Advanced Dental Technology of Ithaca II PLLC: Marcia S. Zax, DDS

Can health care workers and hospital staff who may be in contact with patients with COVID 19 receive dental treatment? Can COVID 19 patients with emergency dental needs receive dental treatment? A COVID 19 patient with emergency dental needs would have to be treated in an appropriate environment to prevent transmission of the virus. Such care is generally available only in a hospital environment and not in a regular dental office.... Why wear a mask if we are interacting with healthy people? As with many infections, patients who are infected with COVID 19 may feel perfectly healthy, have a normal temperature, and even test negative for the virus. That is why we use "Universal Precautions". This means that we presume any patient, even healthy appearing COULD contain the virus and so we adhere to the infection control regimen described in my prior post, just preceeding this one. We also alternate between different treatment rooms so that any residual aerosols will have time to disperse. With this in mind, of course our health care workers are entitled to the same level of dental health care as everyone else. They too must follow the guidelines as described here. When they are at work, they are adhering to the same guidelines that we are for "PPE" use of Personal Protective Equipment. Thank you to all our health care workers for keeping us safe and healing us when we are in need.

Thankfully we have been able to reopen to general dental treatment this month. The "new normal" requires additional infection control measures to keep all of us healthy. A patient coming to the office needs to be in good health and not had any COVID 19 type symptoms, nor come into contact with anyone with such in the past 14 days. All persons entering the dental office must be wearing masks. When a patient arrives at the office, they call us to let us know they have arrived.... When we are ready to escort that person to their treatment room, we greet them at the door, take their temperature using a non-contact thermometer, and show them in to the hand sanitizer station just to the left inside the entryway. Before we begin your dental treatment, we will give you a dilute rinse containing 1.5% hydrogen peroxide to decrease the germ count in your mouth. We will also give you this rinse on the way out. What are we doing ourselves? We too are taking our temperatures daily, using oral mouth rinses, face masks, protective eyewear, face shields and face shielding material, gloves, and long sleeved garments which are changed for every aerosol producing appointment (this includes dental drilling and hygienic prophy polishing). Some procedures are not being used at this time due to the higher risk of aerosolization which is not critical to delivery of dental care. This includes ultrasonic cleaning for patients as well as instruments. Our instruments are autoclaved for sterilization, and all surfaces are wiped down with high level disinfectant approved by the CDC (Center for Disease Control, in Atlanta) and the ADA (American Dental Association). Any instrument that cannot be sterilized in the autoclave can alternately be soaked overnight in a cold sterilization bath approved by the CDC and ADA. If a child is the patient, or if an adult requires the help of another person to get to the office and assist, these extra parent/caregivers are allowed to accompany the patient. A parent is not allowed to bring other children who do not have an appointment, and neither can a patient be a friend. All this is geared toward maintaining as much social distancing as possible. After your treatment is completed, your next appointment may be scheduled right in your treatment room, or at the front desk. Plexiglass is now hung at the front desk, and the receptionist and patient will be wearing masks. Payments can be handled in a non-contact mode either with cash, check, or credit card. Hand sanitizer is also available as you exit the office. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to let us know so that we can keep you fully informed. Welcome Back!

Hope everyone is staying healthy and practicing the social distancing needed to prevent new infections with COVID 19. We are following the CDC, Governor Cuomo and NYS Dental Association recommendations and only seeing our existing patients having dental emergencies such as pain or swelling. We are available if you have some questions at our regular office number. After "regular hours" there is also a number for telephoning. Hoping and praying for a speedy resolution of this crisis. Meanwhile, we do have an opportunity to use our time differently, with our families with whom we live, by cheering up others by telephone, or finishing that project at home that in the past we never quite had enough time to do..

During these trying times in the face of the COVID 19 pandemic, the CDC, Governor Cuomo and the NYS Dental Assocation have published special guidelines to help prevent further transmission of this virus. Dentists should only see emergency patients. That is patients experiencing significant pain, and any swelling. What can I do for our patients having intermittent pain (pain that comes and goes)? At this time we are speaking by phone, assessing the symptoms and giving advice for management. We are also arranging, as appropriate, consultations with specialists, in this case usually an Endodontist (root canal therapy specialist). There are also oral surgeons who will see patients with severe pain and swelling. Of course, we can teleconference with our existing patients and escript in medications as appropriate.

More info on dietary acid and tooth health at this University of Rochester link: https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx

Do you take vitamin supplements? Probably you know that natural foods are the best source of vitamins, but did you know some chewable vitamins can destroy your teeth? Vitamin C for example is ascorbic ACID. It will erode your teeth. They even make Gummy Bears vitamin C which helps the acid stick to the teeth even longer! View on our website (https://advancedentaltech.com/general-dentistry/ and scroll down to "Erosion") a photo of someone who had severe erosion on the chewin...g surfaces of her back teeth. In her case, it was from sipping soda over long periods of time. Fortunately, these areas can be fixed with simple and beautiful white resin fillings in a short visit to the dental office. All dark sodas have phosphoric ACID in them and light colored sodas have citric ACID in them, hence the ability to erode teeth. (unflavored seltzer has some carbonic acid but is not nearly as strong an acid as phosphoric or citric acid).