 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
Medical Forum / General / General / July 2005You guys are gonna hate me for this
If you look closely at actresses teeth in their interviews on Jay Leno and ET, etc, you can see how bad the Hollywood epidemic of bulimia is, because virtually ALL of the women have bad teeth, and a LOT of the men do, as well. So, if we cynically assume that hopeful starlets aren't going to give up vomiting any time soon, we can at least get to work on the problem of how to keep them from ruining their teeth. My proposal is that they should drink some Maalox, Mg(OH)2, before they throw up. That should reduce the acid in their stomachs before it comes into contact with their teeth. It won't solve the bulimia issue, since I contend that would be tilting at windmills, anyhow. But it should slow the rate of erosion of their teeth. > If you look closely at actresses teeth in their interviews on Jay Leno and > ET, etc, you can see how bad the Hollywood epidemic of bulimia is, because [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > contend that would be tilting at windmills, anyhow. But it should slow the > rate of erosion of their teeth. If you can diagnose bulimia by looking at the facial surfaces of their teeth on a TV screen, you're a better man than I, Gunga Din. Steve  SignatureMark & Steven Bornfeld DDS http://www.dentaltwins.com Brooklyn, NY 718-258-5001 > If you can diagnose bulimia by looking at the facial surfaces of > their > teeth on a TV screen, you're a better man than I, Gunga Din. I don't get the Gunga Din reference. Is that Kipling? Of course, I wouldn't be so cavalier about making a diagnosis over the tv, if it weren't already common knowledge there is an epidemic of eating disorders in Hollywood. It also helps to be addicted (koff, koff) to Leno, Letterman, Conan O'Brien and Craig Ferguson. But if that weren't enough, just yesterday, The Insider had an interview with Gene Wilder, in which he unashamedly discussed Gilda Radner's bulimia. As he said this, the editors showed an extreme close up of her face, and there were the giant, misshapen choppers, as big as nickels. The signature deformity is that spaces down by the roots of the teeth are larger than they should be. Once you've got the trained eye it stands out like a sore thumb. Next time you see a hot starlet on Leno, look closely at the spaces between the bases of her teeth. I guesstimate 19 out of 20 chances you'll see that they're much larger than what would be considered ideal. Check out three or four hot chicks in a row, and you'll see that they all have the same dental pathology. It really is an epidemic, and there's a fortune to be made by the first dentist to invent a way to cover it up. > > If you can diagnose bulimia by looking at the facial surfaces of > > their > > teeth on a TV screen, you're a better man than I, Gunga Din. > > I don't get the Gunga Din reference. Is that Kipling? Yes. YOU may talk o' gin an' beer When you're quartered safe out 'ere, An' you're sent to penny-fights an' Aldershot it; But if it comes to slaughter You will do your work on water, An' you'll lick the bloomin' boots of 'im that's got it. Now in Injia's sunny clime, Where I used to spend my time A-servin' of 'Er Majesty the Queen, Of all them black-faced crew The finest man I knew Was our regimental bhisti, Gunga Din. It was "Din! Din! Din! You limping lump o' brick-dust, Gunga Din! Hi! slippy hitherao! Water, get it! Panee lao! You squidgy-nosed old idol, Gunga Din!" [...] Din! Din! Din! You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din! Tho' I've belted you an' flayed you, By the livin' Gawd that made you, You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din! http://www.bartleby.com/103/48.html Signature"Did Father shoot him? I will eat Grandfather for dinner." - Helen Keller, on learning of the death of her grandfather >> If you can diagnose bulimia by looking at the facial surfaces of >> their [quoted text clipped - 23 lines] > It really is an epidemic, and there's a fortune to be made by the first > dentist to invent a way to cover it up. I don't doubt that bulimia is common in Hollywood. For that matter it's hardly uncommon anywhere in the US. One would expect it to be especially common in pursuits that put a high premium on slimness (acting, dancing, modeling, certain athletic pursuits). I have seen the effects of bulimia, and the erosion is by far most pronounced on the palatal surfaces of the upper incisors, and less so on the lingual surfaces of the lower incisors, and less so on the lingual/palatal surfaces of the posterior teeth. Frequently the enamel on the labial/buccal surfaces of the teeth are remarkably untouched. If the incisors are eroded severely enough there may of course be chipping and cracking of the upper incisors, particularly if there are pre-existing fillings in these teeth. But I would guess this would be a relatively late presentation. I might also point out that there are both many other possible reason for the front teeth to be in poor shape, and also that many of the same pressures for a particular appearance that tend to lead in susceptible individuals to eating disorders are also likely to put pressure on these women to have their damaged teeth repared as soon as possible. This is sometimes difficult, but certainly not out of the question in this population with lots of money. Steve SignatureMark & Steven Bornfeld DDS http://www.dentaltwins.com Brooklyn, NY 718-258-5001 >>> If you can diagnose bulimia by looking at the facial surfaces of >>> their teeth on a TV screen, you're a better man than I, Gunga Din. [quoted text clipped - 25 lines] > sometimes difficult, but certainly not out of the question in this > population with lots of money. Are you a dentist, John? Dr. Bornfeld is, and I gotta say that his position sounds substantially more authoritative than yours. While I don't doubt that bulimia is common, I doubt that it's a diagnosis that can be made based on close-ups on the Tonight Show. HMc >>>> If you can diagnose bulimia by looking at the facial surfaces >>>> of their teeth on a TV screen, you're a better man than I, ... > Are you a dentist, John? Dr. Bornfeld is, and I gotta say that his > position I'm not a dentist, but I AM a full time researcher. I have an MS from MIT, and I'm finishing up my PhD. >>>>> If you can diagnose bulimia by looking at the facial surfaces >>>>> of their teeth on a TV screen, you're a better man than I, [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > MIT, > and I'm finishing up my PhD. And you stayed at a Holiday Inn last night, right? HMc >And you stayed at a Holiday Inn last night, right? Probably. Now if he had stayed at a Holiday Inn EXPRESS, last night. Kurt (Who is worried that he knew the distinction) Ullman -- "No nation would be so dumb as to say that we all want to go one point, we just don't know how to get there. What we are finding is some want to go to San Diego, some to Seattle. We are ashamed to admit this so we pretend we all want to go to San Francisco." Uwe Reinhardt on the health care debate. "Howard McCollister" <nospam@nospam.net> wrote in news:42da487d$0$16170 $bb4e3ad8@newscene.com: >>> Are you a dentist, John? Dr. Bornfeld is, and I gotta say that his >>> position [quoted text clipped - 3 lines] > > And you stayed at a Holiday Inn last night, right? Huh? > and also that many of the > same pressures for a particular appearance that tend to lead in > susceptible individuals to eating disorders are also likely to put > pressure on these women to have their damaged teeth repared as soon as > possible. This is sometimes difficult, but certainly not out of the > question in this population with lots of money. This is an excellent competing theory. I'll research it on sci.med.dds and see what turns up. Thanks for the clever idea. > So, if we cynically assume that hopeful starlets aren't going to give up > vomiting any time soon, we can at least get to work on the problem of how [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > contend that would be tilting at windmills, anyhow. But it should slow the > rate of erosion of their teeth. COMMENT: Even better, put them on a proton pump inhibitor. Not only would it save the teeth, but it would go a long way to keeping them from dying of the terrific acid-base disorders they get into from vomiting out all that acid and chloride. When I was at Harbor General many years ago, a well known bulemic without teeth used to come in with a pH of about 7.7 and a serum bicarb level higher than his chloride level. This is remarkable, and not usually survivable, but there he was. The interns and residents would have to mark their little chart diagrams for chloride and bicarbonate levels explicitly, to tell them apart (usually you just write the numbers, since it's obvious which is which). I suggested once that they give this guy acid-blockers to keep his electrolytes from going so badly out, and the answer I got was that it had been tried, but he was crazy (go figure) so never took them. Of course, even acid blockade doesn't fix the potassium problem and the volume problems of bulemics. One night our prize bulemic came in on the watch of a resident rotating from UCLA who didn't know him. Usually he'd been treated gently with saline hydration, and fixed himself over days. This night the resident nor the intern knew this history, and charts could be hard to retrieve at Harbor in the middle of the night. Computers had not arrived. So the resident took a look at the bicarb and pH and freaked. He just had to give the guy a bicarbonate-wasting diuretic, and I think the sudden pH change finally did the guy in. That was the story we got the next day, anyway. One more argument for better medical records. And also "tincture of time" treatment if it's worked before. If you don't know what to do in medicine, sometimes it really is better to just stand there and do little or nothing. SBH > Of course, even acid blockade doesn't fix the potassium problem Is the potassium problem hyper- or hypo-kalemia, or something else? > the resident took a look at the bicarb > and pH and freaked. He just had to give the guy a bicarbonate-wasting > diuretic, and I think the sudden pH change finally did the guy in. Is this kill the only one that particular resident had on his score sheet, or did he freak out at other times, and make more hasty choices? > Is the potassium problem hyper- or hypo-kalemia, or something else? It's usually hypokalemia, as gastric fluids contain potassium, and these people are generally on very poor diets. > > the resident took a look at the bicarb > > and pH and freaked. He just had to give the guy a bicarbonate-wasting > > diuretic, and I think the sudden pH change finally did the guy in. > > Is this kill the only one that particular resident had on his score sheet, > or did he freak out at other times, and make more hasty choices? COMMENT: I didn't hear any suggesting he wasn't a good resident (they don't take bad ones at UCLA). Rather, just one with an emergency-appearing problem of unusually rare magnitude, the "fix" for which was not availabe in textbook or ring-manual or other form easily accessable in 1984. We forget how much medicine has changed in a generation. You couldn't just get on Medline at the hospital computers terminals then, because there weren't any at Harbor General (at least not any on the wards that accessed MEDLARS). Medline existed, of course, but you generally couldn't get at it except through some library (like the one at UCLA 20 miles way) during daylight hours. And even then you had to have a 2 hour course on how to do it, or else wait a day for the librarian to do it. In the bad old days, doctors at night looking at rare problems had cookbook care manuals, standard texts in a library (always available even at night, even if the librarian wasn't) and a set of basic medical journals which was nearly worthless without a Britannica-sized filing glossary called Index Medicicus. You had to go down to that set of tomes and look up topics, year-by-year. You had to get the topic right, and the year of course was by guess. And then your hospital had to have the right journal, and the right edition. It worked (sort of) for research, but was not much use in emergencies involving odd problems. SBH >> Is the potassium problem hyper- or hypo-kalemia, or something else? > It's usually hypokalemia, as gastric fluids contain potassium, and > these people are generally on very poor diets. That's what I was hoping you'd say. A very handy potassium supplement I've developed for my personal use is to mix 3/4 tsp of salt substitute into 12 oz. of diet pepsi. I try to do that 3x daily. That might be useful for a bulimic who could keep zero calorie liquids down. If you've got one whose only concern is their weight, you might be able to get some K into their systems that way. Do you guys have IV saline bottles or boluses with potassium supplements? Another thing that I've always found strange is that doctors have abandoned of epsom salts (magnesium sulfate) as a treatment for constipation. Admittedly, the resulting intense diarrhea could cause electrolyte problems, but if you limit the patient to doing it no more than, say, once or twice a week, you should be safe, right? How do you imagine epsom salts might perform in the case of an impacted cloaca? |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2008 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.