Son’s Tooth Makes Blind Irish Man See
Clearly, this story has to go first.
It explains a real procedure called osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis (OOKP) that a British surgeon performed on 57 year-old Bob McNichol. His son donated a tooth and a small portion of jawbone, which the doctor then implanted with a cornea replacement and stuck inside Bob’s eye in a two-part, multi-month procedure. To recap: an artificial cornea inside the tooth inside the eye.
No, really.
Doomsday Seed Vault Slide Show
You may have already heard about this latest effort to save us from ourselves, a worldwide collection of seed samples in Norway. As the thinking goes, with pollution, global warming, and natural disasters threatening plant species, the world needs a bank of samples of every seed in the world in the event of a future threatened food supply. The seed vault is ultra-secure–with coded entrances and everything–inside an Arctic mountain.
Now, reading about the future of the human race is maybe not the most lighthearted thing you could do on a Wednesday morning, but hey–the pictures are really pretty.
Would You Like a Pedicure with Your Root Canal?
Yep, one Atlanta dentist is trying to lessen the anxiety factor and up the pampering. Check it out:
I have a hard enough time relaxing for a massage. There’s no way I could relax with dental work going on. My dentist does conscious sedation where I am in and out the entire day and don’t remember much if anything about the appt. It’s the only way I can get though it without nightmares.
Wow, really? Is that just for major work, or are we talking cleanings also?
Ha! I’ll take a massage while getting my teeth cleaned, although I’m not sure that even a massage would help me relax at the dentist.
Oh, I’d love a pedicure at the dentist!! Where do I sign up????
The whole thing. I go in and white knuckle through them poking at me, then take the little pill home with me. On my appointment day, I take the pill and TOG drops me off. They put me in the chair and cover me up and give me more meds throughout the day. I get my teeth cleaned, xrays and any restorative work done. Generally I’m there one day a year for about 4-6 hours.
I clench at night and even with a bite guard, I can be hard on my teeth. I also have difficulty with numbness and a superior gag reflex… It’s easier on both the dentist and me for one of us to be knocked out. We drew straws and he lost!
Kristi and Wendy, I’ve always thought movies at the dentist would be a fine distraction. Throw a flat screen up on the ceilings, give me some headphones, and I might not even mind the wait.