Understanding and dealing with Change

History is not about the status quo; it is about change. Throughout most of the time since civilization began, the agents of change has been the only constant. The Ancient Greek Philosopher, Heraclitus said “You cannot step into the same river twice, for fresh waters are ever flowing in upon you." 

Change is an inevitable fact of life. Our natural tendency is to resist change. To many of us change represents stepping out of our comfort zone. It means uncertainty.

Why we resist change:

I believe we resist change because it represents "A THREAT TO OUR SECURITY, SAFETY OR SURVIVAL". The idea of change frightens us. This fear runs under your radar, off your screen of awareness and is never, ever thought about consciously. It is a non voluntary response. This deep fear is connected to our very survival - "If I change, I will die." But where could such a fear arise from?

Some researchers have speculated that the Enteric Brain (Gut Brain), which contains 100 million neurons, and resides in our gut, controlling digestion as part of our nervous system, is where this survival challenge is detected and acted upon. Our ninth cranial nerve, Vegas nerve, connects the Gut brain to our head brain. That explains why we feel queasy in our gut when confronted with change.

Connecting the dots:

The Gut Brain will trigger negative physiological responses to situations that it considers threatening to survival, regardless of the actual threat level. Human body needs homeostasis (stability). It is natural for it to actively oppose change to maintain equilibrium. Change can trigger our brain into remembering painful experiences from the past. Even though this perception is often flawed, our brain can’t distinguish it from real threat. Even worse, this process is usually subconscious.  The only thing you notice concisely is feeling nervous and wanting to leave wherever you are at that moment.

Fear of unknown and resisting change is one of the most primal human traits. In fact we share this trait with all of our pre-human species. Through the prehistoric era this defense mechanism has served all successful species (including humans) wonderfully in survival situations. Unfortunately, it can cause disaster when all we want to do is try a new profession, or move to a new town, or do anything that is out of the current comfort zone that we have constructed for us to feel safe.

This mechanism can specially be challenging in the modern days. The pace of change in our world is speeding up. Aside from usual evolutionary changes we have been experiencing several key revolutionary changes that have impacted our life significantly. This acceleration comes not only from advancing technology, but also from unprecedented world population growth, even faster economic growth. Advances in medicine, personal computers, internet, agriculture, personal communications, travel,

Adapt or parish:

We must adapt and evolve to embrace and keep up with all the changes around us.

Defining intelligence

What is intelligence? According to Encyclopedia Britannica, Intelligence is the "ability to adapt effectively to the environment, either by making a change in oneself or by changing the environment or finding a new one".

History of Dental Implants

There are many myths and misinformation about the inception of dental Implants. In this months’ article I decided to offer a brief history about the dental Implants.
Farid Noie.

While excavating Mayan burial sites in Honduras in 1931, archaeologists found a fragment of mandible of Mayan origin, dating from about 600 AD. This mandible, which is considered to be that of a woman in her twenties, had three tooth-shaped pieces of shell placed into the sockets of three missing lower incisor teeth. For forty years the archaeological world considered that these shells were placed after death in a manner also observed in the ancient Egyptians. In 1970, however, a Brazilian dental academic, Professor Amadeo Bobbio studied the jaw bone and took a series of radiographs. He noticed compact bone formation around two of the implants which led him to conclude that the implants were placed during her life.

In the 1950 at Cambridge University in England to study blood flow was being conducted in the living organism. These scientists designed a method of constructing a chamber of titanium which was embedded into the soft tissue of the ears of rabbits. In 1952 the Swedish Orthopedic Surgeon, Dr. Branemark, was interested in studying bone healing and regeneration, and adopted the Cambridge designed ‘rabbit ear chamber’ for use in the rabbit femur. Following several months of study he attempted to retrieve these expensive chambers from the rabbits and found that he was unable to remove them. He observed that bone had grown in such close proximity with the titanium fixtures that it effectively integrated to the metal. Dr. Branemark carried out many further studies into this phenomenon, using both animal and human subjects, which all confirmed this unique property of titanium.

Although Dr. Branemark had originally considered that the best use of his discovery would be in the area of knee and hip surgery, He finally decided that the mouth was more accessible for continued clinical observations. He concluded that the high rate of people with complete or at least some degree of tooth loss in the general population offered more subjects for widespread study. He termed the clinically observed adherence of bone with titanium as ‘Osseo-integration’. In 1965 Dr. Branemark, who was by then the Professor of Anatomy at Gothenburg University in Sweden, placed the first titanium dental implant into a human volunteer named Gusta Larsson. Mr. Larson, a Swede, who was had no teeth at the time, agreed to the test because he wanted to have teeth again. He died in 2005.
Simultaneous independent research in the United States by Stevens and Alexander led to a 1969 US patent filing for titanium dental implants. Over the next fourteen years Dr. Branemark published many studies on the use of titanium in dental implant until in 1978 he entered into a commercial partnership with Nobel-farma AB to manufacture the first generation of widely used dental implants.

To the present day over 7 million Branemark System implants have now been placed and hundreds of other companies are manufacturing similar design dental implants. Current evidence suggests that implants placed straight into an extraction socket have comparable success rates to those placed into healed bone.
Dental implant success is related to most importantly, operator skill, quality and quantity of the bone available at the site, and the patient's oral hygiene. The general consensus of opinion is that implants should carry a success rate of around 95%. One of the most important factors that determine implant success is the achievement and maintenance of implant immobility while integrating with the host bone. Other contributing factors to the success of dental implant placement, as with most surgical procedures, include the patient's overall general health and compliance with post-surgical care.

Over the last 10 years I have closely tracked the success ratio of my placed dental implants. I am proud to announce that to the date, my success ratio is over 98.8%. To find out if you are a candidate for dental implants please contact our office at (281) 332-4700 to schedule a complementary consultation, or visit our website at www.drnoie.com.

Sleep dentistry: Solution to a deeply rooted problem

What is Sleep dentistry?
Sleep Dentistry (also called Sedation dentistry, Conscious Sedation or Twilight Sedation) is the most advanced form of dental sedation. It uses a combination of sedative and pain relieving drugs given intravenously (I.V.) to create a dream-like state of deep, calming relaxation for the duration of your dental procedure.
Sleep Dentistry enables patients to undergo complex dental treatments (which often require six to eight appointments) in just one visit. Being in a very relaxed and sleep like state, you will be relaxed and at ease throughout the procedure.
During Sleep Dentistry treatment you are not unconscious at any time, just in a deeply relaxed state. Your vital signs are monitored throughout your entire visit and you are never left alone.
Is it right for you?
Individuals who might be a good candidate for sedation dentistry are those who:
• Has been traumatized in the past by a dentist (usually during childhood).
• Hate needles or shots.
• Hate the noises, smells or tastes associated with dental care
• Are afraid or embarrassed by their teeth
• Require extensive dental work
• Have very sensitive teeth
• Have a strong gag reflex
• Have difficulty achieving a numb sensation
• Have limited time to undergo dental restoration
• Exhibits unexplained high anxiety at the dental chair. The source is usually a horrific past experience that patient has blocked form memory.
What’s involved?
The sedation dentist establishes an I.V. line on your arm similar to technique used during blood donation. This procedure is practically painless. Most my patients don’t feel anything at all. Then a combination of sedative and pain-relieving medication is introduced. The result is immediate. You feel sleepy and fall sleep. When you wake up you will usually have no memory of the procedure, noises, smells, needles or drilling, and feel like no time has passed at all! You just feel like you just woke up from a very deep and satisfying sleep. You will go home with a heightened sense of well-being and the satisfaction of having attended to your dental health.
Will I feel any pain or remember anything about the dental procedure?
The short answer is: No. Sleep dentistry begins before the first injection is given and you will wake up and usually have no recollection of anything. There is no pain or discomfort at all. You are in a very deeply relaxed state from which you are still responsive.
Is it safe?
Yes. Sedation is incredibly safe and is monitored by a State licensed Sedation expert who is highly trained and qualified in administering the sedative agents and is certified and trained in Managing emergencies and Advanced Cardiac Life Support, ACLS.
What dental procedures should be performed under sleep dentistry?
That depends on the level of anxiety of the patient. The goal is to perform the procedure while keeping the patient comfortable and relax. All types of dental procedures can be performed under I.V. Sedation. Think about it, sedation is regularly performed during routine procedures such as Colonoscopy. In my opinion dental procedure is a far more invasive and stressful than Colonoscopy or similar procedures.
What are some of other benefits to sleep dentistry?
Aside from patient experiencing a much more pleasant dental visit, I believe the dentist can perform better when the patient is relaxed and calm as opposed to apprehensive and fidgety. "EMOTIONS are contagious," wrote the Swiss psychoanalyst Carl Jung. "Emotional contagion happens within milliseconds, so quick you can't control it, and so subtly that you're not really aware it's going on," says Dr. Elaine Hatfield, a psychologist at the University of Hawaii.
One mechanism at work in this transmission is the tendency for people to imitate the expressions of faces they look at. For example, Swedish researchers reported in 1986 that when people viewed pictures of smiling or angry faces, their facial muscles changed slightly to mimic those faces.
Think about it... who likes going to the Dentist-
You sit down in a chair petrified of the barbaric tools and white gloves.
You are dreading the results of your x ray and cringe at the thought of getting drilled into your mouth. Your gums bleed, you get injected with Novocain that wears out too fast yet still leaves your mouth half paralyzed.
Deep Sedation is not for every one. To find out if you are a candidate for sleep dentistry please contact my office at (281) 332-4700 to schedule a complimentary consultation with me.

Factors you can control

I have been deeply saddened by the pain and suffering that I observe in the faces of some of our fellow neighbors these days. I would like to help in a very minute way by sharing my thoughts and research with you and illuminate some insights as to how some can remain strong when faced with adversity. I often wondered when faced with hard conditions, why do some people break down while others endure and even prosper once the blizzard has passed? No one is immune to hardship, but some people appear to be better able to handle and pull through from even the most exhausting circumstances. I found out that it is not really a secret. Some minor mental adjustments can provide significant results. Here are just a few ideas.

Control your mind: Control implies having command and being able to affect one's own life, while being a victim implies being helpless and vulnerable. No matter what your situation, there are always factors you can control, and those you can't. The key is to concentrate on the things you can control. Make two lists. A list of all the things that are worrying you and then make a list of all the things you can do to make each circumstance better. Accept the items on the first list as bitter facts (they are what they are) and focus your energy on the next list. Do not waste your resources on the first list. You may find it challenging at first. But with some practice and discipline soon you learn to control the focus of your mind.

Control your attitude: Victor Frankl is one of the people that I highly respect. He was a esteemed Austrian psychiatrist. As a Jewish political prisoner, he was repeatedly subjected to physical torment, isolation, and a constant barrage of dehumanizing treatment. Against all odds he survived the Holocaust. In his book “man’s search for meaning”, Frankl creates a vivid image of his horrible ordeal in the Nazi concentration camp. He said that one of the keys to survival was choosing the right attitude. Frankl wrote, “The one thing they (Nazi) can’t take away from me is the way I choose to respond to what is being done to me. The last of one’s freedoms is to choose one’s attitude in any given circumstance.

Focus on the ones you love: Frankl also adds that “The salvation of man is through love and in love”. He expands, (I am paraphrasing) through his darkest hours he understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know happiness, be it only for a brief moment, in the thought of his beloved. In a position of complete despair, when one cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way – an honorable way – in such a position a person can, through loving reflection of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. He then beautifully adds, “For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory..”

Focus on helping others: Even if we ourselves are affected by the economic down turn, we must turn part of our focus from us toward others that have been affected more than us. As Victor Frankl put it "We who lived in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way." Regardless of what is happening to him.

I don’t mention Frankl’s story to make light of current job loss or job insecurity in our community and beloved country. I do understand that these are trying times in our global village. But I think we can learn from Frankl’s experience. If a positive attitude is vital to staying alive in some of the worst conditions known to man, surely it can be equally instrumental in these challenging times. We must never forget that our attitude is always a personal choice not a result of circumstances.

I would like to end this article by a couple of quotes from Charles R. Swindoll. He says, “I believe the single most significant decision I can make on a day-to-day basis is my choice of attitude. It is more important than my past, my education, my bankroll, my successes or failures, fame or pain, what other people think of me or say about me, my circumstances, or my position. Attitude keeps me going or cripples my progress. It alone fuels my fire or assaults my hope. When my attitudes are right, there is no barrier too high, no valley too deep, no dream too extreme, and no challenge too great for me.” He believes in order to control our attitude we must change our perspective. We must see challenges as opportunities. He encourages people to see impossible situations as brilliantly disguised great opportunities. My favorite quote of Chuck Swindoll is, “We cannot change our past. We can not change the fact that people act in a certain way. We can not change the inevitable. The only thing we can do is play on the one string we have, and that is our attitude.”

we're not in Kansas anymore

Last few years have been quite sobering. Our realities of life is changing in a very fast pace. On September of 2001, we as a nation realized that we are not as safe as we once thought we were. On September of 2008 we witnessed the melt down of our financial system. We learned that our financial security is no longer a given. Now, we are at the brink of yet another crisis, the healthcare.

Our healthcare cost has been rising at a significantly faster pace than our income. Over the past decade, the annual cost of healthcare coverage has risen 131%, according to Kaiser Permanente. Many economists believe that increases to the employer portion of healthcare costs have and will continue to reduce workers' wages over time.

Has your household income more than doubled in the last 10 years? According to U.S. census Bureau Median Household Income of American has increased from $38,771 in 1967 to $50,233 in 2007. That is less than 30% over the last 40 years and less than 7% over the last decade (as opposed to 131%). This imparity in growth rate between healthcare cost and Average American Income can not go on indefinitely.

Our world is changing and we must evolve to maintain our standard of living. The yellow brick road is getting fuzzy. How can we break this cycle? Is there any minor adjustment we can make to change the inevitable? I believe there is. We have to become more efficient and proactive. We must resist our natural tendency to postponed, delay, and avoid the unpleasant tasks. We must place a much higher emphasis on living healthier and preventive healthcare in order to avoid future costly and far less pleasant treatments. We need to switch from sick care to health care.

We need to prevent predictable health problems, to protect existing state of health and healthy functioning. When my patients tell me that they can't afford routine check up because money or time is tight, I reply "you can't afford not to do your preventive care, because money or time is tight". The word “Prevention” comes from Latin, meaning “to come before”. It evolved from a core definition “to anticipate”, “to take precautions against and hence to evade danger”.

There are things that we have little or no control over. We can’t eradicate corporate and financial sector greed. There is little we can do to keep our politicians immune from playing politics with our future and resources. There is however a few things that we have control over.

Together we can control the rising cost of “sick care” by being proactive and get serious about practicing “Preventive health and oral care”. Together we can be more “green” conscious. We can be more energy and fuel conscious. Our collective nationwide minor modifications can produce amazing results. We can once again remind the world what is so special about being American. Historically, when the chips were down, we have always delivered. We did it during industrial revolution. We did it during the nightmare of World War I and II and battle of Normandy. We can do it again against current global crisis as the leader of the free world.

In all my years of practicing Restorative, surgical, and rehabilitative dentistry, one pattern has always been consistent. Those patients of mine that have adapted routine preventive check up and maintenance habits that is recommended by American Dental Association (I call them my A list patients) need far less major, often unpleasant and expensive corrective procedures than the “I go to the doctor when something goes wrong” group. I hereby offer all of my patients a great incentive in order to encourage them to join our A list. I guarantee all of my major dental work, including dental implants 100%, for as long as (no expiration date) they remain an active patient on our A List, (even if the damage is caused by accident). I hope that my colleagues adapt a similar policy. We all need to do our share to promote and reward wellness through prevention as opposed to sickness in our community.

For more information about my “No expiration date, 100% warranty” policy and how to join our A List, please call my office at www.drnoie.com and ask to speak to Elga.