‘Traditional’ dental care mediocre

EDITOR,
It seems a handful of readers (Your Voice, “The ad campaign continues,” July 24; “A better use of ad money,” June 26; “No excuse for marketing ploy,” July 3) have chosen to demonize us for bringing attention to the importance of a healthy airway. Since when is casting light on an issue that is beneficial to people’s health a crime?  
In this age of highly specialized health care, it is easy to lack understanding about the relationship between various specialties. Quality health care demands a team effort where many professionals are involved.
Some readers fail to understand that our efforts are not aimed at promoting a dental appliance but rather at creating a public awareness “campaign” about the serious effects of a compromised airway. Practice parameters created by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine state that “oral appliances are indicated for use in patients with mild to moderate OSA (obstructive sleep apnea) who prefer them to CPAP therapy (continuous positive airflow pressure), or who do not respond to, are not appropriate candidates for or fail treatment attempts with CPAP.”
Letter-writer Mark Singer, as an admitted OSA sufferer, points out the high percentage of the population that suffers from sleep-disordered breathing, yet presumes that our efforts to relate this issue have been received poorly.
On the contrary, shortly after our most recent article (“Dental checkups can reveal overall health,” July 17 Health & Fitness) about the impact of a poor airway, we were visited by a sleep center representative. She praised the article and expressed the importance of physicians and dentists working together to treat this insidious condition.
Singer is unaware of the countless number of patients we have referred for sleep studies who have been diagnosed by sleep physicians.
With ever-expanding knowledge and treatments available in health care today, settling for “traditional” dental care only is an invitation for mediocrity.
Perhaps the perils of oral cancer or cigarette-smoking related issues should only be brought to light by an oncologist and pulmonologist and no one else.
Max Ebrahimian, DDS, LVIF, Ebrahimian Aesthetic Dentistry, Scotts Valley