Children in distress / Aligning teeth important
In near tears, Aira, 13, spoke before senators about how she and other children were being bullied in the Malabang Evacuation Center. “We got bullied for being internally displaced persons (IDPs). It hurts every time we get bullied.” It was bad enough that she and her family had been displaced by the Marawi conflict.
Three other young speakers spoke about sexual exploitation and abuse of children, lack of access to social services with special focus on children from indigenous communities, physical and humiliating punishment, teenage pregnancy and adolescent reproductive health problems.
They voiced out their sentiments on World Children’s Day (last Nov. 23) and National Children’s Month in the Philippines, sending strong messages about progress and prosperity evading children due to persistent poverty and preventable ills.
UNICEF says child poverty has persisted at 31.4 percent nationally and 48.2 percent in Mindanao. This means one in every 10 children being stricken by poverty nationally and nearly one in two in Mindanao. High incidences of persistent poverty has caused multiple deprivations and opened up chasms of disparity among a large number of children.
Thirty-two children from all three island groups of the country participated in “For Every Child, A Voice, A Children’s Assembly” as they took over a session in the Senate after staging a program at the Museo Pambata (Children’s Museum).
UNICEF Representative Lotta Sylwander said at the Children’s Assembly, “We must pledge our utmost attention and urgent action to children in creating a better, safer, healthier and brighter life for every child.”
The children read a Declaration of Commitment to ask for the participation of adults, the government and other organizations to support their rights and prioritize their concerns.
Senators Risa Hontiveros, Grace Poe and Francis Pangilinan responded positively to the challenges in their speeches in the takeover children’s session.
* * * ON ANOTHER FRONT: The benefits of having properly aligned teeth cannot be overemphasized. According to the American Dental Association, straightening one’s teeth can actually significantly affect one’s overall dental health. A smile can hardly be perfect if it’s not a healthy one. Fortunately, with Invisalign, having a confident smile and reducing one’s risk for tooth decay and gum disease go hand in hand.
Dentists are fearsome to children – and yes, even adults. They get to see the tooth doctor because their toothache has become intolerable, and the sight of huge metal instruments used to extract an offensive tooth makes them want to jump out of the swivel chair.
Youngsters whose parents can afford it, will agree to being fitted with braces for a long time to make them look pretty as a picture. As one ages, one’s dentures begin to cave in, and the desire to have nice-looking enamel implants is nipped in the bud by the cost of the procedure and the material.
Plus, there’s also the danger of the dentist making wrong calculations and molds, resulting in loose or too tight dentures and unsightly smiles and discomfort.
But take heart. You can trust Dr. Joyce Amray to make no miscalculations but give you nice smiles with the use of hightech scanners.
Orthodontist Dr. Joyce Amray, president of Dentaderm Clinic, has launched the state-of-the-art digital instrumentation in dentistry, iTero’s 3-D Invisalign.
Dentaderm is the first and only Invisalign center in the Philippines using the iTero Intraoral Scanner system that creates fast, precise 3Ddigital images of one’s teeth. Dr. Amray explained that iTero maps out a precise treatment plan, including the exact movements of one’s teeth and how long the treatment plan will be. One sees, on the screen, how one’s teeth will move, and previews one’s new smile.
Invisalign is a product of Align Technology Inc. which provides dental professionals a range of treatment options for adults and teenagers. Align Technology introduced the Invisalign system in 1999 and by 2001, it had manufactured one million clear aligners.
Align Technology also offers the iTero 3D digital scanning system and services for orthodontic and restorative dentistry. Invisalign clear aligners are made of proprietary, multilayer Smart Track material to gently shift one’s teeth into place.
The Invisalign method, as demonstrated by a doctor brought along by iTero sales executive Cheryll Ann Selda, makes a diagnosis and plan for a patient’s teeth aligning – through the iTero digital scanner. A patient can see, on the screen, how his/her dentures will look after aligning.
The patient is then given a smooth plastic invisible aligner that he/she attaches to his/her dentures. The plastic aligner is comfortable as it straightens one’s teeth to check teeth crowding, spacing, crossbite, overbite, or underbite, without its being seen. One can remove it and put it back on before and after meals. Singer Mika de la Cruz was kind enough to sing before us, and we did not even notice, until she told us that she had a plastic aligner on. She said she gets a free replacement if she loses the aligner or if it gets broken.
Dr. Joyce is also an orthodontist, an oral surgeon and dental implantologist. She’s a graduate of doctor of dental medicine from Centro Escolar University in 1996.
She started her private practice and in 1998 opened her own clinic, Ambray Dentral Group Multi-Specialty Clinic in Makati. Two years later, she opened another clinic called Elijah Dental Specialists.
She once served as president of the Philippine Association of Function Jaw Orthopedics, is a fellow of the Philippine College of Oral and Maxillofacial surgery and was twice awarded Most Outstanding Dentist in Community Service by the Philippine Dental Association.
Among her professional trainings are the TMJ and craniomandibular disorders at New York University; dental implantology, Seoul National University, TMJ, sleep and airway (snoring) disorders at the Thammasat University in Thailand, and orofacial pain and temporomandibular joint disorders mini residency, in Kentucky university, Lexington, USA.