Adrian Fenderson DDS

The winner of this year’s Do A Good Deed Contest, Alana Freifeld, was excited at receiving her lap top Dell computer at the award ceremony in her physics class today. See more here.

Dan Chastain Sr. has been coping with a throbbing toothache since December. He has been without dental insurance since he lost his job last year.
The Napa husband and father has been dealing with daily pain and needed to have a tooth pulled. But he didn’t know how he was going to pay for it without insurance.

His wife, Cynthia Chastain, took him to a free dental appointment on Friday morning — free because of the philanthropic efforts of three local dentists, spearheaded by dentist Adrian Fenderson. Assisting him with seeing patients were fellow dentists Maryam Mohsenzadeh and Evelyn Calayag.

“My wife drove me this morning. She’s here to support for me today. I didn’t quite know what to expect,” Dan Chastain said. “I am sure I am going to feel much better now.”

“Dr. Fenderson is a blessing to this county and we just want to thank him for doing this,” said Cynthia Chastain sitting in the waiting room, after her husband’s tooth had been pulled and he was recuperating.
The husband and wife, with their toddler daughter in tow, arrived at dentist Adrian Fenderson’s office on Valle Verde Drive at 8:25 a.m.

There were already 20 people in line ahead of him for the annual free dental emergency clinic.
At 9:30 Friday morning Fenderson said he already had 42 people scheduled for dental work.

The majority of patients were adults. Fenderson said young children would be coming in late afternoon after school.
Fenderson opens his office and heart to Napa’s less fortunate once a year for a free emergency dental health care clinic. This is the second year he has offered the free dental health care.

He and two other dentists offer their time free of charge for this clinic that started one year ago. Fenderson estimates it cost him between $8,000 and $10,000 to offer the free dental care.

Fenderson sent out about 5,000 e-mails and posted flyers at various locations throughout Napa.
“I do it because I enjoy it and there is a need — especially in these tough economic times,” said Fenderson, who has practiced dentistry in Napa for 38 years.

“I’ve been doing this outreach all over the world, and last year somebody asked me why I didn’t offer it in Napa,” he said.
On Friday, Fenderson arrived at his office at 7 a.m. and expected he would not leave until at least 5 p.m.
Any patient who did not get in for an appointment was going to be given a rain check.

Fenderson said he truly loves his work. “To me, what I am doing today is pure dentistry,” he said.
Posted in Local on Sunday, May 23, 2010 12:00 am

Dr. Fenderson is not alone and many prominent medical journals have commented on such medical findings.

Last week Dr. Kuniyasu Ochiai, professor who chairs the Microbiology Department at Nihon University, Japan has even published tests that show the connection of gum disease and AIDS.

“It makes sense”, Dr. Fenderson says: “after all a gum disease is an infection and all infections weaken the immune system.”

Think in terms of firemen.

When there is one or even two wildfires, even though not all that large then there are fewer firemen available to prevent or put out a much bigger fire somewhere else.­­­

And there is another point which ads danger to any infection in the mouth, and that is that the whole mouth, the gums; the cheeks are the pathways to the blood vessels.

As most people well know, any dissolvable powder or drops will have a faster effect when put under the tongue. That is because the millions of small blood vessels are very exposed and go right in the main blood stream.

The thing to realize here, adds Dr. Fenderson, from Napa, CA, is that there are not even 12 inches from the mouth to the heat or the brain.

So the question, if you happen to have an infection in the mouth is – where do you want that yellow puss (infection) to travel – to the brain or to the heart?

Dr. Kuniyasu Ochiai’s studies about the connection of gum disease to AIDS will be published in the March issue of the US monthly Journal of Immunology.

But no matter what, it becomes pretty clear that the mouth, the gums, and also the actual teeth have a much more widespread influence on the body than just good looks and not having any pain, finishes Dr. Fenderson.

Green tea contains antimicrobial molecules called catechins that may promote dental health, researchers claim.

“Green tea may have bacteriocidal effects, which would affect teeth, but only if you drink it without sugar,” said Alfredo Morabia, of Columbia University in New York and editor of Preventive Medicine, who wrote an editorial accompanying the new research.
“They also reported that drinking sweet coffee was actually deleterious,” he added. “Coffee alone had no problem, but sweet coffee would actually make you lose your teeth.”

To reach the conclusion, Yasushi Koyama of the Tohoku University Graduate School of Medicine and colleagues looked at more than 25,000 Japanese men and women between age 40 and 64.

They found that men who drank at least one cup of tea a day were 19 percent less likely to have fewer than 20 teeth (a full set including wisdom teeth is 32) than those who did not drink green tea. Tea-drinking women had 13 percent lower odds.

Source:

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/5835352.cms

Researchers have found that the quality of tap water may help individuals avoid the dentist as fluoride added to public water supplies is proving to be the most cost-effective way to keep children from being affected by tooth decay.

According to a new study published in General Dentistry, scientists found that more people would rather drink tap water as a means of having good dental health rather than go to the dentist for treatment, which can sometimes involve painful drilling. More than 144 million Americans consume tap water on a daily basis.

“Fluoride makes the entire tooth structure more resistant to decay and promotes remineralization, which aids in repairing early decay before damage is even visible,” said C.H. Chu, lead author of the study. “Studies have confirmed the most effective source of fluoride to be water fluoridation.”

In addition to drinking tap water as a source of fluoride, individuals may also want to use the nutritional supplements calcium and vitamin D into their diet, as they can lead to tooth strength.
-Donna Parker, Dental Health Research
http://www.betterhealthresearch.com/news/tap-water-may-be-beneficial-to-dental-health-19719473/

~Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quixote, 1605