Flushing China town, Main Street

Main Street, Flushing, the final stop on Subway 7 line looks, feels and smells like a small city in Asia.  I am familiar with Asian countries since I grew up in Korea and finished my junior high school there.  When I was an Army dentist, I traveled to China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Japan.  The cultures of Asia feel familiar to me.  The moment I set foot on Main Street, I am in China even if my phone GPS service shows me that I am in New York, USA. There are so many Asian faces, signs with Chinese character on buildings And chatter in various dialects fills the air.

Flushing, NY has a lot of Asian charms.  Maybe that is why I opened up an office in Flushing, Queens. Outside of dentistry, my hobby is dancing and a sporadic visits to gym.  My fiancé and I have tight work schedules and we spend our free time together finding hidden gems to visit in New York.

Over the next few weeks, I'll post my favorite places in Flushing for dim sum and cheap breakfast,  which jewelry stores I go to look at beautiful jades, recommendations on beauty salons and spas, and where to find custom-made clothing-All the things that I find make Flushing unique. I hope people make their way to Flushing and find their own favorites.

Referred pain after dental treatments

I sometimes make phone calls to patients after I work on them.  Once in a while, I would hear "I had a headache on the day of treatment and got better next day."  I am not an expert on oral facial pain.  However, I experience referred pain through my patients.  As I listen, I experience, sinus pain and ear pain can feel like tooth pain.  Some patient feel a pain on an upper tooth, yet the pain might come from the lower tooth.  Some wisdom tooth pain might spread to lower jaw and below jaw.  Some told me that "I have headache", yet, they had bad gum inflammation.  Some has headache that comes from bad jaw/teeth alignment (TMJ problem).    I also experience lowering of threshold for pain as patients often tell me: "this tooth started to ache and all the other teeth and gum aches, I can not tell you where I have pain, they all hurt!"  When I hear that, I say to myself, "oh, Lord help me figure this one out."  Pain is real entity and everyone feels differently.  Yet, I see how much fear of pain cause unnecessary anxiety and loss of energy.  Dentist do construction work in mouth.   The mouth has to be reconstructed to get better just like an old house has to be torn down to make a better house.  Some soreness in the mouth is expected but one cannot expect to be better without any transition period like fixing a house. 

Reduced sensitivity with Zoom Whitespeed

My office received new whitening machine, Zoom Whitespeed, from Philips Zoom.  I had to try this upgrade since the company told me that it greatly reduces sensitivity during Zoom whitening.  I had two 15 minutes of Zoom sessions and I didn’t feel much sensitivity.  When I received Zoom treatment with my old Zoom machine, I did have more sensitivity.  With this new upgrade, the zings were so minimal; I could almost say it was no sensitivity at all.  I was just watching my favorite shows on YouTube while I was getting whitening.  My assistant is well trained to cover up the gums to prevent sensitivity.  My assistant was happy that she got a compliment from me.  After my treatment, we tried the new Zoom on one of patients who has cold sensitivity due to gum recessions.  The whitening result on her was very good.  She was even happier that the Zoom treatment didn’t give her any pain.  For a long time, she was afraid to get the treatment due to sensitivity issues.  She really liked her whiter smile after the zoom whitening.  I could say Philips Zoom Company did improve their machine to better service patients who wish to brighten their smiles.  Kudos to Philips Zoom!