“Is It Your Turn Yet?”
December 2009

A Wondrous Time

What an amazing range of emotions one experiences during the Christmas season.

The overall Hope is for everyone to have the Love, Joy, and Peace (as the different candles on the Advent Wreath represent) during this blessed season.

As I reflect on our family having come through a very apprehensive and unsure time last season, with Beth’s medical problems, I think how it must have been for Joseph and Mary. We say this is the time of great joy, for, as we know, it turned out to be great joy for them. However, I’m certain there are other fathers out there who have traveled and not been able to find a hotel with an available room, and perhaps, felt the apprehension and fear that Joseph must have felt in not being able to provide for his betrothed, as she was probably experiencing labor contractions at the very moment he was being denied a room.

At the time when our family almost feels guilty for the joy that we are feeling this holiday season, we received a card from an old friend, our same age, that we had lost track of. She had the sad task of informing us that she lost her husband, our friend, this past November, to cancer.

The emotions of the season, positively and negatively, are so high, that it shows why the adjectives “Wondrous” and “Hopeful” are used so often.

I dictate this as I snowshoe through the quiet and beautiful woods. Whether it be positive joy or fearful, sad emotions you are feeling, hopefully by getting out into the amazing beauty and serenity of snow covered fields or snow covered woods which God has created, each of us can put perspective on the wondrous world He presents to us.

Our family sincerely wishes everyone love at all times during the year and hopefully, each one of us will find Peace, Joy and Hope someplace, somehow.

As for wonderment, isn’t it amazing that we already are on “double digits” for this century?

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

Written by: Dr. Daniel L. Steinke

“Is It Your Turn Yet?”

November 2009

Finesse In Life

I have always loved competition and participating in many sports.

My early life was focused on sports in which the victor, usually, was the fastest, strongest and meanest. Now, as I am approaching 60, those components of success are definitely not in my favor. With this realization, I am entering an era of being a “wanna-be” in some more “gentle” sports.

With my stated history - It is truly a struggle trying to be good at sports where the difference between success and failure is maybe a half ounce of pressure here or there or when simply thinking what to do next, the energy of the thought process drives the next successful or unsuccesful action.

It is like starting over to realize that the more gentle, intuitive and sensing I am, the more successful I will be.

Whether it be sports, work or life relationships, it seems that the secret to success is the ability to always adapt to change when reviewing our personal world and our position in it. What was correct and successful yesterday is not what will work tomorrow.

If only some of my old teammates could see this “bull in a china shop” attempt subtleness and precise control, they would laugh.

This is the first day of the rest of your life.

Written by: Dr. Daniel L. Steinke

“Is It Your Turn Yet?”
October 2009

The “Fountain of Youth” for Your Smile

Long ago, Ponce deLeon, searched for a fabled fountain that would restore your broken down body. In my limited world of dentistry, history has not had a way to restore a smile that was destroyed from lost teeth. Dentures were the most common way, but, as you can easily observe most of the time, they did not restore the full smile, especially the ability to chew anything you want.

Over 20 years ago, I started placing dental implants. Initially, the technology and materials were so difficult and expensive to utilize, that they seemed, for a while, to be more of an effort for both the patient and the dentist than it was worth. Finally, in the last five years, the techniques and materials have progressed such that it is now relatively cost effective, comfortable and predictable to have the smile and ability to chew that you always wanted if some or all of your teeth have been lost.

The most typical situation we see is the individual that has had a large filling from adolescence and possibly required a root canal at some time and now the tooth, after many years, has failed by either cracking down the middle or a recurrent infection. Previously, when a single tooth needed to be removed, the options were a bridge, removeable partial denture or simply have an empty space in the smile. Now, we can remove the tooth and sometimes, put the implant in the same day. If there is an infection in the area, we can simply put some artificial bone into the socket, allow it to heal and then place the implant a few months later. Most all the time, the surgery of placing an implant requires nothing more than an Ibuprofen that evening to keep the patient completely comfortable.

The one caveate to this restored Fountain of Youth Smile, is that it takes time for the implant, now placed in the bone, to fully adhere to the bone so that a new tooth can be placed on top of the implant.
For those of you who may be confused about what an implant is: On a regular tooth there is a root that goes into the bone of the jaw and over the root is the “crown” or enamel that we can see in our smile. An implant simply replaces the root going into the bone and an artificial crown (commonly called a CAP) still needs to be placed over the implant once it has joined into the bone (about 3-4 months).

If I haven’t confused you enough with my explanation so far, there are many options on what to do after putting in an implant. The most common is what I just described for losing a single tooth. If you currently have a full denture(s) and feel you may need to chew better and more comfortably, many times mini implants can be placed into the existing bone to secure your denture, eliminating the need for a new denture. It hitches on to your denture, much like a ball hitch on a trailer. If you have no teeth and want to totally get back to the smile and chewing of your youth, implants can do that also, but, as one can imagine, the cost of this “Fountain of Youth” is the cost of a small car.

Some research found that having your teeth increases longevity an average of seven years. Maybe we HAVE finally found Ponce deLeon’s fountain of youth!

This is the first day of the rest of your life.

Written by: Dr. Daniel L. Steinke

"Is It Your Turn Yet?"
September 2009

Everyone’s Personal Journey

Right now I am in Chicago visiting my brother-in-law who valiently battled throat cancer and is seemingly, not going to beat the monster as he is now very frail, on oxegen, and is having difficulty summoning the energy to talk.

It is amazing to hear his perspective on this process. He reports never feeling angry about his selected journey and is not afraid of the outcome. Listening to him talk about the journey that each one must go through, and of his own, without negative emotion, but with gratitude for what he had in his life, is inspiring.

We, as many of you, have had too many recent stories of personal journeys similar to this and hearing the strengths of these people, when truly confronted with negative circumstance, is amazing. A good friend of ours had her mother slowly die of Altzheimers. It was through following her long journey with her mother and this woman’s perception of everyone’s journey, which led us to take perspective on what we all must personally go through in our lives.

Life is not predictable. If we see each day we wake up and enjoy life as a blessing, and hold no negative reaction or views of how one’s journey of life should go, we can find peace when the time for ourselves or a member of our family is near its end.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

Article Written by Daniel L. Steinke, DDS, MAGD

“Is It Your Turn Yet?”
August 2009

Your Smile At Age 70

Picture your smile at age 70…then picture yourself with what you consider the smile you would LIKE to have at 70. Is there a difference? Before, we thought of a “maturing” smile as one with darker, worn, sealed or even missing teeth. The people that had their smile “fixed”, many times, had unnatural looking teeth.

Our society is changing its perception of how one should look and feel in the “Golden Years”. Look at our vibrant seniors at the YMCA exercising, traveling and “Criss-Cross” socializing with our youth. It is estimated that by the time the “Baby Boomers” could reach age 100, there will be over one million centurions in the USA.

Dentally, it is exciting to see the dramatic changes over the past years in being able to keep our smiles whiter, less worn and more naturally vibrant. In January 1999, a European company released a tooth colored material that is as strong as the metal we now use on crowns. That is a dramatic advance as we now can change those “fake” looking teeth into smiles that nobody could tell wasn’t yours naturally.

Some relatively inexpensive services that dentistry now offers for smiles is “Bleaching” which can be done day or night with a specifically made mouth guard. The results are fast, safe and dramatic.

Do you have “worn places” on your front teeth that look like brown holes in the top of your teeth? With no “numbing” and little costs, we can now “bond” those places and revitalize aged looking teeth instantly.

It’s professionally rewarding to me to now be able to confidently deliver those beautiful smiles. Nothing was more frustrating in the past than for both you and I to work hard to improve the smile, only to fall short of our esthetic goal because the materials available couldn’t fill our expectations.

Your health, your self image, and your vitality is a personal decision. It’s terrific that all the medical fields are working to help YOU to achieve YOUR goals.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.


Written by: Dr. Daniel L. Steinke

"Is It Your Turn Yet?"

July 16, 2009

President's Message - YMCA Annual Meeting

Dear YMCA Family:

I am very pleased to stand before you at this time and look back on an amazing year.

As I stood before you after being elected last year, I set, as my primary goals:

To stabilize the YMCA
To find an outstanding YMCA Director
To encourage outreach of volunteerism in our YMCA so that many hands can make the workload light.
To encourage an outstanding Board to have an enthusiastic vision and execute it.
To eliminate debt that is an albatross around our neck.

I can confidently say the first four goals were accomplished extremely well because of you out there in our ‘Y’ family.

It may have been boring to accomplish everything the first year and so, in my last year, elimination of our debt will be my key focus All of you have exhibited amazing volunteerism and the staff has dealt very well with the many past and current changes that are necessary for the progress of this organization. I mostly want to thank my Executive Committee and Board. If people know me, my management style is to encourage many people to work synergistically together and for me to only get in their way when things aren’t going well or when progress is not being made.

The first few weeks were difficult, but the Board shared a common vision and we got through some very tough times and made some very hard decisions. We did run the ‘Y’ by ourselves for a while and did hire an outstanding Executive Director. The definition of success for me, is to feel that I’m not necessary. I am very pleased, a short one year later, to feel that this organization is running smoothly with very little necessary input from myself.

I would like to specifically thank Vice President Jason Brochu for an amazing job, Bill Rayfield for the incredible hard work in bringing our finances under control and Secretary, Skip McDonald, for stepping in and most importantly, for really being that “push” who organized like minded people to come to last year’s annual meeting with a positive and move forward attitude. Finally, to Erika, for joining us with vision and energy, and reinvigorating our ‘Y’ with positive progress into the future.

Sincerely,
Daniel L. Steinke, President

Is It Your Turn Yet?
June 2009

Living Life Like A Four Year Old

Like many of you, our day to day schedules seem so fast that we get through a week and have hardly taken a breath of relaxation. I spoke with another individual in their 50’s and they expressed trying hard not to feel like they have to push quite so hard in day to day living.

Luckily, I think, at least part time, I have found the answer to that problem – GRANDCHILDREN. The time spent with them is not only filled with some time to relax (snack time after every hole played on the golf course). It is also filled with gratitude and remembrances of good times without the worry of the future.

As I travel around to different places by car, foot or horse with my grandson, Jack, he speaks a living dialogue of his memories of those places – playing catch, throwing rocks in the stream, going to the playground and on and on. Children can focus on their surroundings and their experiences in those places without having to burden themselves with tomorrow’s work schedule, a conflict to settle or a bill to pay. This reminds me that there are more good times to think about than worry times. For me, having fun with my grandchildren becomes a priority equal to those other diversions that we adults are required to come back to.

As we now enter the golden months of Maine (which I call July, August, September and October), what I wish for you is a “grandchild’s priority”…to take a little time, reflect on the positives in this life and be active in the things that you would love to do – not putting off until tomorrow what you might be able to change your priorities to enjoy today.

Even our work can be more productive if we have a positive attitude and the ability to take small breaks, re-energize, and focus on a healthy future.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

Article written by: Dr. Daniel L. Steinke

Is It Your Turn Yet?
April 2009

You Give Me A Headache!

Have you ever heard these words spoken or said them yourself? Do you know people, that when stressed, get head pain and soreness around the mouth, the neck and temples?

Between 10 million and 175 million people suffer from a very common, but vaguely defined disturbance named “TMJ Disorder”. TMJ means Temporal Mandibular Joint which is a hinge that your lower jaw uses to open, close and move sidewards. It is a balled socket located on both sides below your ears. If you have tension headaches, clicking in your ears with pain, or limited opening of the jaws, you may suffer from the problem.

There’s much good news/bad news about TMJ. The good news is that the primary cause of pain is fatigued muscles so that if we just relaxed, not clench or grind our teeth, many times (even if we have problems in the joint itself) we won’t have significant pain. The bad news is that many of us clench our teeth and when we do the stress on the jaw is ten times the force of normal chewing while eating. This pressure from clenching decreases the available oxygen to the pillow which cushions your jaw joint, choking off the nutrients. Then, when we open and don’t clench, the body’s repair system comes in to clean up the destruction, sometimes taking away valuable tissue in the process.

The other good news is that this problem can many times, be controlled with good diet, nutritional supplements, exercise, low stress environment and decrease in caffeine. The bad news though, is without a healthy lifestyle, this syndrome can be devastating to some people.

This syndrome can affect most anyone from age three to the elderly, although the most prevalent group is females ages 20-50. The research is not clear on why females are afflicted more, but it may be a combination of having smaller jaws (they are less supporting) and they may internalize some stress more than males (or from the female’s point of view, the men in the world cause the stress…the females are the recipients).

I have found the problem with treatment of TMJ to be analogous to someone walking on top of a wall. Pain comes in TMJ when you “fall off a wall” and so it is not all the time that you would have pain.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

Article written by: Dr. Daniel L. Steinke

Is It Your Turn Yet?

March 2009

Treating “Teacher Syndrome”

I know it’s not only teachers - it is almost all of us babyboomers, but I have coined a term that I talk about to patients and Hillary (Dr. Caruso) called “Teacher Syndrome”. I call it that because the first big group of recent retirees that has come through our practice, in their early 60’s, has been teachers. Faithfully, they have been coming for their regular hygiene visits, have eliminated most sugars from their snack diets, have faithfully cleaned their teeth (and between their teeth). Now, in their early to mid 60’s with 30 or more years of chewing left to do, they have a mouth full of big fillings to maintain for those extra years. Many of these teachers have not had the benefit of dental insurance, but have maintained well, their old fillings and hopefully, have had crowns placed on some of those old fillings.

Now comes the “Syndrome”. The good life of retirement…not having to get up in the morning, not having to race to school, not having to look forward to school vacation to be able to take a small trip, BUT also having a much more fixed income that makes fractured fillings, root canals and recommended crowns much more financially painful. It IS a challenge for Hillary and I as our philosophy is that we strive for our patients to have the ability to chew all of their life with their natural teeth, even in their rocking chair at age 100.

So how do we deal with this syndrome? Hopefully, during the last few years of increased income and kids out of college, we prioritize having reinforced crowns that will carry that tooth through the next 30 or more years with comfort and function at a low cost.

If that wasn’t accomplished and you have the large filling with a portion of the tooth breaking off, we can make the choice of whether to place the crown or repair it with our new technology bonding materials which allows us to do some amazing treatment such as simply repairing a tooth and having it, hopefully, last many years.

The one situation I dread most is the tooth that requires a root canal or, even worse, a tooth that splits and cannot have a restorative filling and needs to be removed. There are options for that now - the best being implants. Implants are easy, relatively comfortable and painless to place, but with a larger price tag.

So, to summarize our plan:
Let’s get our good snack habits in order starting now - eliminate frequent sugars, no grazing on cookies, no sucking on mints when we have a dry mouth in the winter. Keep up with preventive dental visits, clean between our teeth, and just do everything we can to stay healthy. By taking care of it now and carrying it through retirement years, we can, hopefully, look forward to sitting in our rocking chairs and eating whatever we want with our natural teeth.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

Article written by: Dr. Daniel L. Steinke

Is It Your Turn Yet?

February 2009

“Ardell Flanders and Under 30 Year Olds”

I know it might seem like these two topics are unrelated and…I guess that’s correct, but it’s more in the way we get there. This is supposed to be my first time of actually TYPING this article (my primary mode is dictation – I’m relying on Brenda). I’m trying desperately to be computer savvy and “totally with it”, but I’m not under 30.

I truly feel that people under 30 have a totally different mind that just makes all this computer stuff so easy and intuitive. It makes me so angry after I spend so much time getting frustrated and then ask one of my under 30 year olds to help and they fix it with such ease then look at me like I am stupid. For better or worse, those 30 and under brains are simply different and I am jealous.

Back to my original subject that I am now dictating because I did not find the hour to type it – ARDELL FLANDERS. In most communities there are people who simply and innocently just do great things that make a difference. Ardell Flanders was one of those people. After much hard work and creativity, Ardell opened his land and his passion of art for everyone to enjoy. When we first moved here “The Enchanted Forest” was a great place to take our kids and enjoy some time, simply playing outside in the woods with some amazing and fun homemade figures and toys.

I had the pleasure of knowing and seeing Ardell on a regular basis throughout these last years and he continued to be humble, caring and engaging. With his passing, our community will miss him, but hopefully his example will not be lost and we will remember how much good he gave to society and others will find a way to “Pay It Forward”.

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

Article written by Dr. Daniel L. Steinke

Is It Your Turn Yet?

January 2009

“How Not To Be A Cynic”

OK, I must admit, I am trying very, very hard not to succumb to becoming a negative, depressed cynic. Many events can tempt us - the bank and insurance crisis with golden parachutes and corrupt greed abounding, multi billion dollar Ponzi schemes, the brain dead auto industry, and overall politics. Why this all was allowed: Bipartisan blinders because of huge campaign contributions. I am also extremely frustrated by a State appointment in dentistry that is absolutely politically based and absolutely against the best wishes and benefit of the people of this state. So…let’s take a deep, deep breath and search hard for the positives in our lives.

First, it was an awesome sight to see the excited, peaceful transition of power in our country to a minority person from humble beginnings. This is what our Country is about and it brought pride to see how this shows we are still the most free country in the world that allows hard working people to seek out and achieve their dreams.

I say this as a proud American and not because I supported President Obama in the election, but I will support him in his attempt to upright us in these difficult times. Around our country, hard work and working together can overcome huge obstacles. A great example is our local YMCA that had problems, seemingly as large (on a smaller scale), as our national government, but 6 months later, people working together with a common focused vision have made a huge difference. If you haven’t visited your YMCA, I would strongly encourage you to check out the changes, the energy, and the vision for the future health of our region that it now expresses.

We, as a country, can overcome any hurdle that is put before us if we are willing to work together and put aside our differences. A cynic would give up, but we must continue to work to have our voices heard, even when seems like nobody is listening.

In this time of seeming desperation, let’s listen to the words of our President: Work harder, have our voices heard, and never, never give up!

Today is the first day of the rest of your life.

Article written by Dr. Daniel L. Steinke