GAP TOOTHED SMILE (PERFECT BEAUTY OR DENTAL MALFUNCTION?)

Gap front teeth .Source:Pinterest

     That's a complicated question right there. So, we are currently taking a course in dental morphology and we get to this chapter on form and function of teeth just after occlusion. This is something to do with teeth alignment in the mouth and stuff like spacing of teeth. Good thing about having instructors  who have practiced as dental hygienists before and have been in the field for sometime is that they always have lots and lots of real life case scenarios to share from the dental offices.

        While we were discussing about the proximal contacts areas the instructor mentions something something about the gab in the front maxillary (diastema) and how they have had people go in the dental office to have it 'fix'. Now that got my attention. Reason this got my attention is not only because I have a gap in my front teeth ( I do not pay attention to it and do not even think about it). By the way my brother Dennis has one and my nephew (His son Mark) has one too. It's a family thing I think.
         So the reason this got my attention was because in some parts of Africa and in particular Kenya, there's is a lot of cultural significance attached to the front teeth gap. So much that it has virtually made some families 'wealthy'. If a girl has a gap between her teeth she was and is till considered to be a perfect beauty. As with African traditions once a man marries you have to pay dowry to the girls family as a show of appreciation for having brought up the girl you wanted to marry. Now, if the girl happens to have a gap between the front teeth the dowry was going to be much more than that of a 'plain smiled girl'. Without a gap. If someone had lets say 6 girls all with gaps between the teeth he gained a lot of respect from his peers and could easily gain a leadership position as he was seen a person with potential to get very wealthy after dowry payment.

                                                   

     I remember as a young boy people looking at my brother and saying to my parents, "well,its a shame they are not girls!" In my tribe it doesn't mean a thing if a man has a gap between his teeth and if it was considered  something that needed fixing I'm figuring out that maybe my mum would have 'fixed' ours. But I remember some girls going to her dental office to get he gap between their teeth so as to have perfect smiles or others to have more dowry paid to their parents once they got married.

     So much has been discussed about the gap in the front teeth and I feel kind of lucky to have grown up partly in a entirely different African  culture and now living in a different American culture as things get very interesting sometimes. I'm sure there is still so much to learn and appreciate and once again, beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder. For example In a recent Cosmopolitan column, "Orange Is the New Black" actor Uzo Aduba -- aka fan favorite Crazy Eyes -- shares how she came to love her front tooth gap. Growing up in the U.S. where a so-called "perfect" smile involves two straight rows of (probably braces-assisted) space-free teeth, Aduba long felt self-conscious about her gap, which didn't sit well with her Nigerian mother: This is what she had to say;

Growing tired of my persistence, my mother sat me down. "Uzo, I will not close your gap and here's why. You have an Anyaoku gap, my family's gap." She told me the history of her lineage and how much of her family, extended and immediate, had this gap. It's a signature in the village she grew up in. People know the Anyaokus, in large part, by that gap. They also revered them for it. In Nigeria, my mom explained, a gap is a sign of beauty and intelligence (Take that, Chiclets!). People want it. My mother desperately wished she had the gap but wasn't born with one. She continued to lay on the guilt, explaining that my gap was "history in my mouth"...

There you have it folks! In some parts of Japan, having crooked and black teeth showed signs of sexual maturity and strength. This practice is dying down and now strongly embraced by some older Vietnamese ladies and some youth in japan who even goes to the dentist to have their teeth chipped to look crooked. Once again, there's so much cultural significance attached to teeth in a lot of societies around the world but what is their clinical significance or impact on their oral health? This is something that I would love to pursue deeply in future!
Thanks for reading and let me know what you think about the diastema in the comment section below especially if you are a dental professional.  

Got Our Dental Hygiene Tool Set( Instrument Box) finally!

 I always try or promise myself to update here on my progress in Hygiene school at least every week. But does that happen? Your guess is as good as mine but hey since everyone has an excuse I got mine. My plan is to write every weekend but mostly after my job I'm so tired and always getting ready for Monday exams and before I know it the week is on.
Things are getting a bit hectic as we are now almost having a quiz or exam everyday and assignments that always due the next day. Good thing, we got warned as how hectic it can get but the interesting part is that we are not even started. That is just in 2 units. Dental head and neck anatomy and Dental morphology. We have done so much on teeth identification from deciding which is from right side and which is from left side. Not an easy feat as mostly the anterior lateral incisors looks almost the same. So much fun identifying them.

     The most interesting part was receiving the  dental kits in a box yesterday. We also got our uniform and loupes as well as our typodonts ( Model mouth with teeth). We have the calculus on the teeth on the typodonts which I presume we are going to be scaling in future. There are so many tools in the box that it's hard to believe we are going to using all of them. There's a feeling of joy on carrying that box and knowing soon  we will be masters of all the tools in there. I'm so excited for this new great turn and I plan to open the box on Sunday and try to 'play' with some of the instruments in there. I will be making a blog to explain what each tool is about  and what we use it for as we learn.
PS: for the first time since we got to hygiene school we went to the clinic today. Bliss. We just got to sit in the seat and examine each others TMJ joint for evaluation of any Tempo-mandibular Joint disorder. Of course my former friend turned friend - Marc made a big issue while examining me and claiming I have all kind of disorders :) . All in all we had a great day and since next semester we will have a pre clinic course we will be getting ready to go!

Made in Kenya! (Our new scrubs)

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So, finally our official 3^rd semester started last week and tomorrow we will have one week of third semester under our belts. Best feeling ever about this semester is we are at last getting to do something that is truly and directly related to teeth. By this, I mean Dental Morphology and Head & Neck anatomy.  The other building subjects are not lesser it’s just that I personally do not see the direct relationship between the molecular structure of wax and teeth.  

So far what has really impressed me is all the parts that we have just in our face. Philtrum, wait, what again?! Vermilion zone, vermi what? Stensen’s papilla…and the list go on and on. Being an avid reader of almost anything that has pages on it I must admit I have never come across any of these words until last week. There’s simply no clear way to describe the excitement and feeling of knowing that the little shallow depression extending from the area below the middle of the nose to the center of the upper lip has a name. Philtrum! We have body parts that’s we see every day and take for granted or assume they have no name. And I’m not even talking about the inside of the mouth yet. To me, that’s truly learning and enjoyable. I found that there is even whole research papers dedicated to that little shallow depression describing its role in smile and many other interesting theories.  Many more words and new parts are all fun to learn of course until we get to the exam room and the silly brain wants to assume you have never seen, leave alone heard any of those parts.

Okay, back to the title above. Kenya. Beautiful country where I was born and raised. Right under the equator so that means weather that is never too dry, neither too wet. Never too hot or too cold. Throughout the year. In short, anyone  dream weather. This is not a travel blog for sure but Kenya to me remains ONE OF the most beautiful places there is in the world (and trust me, I have traveled a bit of this world). Of course CNN and other international media houses won’t say or show any of this. Again, like any other nation, there are challenges in Kenya. Political, social and even economic just like every other nation. So what is Kenya doing in our dental hygiene blog?

Today I had a chance to go and get measurements for my uniform (Black scrubs and a white coat). See? Every day it feels like we are truly getting closer to our profession.  One of my classmates was in there trying her outfit and so I got to chat with the very friendly and nice old lady who runs the place as we waited for my other classmate to get done. She asked where I was from as I had an accent. Now, oversensitive people with low self-esteem will immediately get in self-defense mode whenever someone mentions that they have an accent and try to find out about where they come from. I have seen people label others as racist if they observe that they have accent. There’s dumb and then there’s plain dumb. This lies in the plain dumb.

 The oxford dictionary defines accent distinctive mode of pronunciation of a language, especially one associated with a particular nation, locality, or social class. E.g. Strong German accent, strong American accent and strong other languages accents. So whenever a person asks me where I am from due to my accent I find that person to be honest, straightforward and confident. I do not imply that those who do not ask are any opposite of this. Those who ask what accent was that after someone leaves are the ones who might need to work on themselves. Anyway, so I got talking to the lady about where I’m originally from. I like to tease people by first telling them that I’m from somewhere like Germany or Sweden and love the look of confusion on their face. So we got talking about Kenya with her and how I ended up here in the states. Immigration is a touchy issue for some people due to their personal reasons but I find it interesting to discuss about my decision and reason to come to this country (Legally of course! In case the border and customs people are reading J) And contrary to what my desk mate and former friend turned friend Marc says, I did not swim across the ocean to this place! Sometimes I will tease him and say how his American Accent is so strong I can barely understand him and so he needs to talk to me in Swahili. Keeps the hours rolling when the school day seem to have 37 hours.

So back to the lady at the store, after discussing about Kenya and how cost of living is over there compared to here I went and fitted my uniform and since I love business and I want to always find out where stuff is made (In case of a business chance) I checked the tag on the scrubs only to see ‘MADE IN KENYA’.  Interestingly, I happen to know the exact place in Nairobi (Mombasa road) where they produce all kind of export stuff in Kenya. I just never thought that that my Dental Hygiene scrub would be made in Nairobi and I would come to wear it in Erie! As a side note, the people who work in those companies are paid every day at the end of a work shift from 8Am to 5AM. Is it true they are paid like 5 dollars every day? That’s right!  But before anyone takes you on a guilt ride( I have heard all kind of claims, That these things from 3^rd world countries are made by kids….that the people working in them are not paid enough)  That mostly, is not true. People working in these companies are not paid less. The cost of living is almost as low as the payment they get. If someone for example living in Kenya makes 5 dollars at the end of a shift, and someone in the USA makes $80 at end of a 8 hr. shift they have almost earned same amount of money to meet there family needs. Most house rents will go for  25 dollars a month in some parts of Nairobi and so within 5 days someone has rent paid, and if you compare with someone paying 400$ a month over  here for rent, same thing, within 5 days their rent is paid too. So, in the long run everything else balances out and the only people really making any money is the big business importing those clothes.  It got me thinking that if our Mrs. O our new director allowed me to bring my own uniform from home, now that they are made in Kenya, I would end up paying like 5 bucks for them! 

The new scrubs with the made in Kenya tag

Well, that got me a little excited and a bit confused too on what side to support since I’m big supporter of bringing back all the companies and jobs to good old USA.

Anyway, I can’t wait to don those scrubs and get my tool kit and get inside those mouths!

I will be posting about our upcoming trip to work with cadavers for our Head and Neck anatomy at Lake Erie College of Osteopathic Medicine (LECOM). Thank you for reading and drop comments below.

Bye 2016 and Hello 2017!

Time has flown. I can’t believe it’s been over a month since I posted my last post. Time! Time! Last semester was shorter than expected. Shorter in the aspect of time. We had our finals on 22^nd of December before breaking for the 1 week chrismas holiday. My favorite holiday of the year.

But, about last semester, things got a little complicated with chemistry since we went from general chemistry to chemistry for dental hygienist which is primarily focused on organic chemistry and biochemistry.  The most challenging part was to wrap up about a chapter or 2 per lesson which I think is a good indication that things can get super busy real quick. Luckily the Profs turned out to be kind enough to guide us through. Sometimes there were feelings of frustration when questions were not responded to appropriately maybe because there was no time and there was a lot to cover. We however had a great semester.

  

The highlight of the semester was the ugly sweater party we held and my buddy Marc emerged as the best (Meaning the person with the ugliest sweater. Turns out that in our class, we have terrific cooks. We had all kind of food and we even posed for a class photo. The first one ever. I’m sure there will be group activities this semester as they help us let off the steam from all the studies and help us create stronger bonds as classmates, colleagues and future dental hygiene professionals. 

The Ugly sweater party with Dr. Jabra.

A lot of us did very well on the challenging classes of anatomy and Physiology 2 and the Chemistry for dental Hygienist. Personally I scored 2 straight A’s of 98 and 97 in Anatomy and Chem respectively. This semester we will be doing our 2 first core courses for dental hygienist which is Tooth morphology and Head and Neck anatomy. We also have a Microbiology class.  I’m lucky to have taken microbiology sometimes back and will be exempted from the class so that way I have times to focus on the 2 core courses which are normally focused on in the board exams. I must also point out that since we started the course we have been taught by the same teachers and this helps develop consistency. We are going to have them for this semester too so it helps to master their teaching, their pace and their way of setting exams.