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New York City's John Miller counts himself as a "major beneficiary" of the ADA:s oral cancer awareness campaign and for good reason: it may have saved his life.
Thanks to the nationwide campaign and the prodding of a couple of observant friends the 27 year old professional who lives and works in Manhattan is back on the job in the New Year, having had three lesions, including one that was cancerous, removed from his tongue over the holidays.
"It worked for me," Mr. Miller (not his real name) said of the campaign that started in September in Chicago and San Francisco and has carried its message to 11 major U.S cities in all.
With funding provided by OralScan Laboratories Inc., ADA sponsored campaign features colorful signs on billboards, taxi tops, bus shelters and other outdoor venues, all urging the public not to ignore even tiny sores in the mouth, to see a dentist and to get tested.
The campaign has remained in each target market for about four months and is scheduled to wrap up in Atlanta at the end of March.
In October 2000, John, noticed but largely ignored a small Miller sore along the left margin of his tongue. "I figured it was probably caused by trauma, by my tongue scraping along the sharper edges of my teeth," he said. "I've got pretty sharp teeth."
More than a year passed. A second lesion, then a third erupted on Mr. Miller's tongue. The lesions, he found, were reacting to spicy foods but otherwise caused little discomfort.
Then one day last November, his roommate was motoring through the city when he spotted a billboard from the ADA:s oral cancer awareness campaign.
At about the same time, Mr. Miller's girlfriend also saw and read one of the campaign posters.
"They both stopped in their tracks," Mr. Miller said of his friends' reactions. "I listened to them, but you just don't want to believe the worst. Maybe this wasn't simply my teeth causing this, but I still wanted to believe that it was."
Finally convinced that he had to act, Mr. Miller made an appointment to see a dentist he'd visited a year before, Dr. Vasiliki Batalias, a periodontisit who spoke to the ADA News with her patients consent.
"There was a two centimeter lesion on the lateral border of his tongue,"
Dr. Batalias recalled of Mr. Miller's condition. "It was whitish and very dense leukoplakia. There were also two pedunculated lesions one at the base of the tongue and one distal to it that were more ulcerated. That made me worried." Dr. Batalias referred her patient to an oral and maxillofacial pathologist at Long Island Jewish Medical Center.
"He looked at me for about 30 seconds and said, 'I don't believe this is being caused purely by your teeth,'"Mr. Miller said of that day.
The 0 & M pathologist performed scalpel biopsies on the lesions and found one to be malignant.
On Dec. 19, Mr. Miller was wheeled into an operating room at New York's Memorial SloanKettering Cancer Center. In addition to removing the malignancy, tests were performed to ensure that the cancer had not spread to the lymph nodes. It hadn't. Mr. Miller spent three days in the hospital and returned to his office a couple of weeks later.
"It was Christmas week, so I didn't need to go back to work right away," he remembered. " The timing couldn't have worked out better. My speech was clearly impacted pretty significantly because my tongue was so swollen and my jaw was sore. But if I'd needed to go back to work that following Monday, I could have."
The ADA learned of Mr. Miller's experience through an e mail sent to the Association by his mother. "My gratitude for your oral cancer information campaign has no boundaries," she wrote, in a message later shared with dental leaders at the local, state and national levels.
Using capital letters and exclamation points, she added, "IT MAY HAVE SAVED MY SON'S LIFE!!"
Clay Mickel, associate executive director for Communications, responded to Mrs. Miller for the Association. "On behalf of the ADA," he wrote, "I want to thank you for sharing your son's experience with us. It's proof that we did the right thing."
The oral cancer awareness campaign, winding toward its early spring conclusion, has been greeted with kudos and some criticism from the profession. Reactions from patients have been largely positive.
Dr. Trucia Drummond, a general dentist in Chicago and a past president of the Illinois State Dental Society, she's had a number of patients comment on the campaign.
"They'll remark that they're so glad that I do the exam because they saw this billboard at the 'L' stop or wherever," said Dr. Drummond, referring to the city's elevated train staions.
"It made them aware this was important:' she added, "More than one patient I would say three to five patients, which is a lot have commented in a positive way that it [the campaign] made the aware of it [oral cancer]". Such feedback suggests the campaign achieving its vital, though limited objectives: to boost awareness of oral cancer, which claims the lives of 8,000 Americans each year, and to get people to see their dentist.
And as John Miller says, it worked for him
Snoring, or noisy breathing, affects nearly one of every three Americans, and everyone who's ever been disturbed by a snorer.
What causes snoring? Muscles and soft tissues in a snorer's throat and mouth relax during sleep, making the breathing air way smaller. The space becomes constricted and the speed of air flowing through it increases causing soft tissues to vibrate excess body weight or use of alcohol and sedatives can further increase the severity.
Respiration impairing soft tissues can be surgically removed but procedures are expensive and painful and success rates vary.
A dentist prescribed anti-snore oral device called Silent Nite comfortably positions the lower jaw into a forward position using special connectors attached to transparent upper and lower forms. The device increases the airway space and reduces air velocity, soft tissue vibration and snoring up to 85% and more.
Enjoy the benefits of a better and more rest filled night's
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