Why does my dentist need x-rays and how much radiation am I getting?

Examine the Area before procedures:  Dr. Munro needs a full view of your teeth and bone before procedures such as fillings, onlays, crowns, implant restorations, braces, root canals, and extractions. Look for decay between teeth:  Sometimes decay isn’t visible to the naked eye and exists in areas the dentist cannot see. Check for bone loss associated with gum disease:  Gum disease can can cause bone loss and an x-ray will show how advanced it has become. Check for decay under fillings:  Sometimes decay under fillings can occur and can only be seen with an x-ray. Look for infection at the tip of the root:  Infections can appear at the very bottom of your teeth where the bone is, which needs to be confirmed using an

Do You Really Need Flouride?

Fluoride: What does it do? Do you need it? Where do you get it? There are two primary ways that fluoride helps to protect your teeth: Fluoride helps to prevent demineralization (the breakdown of tooth structure) by disrupting bacteria’s ability to cause tooth decay. Fluoride helps to encourage remineralization of your teeth, which may slow or even stop the process of tooth decay once it has started.  Who needs fluoride? The following patients would benefit from consistent use of fluoride: If your teeth are particularly sensitive to cold, sweets, or other stimuli. If you are frequently diagnosed with tooth decay or cavities. If you have areas of gum recession where the root surface of your tooth has become exposed. (The root surfaces are very susceptible to tooth

Sleep Apnea Might Literally Be Killing You

If you suffer from sleep apnea, you probably know all about the CPAP. CPAP stands for Constant Positive Airway Pressure and is the term used for a rather inelegant machine that blows air down your throat to keep your airway from collapsing while you sleep. Sound miserable? It is. CPAPs, while being the gold standard for sleep apnea treatment, can be extremely uncomfortable. Most CPAP users stop wearing it within 3 months. What we end up with is a bunch of CPAPs sitting in the floor of the closet while their owners suffer with sleep apnea untreated. There has to be a better answer, right? YES!!!! There is! We can fabricate an oral appliance that fits over the lower and upper teeth, the SomnoDent MAS™ fits like a

Raise Your Voice – Strengthen Your Community

by Jennifer Davis Missing and murdered. It seems we’ve heard that term a lot lately. Too much. Women and men across Canada are trying to change that and trying to make a difference. We at Women’s Health Clinic also want to make a difference. To honour the women who have been murdered or abducted across Canada, we created a window display and postcard campaign with a plea for our Federal government to support a change for peace. (download PDF for postcard here) The Window Display I developed the window display after finding Dr. Maryanne Pearce’s database of missing and murdered women online. Over the course of seven years, she’s collected names from the public domain, meticulously recording them, and honouring women who have been murdered or have

2015 New Year’s Revolution: Ditch Dieting!

By Lindsey Mazur, RD Tired of making resolutions and not keeping them? You’re not alone. Studies report most people aren’t able to maintain them. If your resolutions are about dieting or weight loss, there’s even more research to show how unhelpful those types of goals are. Here are some reasons on why it’s time to Ditch Dieting and start your New Year’s Revolution: Diets cause weight gain. People on a diet may lose weight for the short term but in the long-term, research shows they gain it all back, plus more. People who diet often end up heavier than if they hadn’t dieted. Diets make us hungry. Diets involve eating less, so naturally we become hungry. This can impact our moods and we can be irritable

Smart Sex/Great Sex Series: After a Sexual Assault

By deb kozak   Trigger warning: Blog discusses sexual assault. If you are triggered by anything you read here, please call the Klinic Crisis line at 204-786-8686 (in Winnipeg) or toll-free 1-888-322-3018 (outside Winnipeg). Trained helpers are available 24 hours a day to give confidential support and helpful information. In our last blog, we talked about how important communication and clear consent is in sexual encounters. Ideally, each of us would always be consenting every time we have sex, the whole time we are having sex. Unfortunately, that’s not always the case. At some point in our lives, in spite of our best planning and preparation, we may find ourselves in a situation where sex has happened in a way or at a time we didn’t want it to. Even

Enjoy Your Summer Without Worrying About Your Weight

by Lindsey Mazur, RD Around this time every year, we are bombarded with advertisements, television spots and magazine articles about the newest summer diet so we focus on our weight, working out, and attaining the ‘ultimate beach bod’. What if we realized that these ads exist to make us unhappy with our bodies, so advertisers can sell us diet products that keep us in a cycle of gaining and losing weight? But what if we were able to feel good about ourselves right now, be comfortable in our own skin, and take care of our bodies without dieting? Here are a few ways we can focus on enjoying our summer without worrying about our weight: 1. Don’t Diet! Did you know that 95{c754d8f4a6af077a182a96e5a5e47e38ce50ff83c235579d09299c097124e52d} of people who lose weight

What to do when someone you love has an eating disorder

Are you worried that someone you love might be struggling with an eating disorder? Does it seem that they’re always on a diet, or that their commitment to fitness has gone overboard? Perhaps you’ve noticed that large amounts of food are disappearing from the kitchen, or the school has shared that your child isn’t eating his or her lunches anymore. The symptoms and statistics we hear about eating disorders can be scary for anyone to hear. And if you’re a parent or loved one of someone who has an eating disorder, those numbers can chill you to the core. But as frightening as the idea of an eating disorder can be, it’s essential to know that recovery is possible. It can, and does happen, and there are

Insomnia: How to Have a Good Night’s Sleep

Most people have hard time going to sleep and staying asleep at some point in their lives. While these periods of sleeplessness can come and go, here are some tips to help when sleep isn’t coming as easily as you’d like. During the Day: Don’t Nap. Try not to nap during the day. Napping may make you feel less tired before bed. Avoid Alcohol. Try to avoid alcohol even if you feel it helps you relax before bed. Alcohol can cause sleep disturbances that you may not be aware of or make you wake up during the night. Exercise Regularly. Regular exercise during the day can help you fall asleep and sleep more soundly. Try to stick to exercising in the morning or early

*waves*

Just poking my head up to say I’m still here, just swamped. Lots of personal things going on, busy at work (new area of responsibility, new title, and several systematic review projects while my usual partner in crime is on maternity leave), and responsibilities as a section program planner and official blogger for my annual professional conference in medical librarianship. Sometime soon I’ll be able to breathe, and will start writing here again. In the meantime, I still have regular posts for Our Bodies Ourselves every week.Filed under: Uncategorized

Interesting Things in MeSH 2014

This one is for the medlibs and me, some interesting changes in MeSH for 2014: The concept (and term for) TEN has been absorbed into Stevens-Johnson Syndrome – makes some sense given the “spectrum of disease” aspect. Drug Toxicity has been replaced by Drug-Related Side Effects and Adverse Reactions, which is much more tedious to type from memory. Fetal Alcohol Syndrome has been replaced by Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders. Arachnidism has been changed to the much easier to remember Spider Bites. Tick Bites is new, too. Hearing Impaired Persons has been changed to the more person-first Persons with Hearing Impairments. Delusional Parasitosis has been added, but it’s been kept separate from (though in the same section as) Morgellons Disease. Other selected new terms: