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Did a dentist cause the oral infection to travel to his heart and hand?

Did a dentist cause the oral infection to travel to his heart and hand?

An infected hand caused from a routine dental visit?
An infected hand caused by a routine dental visit?

I recently ran across this article, Visit to dentist leaves man with bizarre lump on his hand, deadly heart infection.  How did an oral infection end up in his heart?

As a dentist, the title jumped out at me. “Oh no, what happened? A patient comes in for a routine dental visit and ends up with an infection in his heart and this bump on his hand?”  The article made it sound like the problem started because of a visit to the dental office.  I decided to investigate a bit further and I found the original article.

Press here to download the original article as reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Ahhh, I get it.  His mouth was infected because of poor oral hygiene. The patient had a routine dental visit.  Did he have a tooth pulled, did he have his teeth cleaned?  The article doesn’t say.  The interesting part of the article is how the infection that was in his mouth traveled through his bloodstream and colonized in his heart and caused the bump on his hand.

The bump on his hand is an aneurysm.  Wow! an infection that originates in the mouth could cause an aneurysm. Scary stuff!  Infections in the mouth are very common and can be caused by unhealthy gums, decay, cavities and broken teeth.

The answer is no.

There are so many times that we have patients asking, “I’m not having any pain, can I leave well enough alone?” The answer is no.  It is very important to have a clean, infection-free mouth. As your oral health care providers, we do all we can to fight oral infections.

Has it been awhile?  Do you need to have your teeth checked? Or do you need to have your teeth cleaned? Are you looking for a judgment-free office?  Give us a call. (207) 236-4740.

3 Comments

  1. Dental veneers Ross Township PA

    I like your site and I like your posts they amazing. I am trying to explain to my kids why it is important to go to the dentist. Thanks for sharing the best information with us.I am very impressed with us.
    Dental veneers Ross Township PA

    September 8, 2018 at 2:10 am Reply
    1. Good morning Dental veneers Ross Township PA, I just wanted to give you the heads up, WordPress’s Akismet is flagging your comment as spam. It’s clever to take a misspelling of Dr. Allysa Adams name as a google keyword link and have it point back to Dr. DeBonis Dental’s website.
      Just a small website SEO tip, I do like Dr. Allysa Adams page. Where as Dr. DeBonis has no photo? Hmmm, makes me wonder. Thanks for stopping by, we appreciate all comments from our dental colleagues.

      September 14, 2018 at 10:26 am Reply
  2. We work in the health field
    The mouth can keep all kind of bacteria that could endanger our lives, some of them can cause us an endocarditis
    So we´d better keep a good oral health
    Be well

    November 22, 2018 at 10:21 pm Reply

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