ShareThisWhen you are focused on something, it seems that it pops up everywhere.
Yesterday I had a hygiene patient who went to sleep while he was having his teeth cleaned. My hygienist came and told me. I told her to put a pulse oximeter on his finger and continue to clean his teeth. His spO2 was 98 as she aroused him to put it on. Five minutes later, he was asleep and it had dropped to 83! –breathing shallow, halting with snoring. It is normal for the spO2 to be between 98 and 100 percent. If it drops to 94 then there is concern and they should see their doctor about possible COPD related problems. When it is 83 percent, it means the patient is slowly suffocating.
I consulted with him and recommended he see his physician for further consultation and examination. We also sent is doctor a letter informing him about our observation.
This is a patient we have been seeing for several years and I had already discussed this problem with him because of his high Mallampati and pharyngeal scores. Brian didn’t do anything about it then but we got his attention yesterday.
People don’t want to believe that they are apenic–I didn’t, but they are everywhere and it is slowly smothering them to death. Dentists should be the first line screeners for sleep apnea and other potential diseases. We see the same 1500-2500 patients twice yearly, taking regular BP and Pulse plus updating medical histories. With a little effort, we should be referring many of these back to their family doctors.
There are an estimated 20-30 million undiagnosed Sleep Apneics in the United States and half of them have undiagnosed TMJ symptoms. Every one of them that are undiagnosed and/or untreated are smothering to death. Dentists are in a unique position to discover these patients as we see the same patients twice a year and do routine medical history updates as well as examinations. Our role is in disease prevention and will increase as the health care system changes and the population ages.
Don Lowrance, MS, DDS
Corpus Christi, TX dentist