It's All In a Smile

Most researchers agree that facial expressions, such as smiling, are innate, not just something babies learn to do by watching the people around them. That's why athletes that are sightless still smile when they win a race or succeed at some other type of athletic endeavor. It's also the reason why we instinctively smile when someone smiles at us.

Evidence also suggests that people who smile also tend to be happier and more successful in life than those that don't. The smile, as one researcher puts it, is "our most important symbol of cooperation." Using Facial Action Coding (FACS) researchers have been able to catalogue more than 3,000 meaningful facial expressions. One of these, the Ducheene smile where the cheek muscles lift the corners of the mouth and the muscles around the eyes contract, causing a crow's feet wrinkling, often with then outer corners of the eyebrows drawing down, has come to be regarded as the one smile that reveals genuine happiness.

In studies of happily married couples (whatever that may be) when they greeted each other at the end oft he day they tended to show Ducheene type smiles. Unhappily married couples just didn't! Now don't start looking at each other too closely but a smile of contempt, according to these very same researchers, with one corner of the mouth lifting higher than the other, reliably predicted divorce.

The powerful need for a smile has become increasingly more important with our reliance on email, teleconferencing and other substitutes for face to face meetings. We even use such symbols as :) to express a smile in emails and :( to show our dismay. Software manufacturers have decided to help us with this issue by developing avatars, digital stand-ins, that are capable of expressing programmable emotions.

Well, the moral of the story seems to be that a smile really matters. It can make you feel better and make other feel better as well. For over thiry years we havehelped many patients regain the smiles they had during their youth, lost due to accidents or even loss of teeth. If you've lost your smile give us a call. We're here to help!

Excerpts from The Smithsonian Magazine August 2007

Going From Good to Great

What makes one dental practice just "good" and another practice "great". What was a great dental office 10 years ago may just be a good office today. Times change and our patients wants and needs change with them. What dentists need to do is rethink what dental practice is truly about and make the necessary changes so that they can provide what patients will perceive as "great" service. Patients experience "great service" at their local car dealer and hair salon. In this new era of dentistry just giving out a bag containing a toothbrush and floss may just not be enough to create the kind of experience that will create what has been called in the past, "dental missionaries".

This may be far more than just adding a new laser to the office equipment list or providing cookies and cake in the reception area. It may require a total review of how we provide dental service in this era of medical confusion. It may require a rethinking of traditional methods to provide patients with a new dental experience totally.

The Dental Spa in Garden City Understands Patient Communication

DentiGram is a new software program being used by The Dental Spa at Garden City to communicate frequently with patients about information concerning their dental health. Most of our patients prefer to be contacted via email rather than being bothered by telephone calls that very often need to be returned anyway.

They appreciate their email appointment reminders, birthday cards and our monthly newsletter which is chock full of dentally related information. Patients can also request appointments via this format and can also forward our newsletter to their family and friends if they feel that the material might be of benefit to them.

Dentigram has proved to be a very valuable tool in allowing us to keep in touch with a very mobile and busy patient population.

More About my Presidency

Well, I still have not decided what to do but one thing is for sure, nobody else in the field has any idea what they are doing as well. So I guess I'm in good company.

Before I make my decision to make a decision about thinking about running for the presidency, I am going to have my son-in-law, Ari, an eminent Orthopedist, check to make sure I have a spine. I am also going to challenge all of my competition to do the same. I wonder if there is a condition unknown to medical science that occurs in politicians where they start out with a spinal cord but with time, it just deteriorates.

How can these guys and ladies stand in front of any audience and spout the political nonsense each and every day and still be able to stand upright. They just don't get it. Speak your mind and your heart and then let the chips fall where they may. Wouldn't that be refreshing.

I promise if I run, and right now I am only thinking about deciding to run, I will always speak my mind and not the mind of politics.

Gaggers - Help Is On The Way

One of the most dreaded experiences a gagger can have is dental impressions.

There are many patients out there that find impressions or even x-rays and an exam a horrible experience. Just putting anything foreign in their mouth initiates an immediate gag response; something totally out of their control.

Very often, this gag reflex, and the fear of it, keeps patients from receiving all of the dental care they want and need. Well, we can help. There are several techniques that can be used to assist even the most severe gagger in accomplishing their dental goals.

Today we treated our good friend and patient, Ed. Ed is a terrible gagger. Just mention impressions while he is in the elevator and the gagging begins. Our goal today was to get impressions of implants in his upper jaw. We had no choice; either get impressions or the implants were done for naught.

Using topical anesthetic on his palate prior to taking the impression, Nitrous Oxide to help control his gagging and hypnotism techniques (not really putting him into a trance of any kind but rather using a monotone voice with consistent instruction) helped get Ed through impressions without so much as a moan. Truly a terrific experience for all concerned.

If you too are a gagger, ask your dentist to work with you and you too can have the dentistry you want and probably need.