April 12, 2024 • 17 mins
Uncover life-saving knowledge in our urgent discussion with Dr. Alex Semide about oral cancer, a disease with a mortality rate that's both shocking and preventable. By the end of our talk, you'll understand why your dental check-up could be the frontline defense against a silent killer. Dr. Semide joins us to shed light on the pivotal role dentists play in catching early signs of oral cancer, a task often overlooked but critical in bridging the gap between dentistry and general medicine. We delve into not just the statistics, but also the human stories behind the numbers, examining how this cancer affects the very essence of our daily lives - eating, speaking, and smiling - and why early detection is synonymous with hope.
Our conversation takes a turn to the darker side of lifestyle choices, examining how the unholy trinity of smoking, heavy drinking, and HPV dramatically increases cancer risk. Dr. Semide and I scrutinize the importance of the HPV vaccine, not as an optional extra, but as a necessary shield in the fight against cancer. Understanding these risks and recognizing the early warning signs - persistent sores or throat discomfort that just won't quit - could make all the difference. We stress the importance of prompt medical attention for any suspicions, reinforcing the episode's crucial theme: proactive steps in oral health are not just advisable, they're lifesaving. Join us for a conversation that's not only informative but could very well alter the course of your health journey.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jeremy (00:10):
Hello everyone, and we are back for another episode of
Word of Mouth.
I'm your co-host, Jeremy Wolf,joined by your host, of course,
dr Alex Semide.
Dr Alex.
Dr. Alex Semidey (00:21):
How's it going, brother?
Jeremy (00:22):
Doing well, man Doing well.
Excited to get into this topictoday because I think obviously
there's a lot of people outthere that suffer from cancer,
and I thought it would be a goodtime for you to talk a little
bit about mouth cancer.
So why don't you set the stagefor the conversation today.
Dr. Alex Semidey (00:40):
Yeah, so you're absolutely right.
Cancer is a topic that wediscuss a lot in general in
society, right, like, everybodyknows someone who's been touched
by the disease right by theprocess.
So as dentists, you know itkind of rests on us to bring
(01:02):
knowledge and awareness aboutoral cancer.
Rests on us to bring knowledgeand awareness about oral cancer,
which I cannot begin to tellyou, man, how frequently once,
when we're doing someone'scomprehensive initial checkup
and we're doing their oralcancer screening, they tell me
no one's ever done this before,which is crazy to me because,
honestly, like historically,there's been kind of like a
(01:24):
divide between medicine anddentistry.
It's like it's like it's twodifferent bodies somehow.
And you know, my wife's aphysician, so we talk about this
all the time, how there's that,that gap in between.
Doctors get like like half aday's worth of, hey, this is a
(01:44):
mouth, all right, and now ontothe circulatory system, you know
, and basically that's, that'sit, right.
So no one is looking insidepatients' mouths other than
their dentists.
Jeremy (01:55):
Yeah, there's a disconnect there and that's one
of the one of the reasons whywe're doing the show is to
really gap and really explorethe connection between your oral
health and your overallwellbeing.
And I must say myself I'venever had anybody not that I
know of screen me for mouthcancer, right.
So, like you just said, that'snot doesn't seem to be a common
practice when I go to thedentist, because they never told
(02:16):
me anything about it, and theysay, hey, we're going to go in
and do a screening for mouthcancer.
Never heard that before, soit's interesting.
Dr. Alex Semidey (02:21):
Now how would you feel if I tell you that
oral cancer kills one Americanan hour?
Wow, yeah, right, exactly, andyou know oral cancer like.
No one wants any cancer.
Right, all cancers are bad, butin the pantheon of struggling
(02:44):
and having your quality of lifeaffected by a cancer, oral
cancer ranks pretty high.
Jeremy (02:49):
One of the worst ones I can imagine.
Yeah, because it's affectingwhere you eat.
Where you eat, talk smile.
Dr. Alex Semidey (02:56):
Yes, everything Like your ability to
live your life right is soprofoundly affected, even if it
doesn't kill you right is soprofoundly affected.
Even if it doesn't kill youright, the treatment and the
impact that it has on the mouthis is can be devastating.
I've had the, the, theopportunity, the, the the
(03:20):
responsibility to treat ahandful of patients with, um,
you know, oral cancer that havebeen dealing actively with the
process of managing the disease.
Uh, in my practice and, man, Igotta tell you it is, it is, it
is so, so, so hard on people.
Um, that's why I'm such astrong advocate of screening
regularly.
(03:40):
Um, all of our new patients getscreened.
We screen at your yearlycheckups when you come in for
your hygiene visits because,like with cancers and all
disease in general, the soonerwe catch this, the less of an
impact it's going to have on onon your life, right, not only is
your survival rate going toincrease dramatically, but the
(04:01):
process by which you get healthyis going to be so much easier
to tolerate.
Jeremy (04:09):
So what is mouth cancer as it compares to other cancers
, and how does it typicallydevelop in patients?
Why would somebody end upgetting mouth cancer as opposed
to lung cancer or some othertype of cancer?
And once they get mouth cancer,that's something obviously, as
with many other cancers, thatcan metastasize and spread to
other areas, right, exactly.
Dr. Alex Semidey (04:30):
So there are several risk factors for oral
cancer, right?
The fact of the matter is thatwe don't know why some people
with risk factors develop it,why some people without risk
factors develop it.
And this people without riskfactors develop it and this goes
for all cancers, right?
Like how many of us know peoplethat have been like the shining
(04:51):
light and example of healthyliving, you know, fitness,
nutrition, never smoke, neverdrank and they end up, you know,
getting like a stage threediagnosis of cancer, right?
And oh my God, like I neverwould have thought this person
would have been the one thatdeveloped the disease, right?
So, at the end of the day,we're not quite sure why, but
(05:15):
there are several risk factorsthat we know contribute to it.
Let's go down the list.
Number one smoking.
Smoking is number one.
I do not harp on smoking.
I smoked for years.
I quit several years ago but Istill struggle with it.
So I am not a get on my soapboxand tell you how naughty you
(05:38):
are for smoking.
I get it Right and it's areally tough habit to quit and
it's a really tough habit toquit, but there's no arguing the
fact that it is a very highrisk factor for developing all
sorts of cancers.
Jeremy (05:54):
So many people speaking of smoking.
So many people now have turnedto vaping and I guess the jury
is still out on that, right,like it's so new.
Have you seen any impact frompeople that come in in the mouth
that say they're now?
Oh, I stopped smoking, but nowI'm vaping instead?
What are you seeing in themouth?
Dr. Alex Semidey (06:12):
Yeah, great, great question.
Um, I will say I think thevaping thing has died down a
little bit from where it was, Idon't know, two, three years ago
.
I felt like, you know, babieswere vaping years ago.
So I haven't seen any goodresearch on the impact of vaping
(06:33):
Right, what we do know is isthat one of the key contributors
of smoking to the oral canceris the heat that you get from
the constant drags of thecigarette in the mouth.
And I would guess it woulddepend on the type of vape pen
whether it generated a lot ofheat or not as to whether you
(06:57):
would get that component.
Obviously, with vaping you'renot getting all of the other
carcinogens that are incigarettes.
So I don't have a concreteanswer on that, that the jury's
still kind of out on the wholevaping thing as far as cancer
goes.
Okay, but in addition to smokingwe have dipping.
(07:20):
Right, we live in the South anddipping is I mean, I had
buddies in dental school thatwould not go to a single class
without a dip in their mouthRight, like this is it's, it's
it's it's not just the publicout there, right, like we're all
guilty of things like these.
But yeah, dipping is definitelyparking that, that tobacco
(07:43):
pouch in the same spot.
I mean, it doesn't take a longtime to visibly see changes in
the tissue where that, wherethat tobacco is resting Like,
the tissue gets gets firm andcallous and you can almost see
it starting to transform intosomething unhealthy.
Jeremy (08:03):
Yeah, I can see how dipping would be one of the top
underlying causes or riskfactors associated with this for
sure.
Dr. Alex Semidey (08:11):
It's big.
Another big one is excessalcohol consumption Right, and
there's a lot of back and forthas to what excess means Right,
and there's a lot of back andforth as to what excess means
Right.
But if it's more than a drinkor two every single day, then
then we're getting into thatterritory where your risk starts
to increase.
(08:31):
And with tobacco and alcohol wehave this synergistic effect
synergies, my office manager'sfavorite word.
So we have this synergisticeffect where one plus one equals
three.
Okay, so smoking alone is arisk factor, drinking alone is a
risk factor.
When you put them together, itthey are, it's, it's a deadly
(08:51):
combination.
And people people typically thatdrink they kind of go hand in
hand, you know like.
You know like have a drink andhave a smoke.
Jeremy (09:03):
Alcohol is one of those .
That's just when.
I mean, it's one thing to havea couple of drinks here and
there, but when you drink alarge at least for me now when I
drink a large I feel like I'vebeen poisoned.
If I drink more than a certainamount of drinks, I'm sick, for
not just the day but the dayafterwards.
I feel absolutely disgusting.
One of the reasons I don'treally drink anymore.
I'll have a beer, maybe twobeers, maybe once in a while
(09:25):
when I go out.
I'll go out, but then itreminds me again how bad it is.
Dr. Alex Semidey (09:32):
And it's but I mean and poison's the perfect
word, right Like alcohol is apoison that our body has to to
to work out okay, and that comesat a cost.
And it comes at a cost forseveral things right for disease
, for longevity, for quality oflife, for quality of
(09:53):
relationships.
Um.
So yeah, tread with care withthe alcohol.
Jeremy (09:58):
Yeah, what other risk factors are we talking about
here?
Dr. Alex Semidey (10:02):
So those are the big two.
You also have HPV, right.
A lot of people have heard ofHPV, the human papillomavirus.
There's a vaccine for it, ok,hpv is an STD sexually
transmitted disease and mostadults will at some point be
carriers of HPV.
All right, now there arespecific strains of this HPV
(10:25):
that, if they colonize thethroat, the mouth and throat,
they can lead to mouth cancer.
So HPV is the number one causefor cervical cancer, and the
same kinds of tissues that womenhave in the cervix we have in
our mouth and throat, right.
So this, this, this virus canactually inoculate their set up
(10:46):
shop and devolve into what wecall dysplasia, which is cells
kind of breaking bad and thenultimately cancer.
Jeremy (10:55):
Fascinating.
Dr. Alex Semidey (10:57):
It's all connected, it's all now with the
HPV.
There is a vaccine that youknow.
Conversations should be hadwith uh, with uh teenagers,
teenagers' physicians as towhether or not they feel it's a
good idea to get that vaccine.
But that is available out thereand it is very protective.
Jeremy (11:15):
All right.
So I go to your office and Iget a screening for mouth cancer
and you get the results backand I have mouth cancer.
What do we do then?
What are the treatment options?
What does that look like forsomebody?
Dr. Alex Semidey (11:32):
So that really depends on the stage.
Yeah, um, ideally we're findingsomething that is minute, right
, and it can be excised orremoved, and sometimes that's it
no-transcript.
(12:09):
The radiation is isparticularly tough in the mouth,
just based on what we've talkedabout before, right, the
quality of life, your ability totalk and chew and just exist.
Yeah, obviously, things likeyou, you know dental health take
(12:33):
a profound hit.
Generally, several, if not all,teeth end up needing to be
removed.
Um, and then prosthetics madein order to regain function and
somehow maintain aesthetics.
But, um, yeah, absolutely.
The sooner, the sooner peopleget screened and things are
identified, the better.
The screening process takes twominutes.
It literally is super quick.
It is a visual and tactileevaluation, so there are no
(12:57):
samples that need to be sent outto a lab or anything like that.
We're not taking biopsies ofanything, but we feel, right,
like our hands are very powerfultools, right?
We feel all of the lymph nodesassociated with the head and
neck, all of the tissue insidethe mouth, the tongue, the floor
of the mouth, to make surethere's no lumps, bumps, masses,
anything that shouldn't bethere, right, and that's
(13:18):
frequently their very firstindication.
Jeremy (13:20):
So what should I look for?
Let's just say I haven't beento the dentist and I haven't had
a screening for this, and whatare some signs I could look for?
Like, let's say, I feelsomething lumpy over here, like
what can I do on my own todetermine if there might be an
issue?
So then I then can go to mydentist and say, hey, can you do
a screening?
Dr. Alex Semidey (13:37):
So if you feel a lump there, I would say
seek an evaluation, right, go goto either an ENT, go to your
primary, go to your dentist andsay, hey, I noticed this.
Any idea what this could be?
Other things, other early signsthat folks should keep in mind,
are any sort of sore in themouth that doesn't heal in a
(14:01):
week or two.
May want to get that checkedout.
We all get sores in the mouth.
You can get canker sores.
Some of us get cold sores.
You can, you know, eat aTostito and cut the roof of your
mouth and it'll be sore for afew days but that heals.
Now, if those things kind ofpersist more than a week,
(14:22):
getting to two weeks, get itchecked out.
Another big one is any like asore throat or any hoarseness
that doesn't seem to improve.
I actually diagnosed myinsurance guy.
He came in to talk about mylife insurance policy and he was
(14:42):
like clearing his throat a lotand I was like, dude, what's
going on?
He's like I don't know, sorethroat for a couple of weeks.
I feel like I just can't clearit out.
I'm like man, like we're goingto get you into an ENT tomorrow.
And sure enough, he had throatcancer and thankfully he made it
(15:04):
.
He did great.
He's returned to a full,healthy life, but it was, it was
a rough patch for a long time.
So, um yeah, those things,sometimes little innocuous
things right that you just sortof like brush off as nothing.
Like if things linger, guys gosee someone get it checked out
(15:26):
yeah, makes a lot of sense.
Jeremy (15:28):
So you're, you're generally when you do these
checkups and you're determiningwhether or not there's a warning
sign associated, something thatcould potentially be throat
cancer or mouth cancer and thenobviously you have somebody you
could refer them to or they cango to their preferred doctor to
get that investigated.
Dr. Alex Semidey (15:43):
Yes, yeah, yeah, we have, yeah, we have.
You know, if, if, if that wereto happen, obviously there's a,
there's an escalation in a, in ateam building process of oral
surgeons and oncologists and youknow that come together to to
provide the right care.
Jeremy (15:59):
All right, good deal.
Any anything else you wanted totouch on?
Dr. Alex Semidey (16:03):
Yes, so April is actually oral cancer
awareness month, all right.
So I feel like this episode isvery apropos.
We are actually offeringcomplimentary oral cancer
screenings all month at theoffice, and so you can give us a
call 954-581-0120.
(16:25):
954-581-0120.
Check us out semidaydentalcom,all the socials and get in touch
with us.
We do have some limitedavailability throughout the
month, but we are offering thosecomplimentary exams and we'll
be actually going out into thecommunity and doing some free
screenings too.
Jeremy (16:43):
Very cool.
We will of put a link in thedescription to all of the
contact information, so ifanybody does want to come in for
a free screening, they can doso.
Alex, dr Alex, always apleasure, jeremy, my pleasure.
You're the man.
No, you're the man.
You're the man.
All right, thanks to ourlisteners for tuning in.
We will catch everyone nexttime.
(17:08):
Stay healthy out there and keepsmiling.
Dr. Alex Semidey (17:10):
Bye, everybody, thank you for joining
us on.
Jeremy (17:13):
Word of Mouth.
Remember a healthy smile is areflection of your well-being.
Until next time, keep smilingand caring for your dental
health.
We'll be back soon with moredental insights.
Hello everyone, and we are back for another episode of
Word of Mouth.
I'm your co-host, Jeremy Wolf,joined by your host, of course,
dr Alex Semide.
Dr Alex.
Dr. Alex Semidey (00:21):
How's it going, brother?
Jeremy (00:22):
Doing well, man Doing well.
Excited to get into this topictoday because I think obviously
there's a lot of people outthere that suffer from cancer,
and I thought it would be a goodtime for you to talk a little
bit about mouth cancer.
So why don't you set the stagefor the conversation today.
Dr. Alex Semidey (00:40):
Yeah, so you're absolutely right.
Cancer is a topic that wediscuss a lot in general in
society, right, like, everybodyknows someone who's been touched
by the disease right by theprocess.
So as dentists, you know itkind of rests on us to bring
(01:02):
knowledge and awareness aboutoral cancer.
Rests on us to bring knowledgeand awareness about oral cancer,
which I cannot begin to tellyou, man, how frequently once,
when we're doing someone'scomprehensive initial checkup
and we're doing their oralcancer screening, they tell me
no one's ever done this before,which is crazy to me because,
honestly, like historically,there's been kind of like a
(01:24):
divide between medicine anddentistry.
It's like it's like it's twodifferent bodies somehow.
And you know, my wife's aphysician, so we talk about this
all the time, how there's that,that gap in between.
Doctors get like like half aday's worth of, hey, this is a
(01:44):
mouth, all right, and now ontothe circulatory system, you know
, and basically that's, that'sit, right.
So no one is looking insidepatients' mouths other than
their dentists.
Jeremy (01:55):
Yeah, there's a disconnect there and that's one
of the one of the reasons whywe're doing the show is to
really gap and really explorethe connection between your oral
health and your overallwellbeing.
And I must say myself I'venever had anybody not that I
know of screen me for mouthcancer, right.
So, like you just said, that'snot doesn't seem to be a common
practice when I go to thedentist, because they never told
(02:16):
me anything about it, and theysay, hey, we're going to go in
and do a screening for mouthcancer.
Never heard that before, soit's interesting.
Dr. Alex Semidey (02:21):
Now how would you feel if I tell you that
oral cancer kills one Americanan hour?
Wow, yeah, right, exactly, andyou know oral cancer like.
No one wants any cancer.
Right, all cancers are bad, butin the pantheon of struggling
(02:44):
and having your quality of lifeaffected by a cancer, oral
cancer ranks pretty high.
Jeremy (02:49):
One of the worst ones I can imagine.
Yeah, because it's affectingwhere you eat.
Where you eat, talk smile.
Dr. Alex Semidey (02:56):
Yes, everything Like your ability to
live your life right is soprofoundly affected, even if it
doesn't kill you right is soprofoundly affected.
Even if it doesn't kill youright, the treatment and the
impact that it has on the mouthis is can be devastating.
I've had the, the, theopportunity, the, the the
(03:20):
responsibility to treat ahandful of patients with, um,
you know, oral cancer that havebeen dealing actively with the
process of managing the disease.
Uh, in my practice and, man, Igotta tell you it is, it is, it
is so, so, so hard on people.
Um, that's why I'm such astrong advocate of screening
regularly.
(03:40):
Um, all of our new patients getscreened.
We screen at your yearlycheckups when you come in for
your hygiene visits because,like with cancers and all
disease in general, the soonerwe catch this, the less of an
impact it's going to have on onon your life, right, not only is
your survival rate going toincrease dramatically, but the
(04:01):
process by which you get healthyis going to be so much easier
to tolerate.
Jeremy (04:09):
So what is mouth cancer as it compares to other cancers
, and how does it typicallydevelop in patients?
Why would somebody end upgetting mouth cancer as opposed
to lung cancer or some othertype of cancer?
And once they get mouth cancer,that's something obviously, as
with many other cancers, thatcan metastasize and spread to
other areas, right, exactly.
Dr. Alex Semidey (04:30):
So there are several risk factors for oral
cancer, right?
The fact of the matter is thatwe don't know why some people
with risk factors develop it,why some people without risk
factors develop it.
And this people without riskfactors develop it and this goes
for all cancers, right?
Like how many of us know peoplethat have been like the shining
(04:51):
light and example of healthyliving, you know, fitness,
nutrition, never smoke, neverdrank and they end up, you know,
getting like a stage threediagnosis of cancer, right?
And oh my God, like I neverwould have thought this person
would have been the one thatdeveloped the disease, right?
So, at the end of the day,we're not quite sure why, but
(05:15):
there are several risk factorsthat we know contribute to it.
Let's go down the list.
Number one smoking.
Smoking is number one.
I do not harp on smoking.
I smoked for years.
I quit several years ago but Istill struggle with it.
So I am not a get on my soapboxand tell you how naughty you
(05:38):
are for smoking.
I get it Right and it's areally tough habit to quit and
it's a really tough habit toquit, but there's no arguing the
fact that it is a very highrisk factor for developing all
sorts of cancers.
Jeremy (05:54):
So many people speaking of smoking.
So many people now have turnedto vaping and I guess the jury
is still out on that, right,like it's so new.
Have you seen any impact frompeople that come in in the mouth
that say they're now?
Oh, I stopped smoking, but nowI'm vaping instead?
What are you seeing in themouth?
Dr. Alex Semidey (06:12):
Yeah, great, great question.
Um, I will say I think thevaping thing has died down a
little bit from where it was, Idon't know, two, three years ago
.
I felt like, you know, babieswere vaping years ago.
So I haven't seen any goodresearch on the impact of vaping
(06:33):
Right, what we do know is isthat one of the key contributors
of smoking to the oral canceris the heat that you get from
the constant drags of thecigarette in the mouth.
And I would guess it woulddepend on the type of vape pen
whether it generated a lot ofheat or not as to whether you
(06:57):
would get that component.
Obviously, with vaping you'renot getting all of the other
carcinogens that are incigarettes.
So I don't have a concreteanswer on that, that the jury's
still kind of out on the wholevaping thing as far as cancer
goes.
Okay, but in addition to smokingwe have dipping.
(07:20):
Right, we live in the South anddipping is I mean, I had
buddies in dental school thatwould not go to a single class
without a dip in their mouthRight, like this is it's, it's
it's it's not just the publicout there, right, like we're all
guilty of things like these.
But yeah, dipping is definitelyparking that, that tobacco
(07:43):
pouch in the same spot.
I mean, it doesn't take a longtime to visibly see changes in
the tissue where that, wherethat tobacco is resting Like,
the tissue gets gets firm andcallous and you can almost see
it starting to transform intosomething unhealthy.
Jeremy (08:03):
Yeah, I can see how dipping would be one of the top
underlying causes or riskfactors associated with this for
sure.
Dr. Alex Semidey (08:11):
It's big.
Another big one is excessalcohol consumption Right, and
there's a lot of back and forthas to what excess means Right,
and there's a lot of back andforth as to what excess means
Right.
But if it's more than a drinkor two every single day, then
then we're getting into thatterritory where your risk starts
to increase.
(08:31):
And with tobacco and alcohol wehave this synergistic effect
synergies, my office manager'sfavorite word.
So we have this synergisticeffect where one plus one equals
three.
Okay, so smoking alone is arisk factor, drinking alone is a
risk factor.
When you put them together, itthey are, it's, it's a deadly
(08:51):
combination.
And people people typically thatdrink they kind of go hand in
hand, you know like.
You know like have a drink andhave a smoke.
Jeremy (09:03):
Alcohol is one of those .
That's just when.
I mean, it's one thing to havea couple of drinks here and
there, but when you drink alarge at least for me now when I
drink a large I feel like I'vebeen poisoned.
If I drink more than a certainamount of drinks, I'm sick, for
not just the day but the dayafterwards.
I feel absolutely disgusting.
One of the reasons I don'treally drink anymore.
I'll have a beer, maybe twobeers, maybe once in a while
(09:25):
when I go out.
I'll go out, but then itreminds me again how bad it is.
Dr. Alex Semidey (09:32):
And it's but I mean and poison's the perfect
word, right Like alcohol is apoison that our body has to to
to work out okay, and that comesat a cost.
And it comes at a cost forseveral things right for disease
, for longevity, for quality oflife, for quality of
(09:53):
relationships.
Um.
So yeah, tread with care withthe alcohol.
Jeremy (09:58):
Yeah, what other risk factors are we talking about
here?
Dr. Alex Semidey (10:02):
So those are the big two.
You also have HPV, right.
A lot of people have heard ofHPV, the human papillomavirus.
There's a vaccine for it, ok,hpv is an STD sexually
transmitted disease and mostadults will at some point be
carriers of HPV.
All right, now there arespecific strains of this HPV
(10:25):
that, if they colonize thethroat, the mouth and throat,
they can lead to mouth cancer.
So HPV is the number one causefor cervical cancer, and the
same kinds of tissues that womenhave in the cervix we have in
our mouth and throat, right.
So this, this, this virus canactually inoculate their set up
(10:46):
shop and devolve into what wecall dysplasia, which is cells
kind of breaking bad and thenultimately cancer.
Jeremy (10:55):
Fascinating.
Dr. Alex Semidey (10:57):
It's all connected, it's all now with the
HPV.
There is a vaccine that youknow.
Conversations should be hadwith uh, with uh teenagers,
teenagers' physicians as towhether or not they feel it's a
good idea to get that vaccine.
But that is available out thereand it is very protective.
Jeremy (11:15):
All right.
So I go to your office and Iget a screening for mouth cancer
and you get the results backand I have mouth cancer.
What do we do then?
What are the treatment options?
What does that look like forsomebody?
Dr. Alex Semidey (11:32):
So that really depends on the stage.
Yeah, um, ideally we're findingsomething that is minute, right
, and it can be excised orremoved, and sometimes that's it
no-transcript.
(12:09):
The radiation is isparticularly tough in the mouth,
just based on what we've talkedabout before, right, the
quality of life, your ability totalk and chew and just exist.
Yeah, obviously, things likeyou, you know dental health take
(12:33):
a profound hit.
Generally, several, if not all,teeth end up needing to be
removed.
Um, and then prosthetics madein order to regain function and
somehow maintain aesthetics.
But, um, yeah, absolutely.
The sooner, the sooner peopleget screened and things are
identified, the better.
The screening process takes twominutes.
It literally is super quick.
It is a visual and tactileevaluation, so there are no
(12:57):
samples that need to be sent outto a lab or anything like that.
We're not taking biopsies ofanything, but we feel, right,
like our hands are very powerfultools, right?
We feel all of the lymph nodesassociated with the head and
neck, all of the tissue insidethe mouth, the tongue, the floor
of the mouth, to make surethere's no lumps, bumps, masses,
anything that shouldn't bethere, right, and that's
(13:18):
frequently their very firstindication.
Jeremy (13:20):
So what should I look for?
Let's just say I haven't beento the dentist and I haven't had
a screening for this, and whatare some signs I could look for?
Like, let's say, I feelsomething lumpy over here, like
what can I do on my own todetermine if there might be an
issue?
So then I then can go to mydentist and say, hey, can you do
a screening?
Dr. Alex Semidey (13:37):
So if you feel a lump there, I would say
seek an evaluation, right, go goto either an ENT, go to your
primary, go to your dentist andsay, hey, I noticed this.
Any idea what this could be?
Other things, other early signsthat folks should keep in mind,
are any sort of sore in themouth that doesn't heal in a
(14:01):
week or two.
May want to get that checkedout.
We all get sores in the mouth.
You can get canker sores.
Some of us get cold sores.
You can, you know, eat aTostito and cut the roof of your
mouth and it'll be sore for afew days but that heals.
Now, if those things kind ofpersist more than a week,
(14:22):
getting to two weeks, get itchecked out.
Another big one is any like asore throat or any hoarseness
that doesn't seem to improve.
I actually diagnosed myinsurance guy.
He came in to talk about mylife insurance policy and he was
(14:42):
like clearing his throat a lotand I was like, dude, what's
going on?
He's like I don't know, sorethroat for a couple of weeks.
I feel like I just can't clearit out.
I'm like man, like we're goingto get you into an ENT tomorrow.
And sure enough, he had throatcancer and thankfully he made it
(15:04):
.
He did great.
He's returned to a full,healthy life, but it was, it was
a rough patch for a long time.
So, um yeah, those things,sometimes little innocuous
things right that you just sortof like brush off as nothing.
Like if things linger, guys gosee someone get it checked out
(15:26):
yeah, makes a lot of sense.
Jeremy (15:28):
So you're, you're generally when you do these
checkups and you're determiningwhether or not there's a warning
sign associated, something thatcould potentially be throat
cancer or mouth cancer and thenobviously you have somebody you
could refer them to or they cango to their preferred doctor to
get that investigated.
Dr. Alex Semidey (15:43):
Yes, yeah, yeah, we have, yeah, we have.
You know, if, if, if that wereto happen, obviously there's a,
there's an escalation in a, in ateam building process of oral
surgeons and oncologists and youknow that come together to to
provide the right care.
Jeremy (15:59):
All right, good deal.
Any anything else you wanted totouch on?
Dr. Alex Semidey (16:03):
Yes, so April is actually oral cancer
awareness month, all right.
So I feel like this episode isvery apropos.
We are actually offeringcomplimentary oral cancer
screenings all month at theoffice, and so you can give us a
call 954-581-0120.
(16:25):
954-581-0120.
Check us out semidaydentalcom,all the socials and get in touch
with us.
We do have some limitedavailability throughout the
month, but we are offering thosecomplimentary exams and we'll
be actually going out into thecommunity and doing some free
screenings too.
Jeremy (16:43):
Very cool.
We will of put a link in thedescription to all of the
contact information, so ifanybody does want to come in for
a free screening, they can doso.
Alex, dr Alex, always apleasure, jeremy, my pleasure.
You're the man.
No, you're the man.
You're the man.
All right, thanks to ourlisteners for tuning in.
We will catch everyone nexttime.
(17:08):
Stay healthy out there and keepsmiling.
Dr. Alex Semidey (17:10):
Bye, everybody, thank you for joining
us on.
Jeremy (17:13):
Word of Mouth.
Remember a healthy smile is areflection of your well-being.
Until next time, keep smilingand caring for your dental
health.
We'll be back soon with moredental insights.
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