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Time by Dr. John F. Miller DDS
What is time? How does one define this concept? “Time is the indefinite continued progress of existence and events that occur in an apparently irreversible succession from the past, through the present, into the future.” According to Wikipedia. If time is a commodity, then it must have value. At this point I also want the reader to understand that what something costs is not always representative of it’s value. Time has no cost, you cannot buy it. It is being doled out evenly to every living thing at this very moment, but how it is respectively being valued varies greatly. The value of time is relative and obeys the universal laws of supply and demand. Have you ever watched a sporting event where the trailing team really turns up the intensity towards the end of the game and the result is them catching up giving them a chance at
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victory? Have you, like me, ever thought, “why don’t they play like that the whole game?” It’s because in the beginning of the game there is an abundance of time and therefore it has little value. On the flip side, if you have the lead when time is running out the value of time to you is basically zero. In fact, teams in this position have designed strategies in order to “burn the clock,” or in other words waste time. It seems so cruel that one team would squander that which the opposition values most. In the above scenario both teams have the advantage of at least knowing how much time remains. It is not a mystery. This is not the case with most things in life. All too often we only know when time has run out...when it’s too late for the heroic comeback. Now I have the complicated task of tying the above intro into my profession of Dentistry. In thinking about the concept of time as it relates to dentistry, the phrase Too Little Too Late comes to mind. As I have mentioned multiple
times in previous editions of 406 Woman, the two major oral pathological processes are for the large part painless. These are tooth decay aka cavities, and bone loss aka gum disease. And to make matters worse, both of these issues are not visible to the naked eye in their early stages. In other words, you can’t feel them or see them until they’re in an advanced stage, sometimes the “too little too late” stage. Because of this, the dental profession highly recommends regular dental evaluations which include radiographs/x-rays. Dental X-rays when taken properly allow us to visualize very clearly any loss of bone around teeth in addition to any loss or weakening of tooth enamel. Quite often we see very minor issues in which we just bring awareness to the patient and reemphasize ideal oral hygiene practices in hopes to stabilize the problem without the need for a dental procedure. However, if you are receiving routine dental evaluations, any problem that needs to be fixed will be very small and easy to eliminate...it will not be too little or too late.