Growing numbers of people heading to emergency rooms for dental problems | Lansing State Journal | lansingstatejournal.com

Michigan is 91% fluoridated. Yet, growing numbers of people heading to emergency rooms for dental problems | Lansing State Journal At least two or three patients pass through the doors of a local emergency room every day with throbbing, unbearable toothaches.

 It’s a growing problem in Michigan and across the country. Locally, there aren’t enough dentists in Ingham County who provide care for those without insurance or on Medicaid.

Some officials estimate that figure is now as high as 100,000 visits per year in Michigan, with more than 1,000 hospitalizations annually for preventable dental problems.

In [mostly fluoirdated] Ingham County, at least 1,500 trips are made to hospital emergency rooms annually for toothaches that could have
been treated with proper preventive care. Sometimes, those trips turn into weeklong hospital stays if an infection
has spread.
In Ingham County alone, 51 longer-term hospitalizations for preventable dental problems were recorded in 2008, with
patients averaging a stay of 2½ days at a cost of $19,074, according to the latest data available from the Michigan Oral
Health Coalition.

 At Sparrow Hospital, part of [fluoridated] Lansing’s Sparrow Health System, an average of three to five patients and sometimes as many as 10 seek dental care help each day, said Dr. Tony Briningstool, executive director of emergency services at Sparrow.

 Nationally, the lack of dental care for these people led to more than 800,000 trips to the emergency room for dental pain in 2009 — a 16 percent increase from 2006,