from my college. It's a health center which serve for a population of less than 1000.

Situated within it's own perimeter surrounding by hills area i can guarantee you wouldn't find any signals there whether aircel, vodafone, tata docomo, or even airtel! Just switch off your phone would be better. It save your battery.

At first i was surprised as the sub center was locked. I thought it's because there is no patient. But i was told it is because of the man power (which means the doctors) are not present. Government of India provides the building and private sector provides the man power. Partnership in health delivery system.

We arrived at the village around 11.15 am and the day was getting hot. But it's not stopping me from wanted to explore the place. There were me and my three colleagues, Nikhil sir, Akshata mam, chacha uncle the driver and Chanappa. We supposed to provide check up and treatment if there is any patient come.

The sub center

My three colleagues climbed down from our mobile dental van and sat in front of the sub center. There is a house in front of it which the owner has a puppy. So they played with the puppy. NIkhil sir came down too. We talked a little bit. I asked about the village. What the people do for their living etc etc. Then it blurt out from my mouth that i wanted to take a look at the place. The journey then began....

They say picture speaks thousand words. Let's take a peek at those.

A lady was drying jowar

The first thing that i saw near the house was this, jowar. Jowar is from the family of pulses. They dry it, grind and finally they made it into flour so it can be prepare to make food.

Nikhil sir with drying ground nuts

Nikhil sir showed me the place. The villagers grow crops to earn money. They grow jowar, ground nuts, corns, chillies, corriander and curry leaves, vegetables and so on. Most of them do not have car but they do have motorcyles as their mean of transportation.

This is one of the tanks that available in the village

The villagers get their supply of water from nearby river. It is tunneled into the water tanks. According to Nikhil sir it is ration around four hours per day. During that time all the villagers will line up with all their pots to replenish their water supply.

The kindergarten in the village

Inside view

Children were having their lunch

There is a school nearby the village too. As it was holiday so no one was there when we went there.

The view of the school

I found a cow shed too. This cow shed can provide shelter to 2 or 3 cows at a time. Some of them keep a larger cow shed for the oxen. The villagers keep the cows for the milk and oxen to work in the field. For Hindus they honour cows as for them the cows provide them milk and also purify the soul of the deaths. That is the reason underlying why they put the cow dungs on the walls of their houses. It is said that it helps of the latter and also to achieve nirvana.

A small cow shed

Cow dung being dried. It can also be use as biofuel to supply energy.

The way how they dry their clothes

The only road that you can find pass through the village

One of the corporation bank 

Children in front of their house

Our mobile dental van

Inside view with one dental chair available

Me and Akshata mam. She is the post graduate student.

The journey took me almost an hour to walk around the village. It was tiring but at the same time i enjoyed the knowledge i gained. It is a peaceful place with no such tension and pressure of living. People just work to earn little money for the sake of living and surviving. Male in the field while female at home doing house chores. Everyday the same routine without tired. They happy with their lives despite an erratic supply of electric and water.

The happy face of children

In the end of the day what most that makes their lives is that they feel happy, satisfied and grateful with what they have. No pressure to keep moving forward or tension of urban lifestyle. Nevertheless we as a health care provider should not abundant these people and deny their right for health care. And as for us we too need to be so much grateful with what we have in our life. There are so many things that we enjoyed still these people never get to.....

Caries : Beware!

Assalamualaikum and greetings to everyone :)

Today i'll be writing about caries which is also known as tooth decay in layman term. As far as the definition concern it is defined as an infectious microbiologic disease, characterized by demineralization of the inorganic portion and destruction of the organic substance of the tooth, which often lead to cavitations. Yes, this is too long and may be a little bit difficult to understand. So to put in simple words it is a disease of teeth which if we let it be ultimately will cause cavitation.

It is said that it is a disease of modern civilisation as we consume a lot more refined sugar, processed and soft food nowadays. Let's see who is the culprit behind all this. Guess what? Yes correct! It is caused by bacteria known as Streptococcus mutans. Anyway there are lot more but to mention a few Actinomyces viscosus, Lactobacillus acidophilus, S. sanguis, S. mitior etc.

Apart from that tooth decay is caused by multifactorial factor which includes foods, teeth, time and bacteria itself. Why??? Here take a look at figure below and watch the subsequent video.

Tetralogy of caries

When you having meal, food will accumulate on your tooth surface. If it is not clean or remove for a sufficient time, the bacteria will use the food as their subtrate to produce acid. This acid in turn will lead to cavitation after a period of time. Therefore it is important to at least rinse your mouth with water every time after meal to prevent accumulation of plaque on the tooth surface.

There are several types of caries in which it can occur.

Inter proximal caries, caries in between of teeth

Root caries occur when there is recession of the gum

Smooth surface caries

Most common sites of caries pit and fissure caries

To prevent the dental caries to occur there are several things you have to do.

1. Brush your teeth at least twice daily. In the morning after breakfast and before going to bed at night. It is also a good habit if you also use mouthwash and floss your teeth.

     2.  Reduce the intake of snacks and sweet in between meals.

     3.  Visit your dentist at least twice a year for professional check-up so that caries can be detect as early as possible and proper treatment can be institute.

If at any cause the caries eventually occur the dentist will usually restore the affected tooth. For children to prevent caries some topical fluoride application can be done professionally in the dental office. Instead of getting treatment there might be one that ignore their tooth decay. It might be because of ignorance or unable to recognize the caries. 

One might be concern about their teeth when it started to show some symptoms like tooth ache and if we just let it be it may lead to some consequences like tooth abscess. Eventually the particular tooth may end up to go for root canal treatment or extraction.

So now ask yourself do you want caries to occur in your mouth? Save your teeth and give a perfect smile everyday :) Till then...

Sterilization

Assalamualaikum...

We meet again. This time i will be talking about the first department when a patient visit us in dental hospital. It is the Department of Oral Medicine and Radiology.

Usually when a patient show up in our dental hospital they have to register first so that their out patient department card can be made. After that they have to come this department so that their oral health can be assess.

We make the patient sit comfortably on the dental chair and start to talk to the patient so that a complete case history can be taken. We're going to ask the patient's name and all the personal details. After that we're going to ask about the chief complaint. Chief complaint is the reason why the patient seek help from us the dentists. What makes them come to visit us and based on the complaint then we will try to diagnose and treat them accordingly.

When we're done with the case history then we'll start looking into the patient's mouth. All the findings will be recorded with the help of an assistant. To check the patient's mouth we need the dental instruments which are mouth mirror and probe.

All the instruments to make them safe to be use in the patient's mouth need to be sterilized. At this point of view the sterilization come into picture. The readers must be wandering what does it means with the sterilization. According to the definition it is defined as the process by which an article, medium or surface is made free of all microorganisms either in the vegetative or spore form.

Or in the simple words we can say it is a process by which something is made free of germs so that it is safe to use and won't cause any harm.

Many of us wouldn't know the importance of these instruments to be sterilized. Even for me before come to learn about this part wouldn't care much about it.

And sometimes people just don't

know.

It can be one way of introducing subacute bacterial endocarditis (SABE) in patients with heart problem as an example. I'll be dealing with SABE in detail later.

There are so many ways to render the safety of the instruments. The most popular one is to use autoclave. It is because it has the most penetrative power. The picture on the right side show the autoclave in which we have to keep the instruments for 15-20 minutes at 121 degree celcius. And all the instruments which had been sterilized we call them as sterile and shouldn't be touch unless the dentist wear a sterile gloves.

Besides making sure all the instruments are sterilized the dentist himself should be scrub in before working with the patient. From the dentist point of view, we have to at least wash our hand properly. Without touching anything else then we will wear the gloves. Apart from that we should wear head cap and mouth mask before wash our hand. We should also wear gown whenever it is necessary. This precautions has to be taken not only to protect the patient from infection but also the dentist himself and also the next patient.

Dentist wearing head cap, mouth mask and gloves before starting any procedure.

The chain of infection in which we have to break the chain so that any procedure will be safe to perform.

So we as dentists will try to break the chain of infection by prevent the entry of microorganisms into the patient's mouth. The patient himself have to make sure that they are fit enough to receive any treatment. With all of these preparation then only the treatment can be initiate.

Back to when the patient is still in the dental chair and we are checking on them. After all the checking we are going to give a diagnosis regarding the problem that the patient had highlight before. In order to arrive to the accurate diagnosis we might advice some investigations like radiograph and sometimes a biopsy for suspicious lesion.

Finally after all the investigations then we can give the diagnosis and accordingly the treatment plan. The patient will be refer to other specific department regarding their problem for the treatment.

So, that is what we mainly do in this department. We should have thorough knowledge about oral health to give diagnosis. Apart from that we should take good care about infection control. The skill of communications with the patient is also an important thing to elicit proper history.

With that i'll be pen off now, till we meet again next time. Hopefully if not much, this post will give readers a picture what is happening behind the scene. As i always made a point brush your teeth twice a day and smile always.... =)

Alhamdulillah....

Assalamualaikum...

Alhamdulillah sy menulis kembali akhirnye setelah sekian lame menyepi. Bukan ape cuma tak terasa untuk menulis sudah. Walaubagaimanapun insyaAllah sy akan mule merajin2kan diri ini untuk aktif menulis kembali. Cuma tema yg dibawakan kali ini lebih menjurus ke arah bidang dentistry di samping aktiviti2 semasa sy di belgaum ini.

Sekarang sy sudah berada dalam tahun ketiga BDS (Bachelor Dental Surgery).

InsyaAllah bulan Julai ini sy akan menghadapai peperiksaan akhir tahun dan akan masuk ke tahun empat bermula Ogos. Ternyata setelah beberapa tahun belajar sy mendapat gambaran yg lebih mengenai bidang pergigian ini dan semakin menyukai nye. Gambaran yg bukan sahaja melibatkan kerja2 menampal gigi berlubang mahupun mencabut gigi sebagai langkah terakhir bahkan lebih daripada itu.

Saya akan cuba membentangkan topik2 yg relevan untuk diketahui umum dalam bahasa yg mudah dan juga dalam bentuk yg menarik. Di samping cuba untuk meningkatkan kesedaran awam mengenai kesihatan gigi khususnye dan oral amnye.

Ini kerana pengetahuan mengenai kesihatan gigi masih kurang lagi dikalangan orang awam. Malahan saya sendiri sebagai bakal dentist juga masih ada sekelumit perasaan takut untuk berjumpa dengan dentist.

Terdapat 9 cabang utama dalam bidang Dentistry ini, antaranya :

1. Oral Medicine and Radiology
2. Prosthodontic
3. Oral Maxillofacial and Surgery
4. Conservative and Endodontic
5. Periodontic
6. Pedodontic
7. Orthodontic
8. Oral Pathology
9. Community Dentistry

Saya akan cuba menerangkan setiap satu persatu cabang2 di atas dalam post2 yg akan datang.

Semoga sedikit sebanyak akan membawa kebaikan kepada semua pembaca ye! Akhir kata ingat

pesanan saya gosok lah gigi anda sekurang2 nye 2 kali sehari. Gigi anda merupakan salah satu

pintu untuk anda kekal sihat hingga ke akhir hayat! Senyum selalu :) semoga bertemu lagi dalam

post2 sy yg akan dtg.