No Pain no problem? Not so fast

There’s an urban legend that claims a frog placed in a pan of boiling water will quickly jump out, while a frog placed in a pan of room-temperature water, with the heat then slowly increased, will just sit there until cooked.

While I have my doubts as to the scientific accuracy of this claim, it serves a useful analogy to your teeth. No, I’m not kidding. The key is the difference between an acute attack on a tooth and a chronic attack. An example of an acute attack would be a large piece suddenly breaking off. One second everything’s fine, the next second your tooth is screaming “Ahhhhhh! Fix me!”

An example of a chronic attack would be a slow-growing cavity; this type of attack is insidious and most often painless, sometimes even when the cavity gets into the nerve and kills it. This happens because the body has a remarkable ability to adapt and avoid pain, for better or worse.

Numerous other medical conditions exemplify this dynamic. I’m sure most of us have heard about someone dying from a sudden heart attack who never had any prior symptoms. It’s only afterwards that they discover that the victim’s coronary arteries were 99% blocked.

About 15 years ago a friend of mine in Germany noticed a lump on the roof of his mouth. His dentist didn’t think much of it, and since it was painless they decided to watch it. Over the next year he noticed it was growing so they finally decided to perform a biopsy, which came back positive for cancer.

For the next three years he endured numerous procedures to have the tumor removed, along with twelve teeth from his upper jaw, then bone was taken from his leg to graft into the area to rebuild his jaw, then implants placed in the new bone, and eventually a denture to replace his missing teeth. One can’t help but think that most (or all) of this could have been avoided if the tumor was diagnosed sooner. The good news is he’s alive and chewing again, but his life will never be quite the same.

Unfortunately many people still believe that if something doesn’t hurt it must be OK. Heart disease rarely hurts until severe consequences arise. Cancer rarely hurts until it’s life-threatening. Most dental issues are also painless until they’ve advanced to the point that treatment is very costly, both in terms of financial cost and functional cost. In general, waiting until a tooth hurts before seeking treatment will cost about ten times as much as treatment before symptoms appear.

Motivated to take action? The best thing you can do right now for your health is to purchase a blood pressure monitor (arm or wrist) and check it regularly. High blood pressure is also known as the “silent killer” and regular testing can help avoid a host of health issues and may even save your life.

Dr. McGann