Dental Campaigns

Jueves y Viernes, 10-11 de Julio, 2014

Why Dental?

Ana is the current FIMRC intern and she is a rising senior at Temple Univ. Her passion is dental health and so for 3 months she is working to collect plaque/cavity data, spread awareness, and provide free dental exams to kids age 5-10 years old. We were recruited to help her on Thursday and Friday. 

Plaque Testing

We visited two orphanages who have children age 5-10 years old. The first orphanage was for HIV children who were abandoned by their parents. Due to potential discrimination, we were asked to not take any pictures while there. 

The second orphanage we visited was La Rosario which we had been before. It was great to see the same kids again!! Ana taught us how to test for plaque by using crystal violet dye. We placed one drop of dye on the kids tongue and had them swish it around all their teeth. Any plaque turns a dark purple color but it also dyes the kids mouth and lips purple too!

After lunch we returned to La Rosario to do more plaque testing. Children in Peru go to school for a half day - older children go to class in the morning and younger children go during the afternoon. So we came back to talk with the older kids. We also gave a presentation on dental and bone health to educate the kids on why brushing teeth and eating healthy is important. 

Orphanage Check-Ups

Dr Franćois was asked to do a quick check-up on a couple kids and found a HUGE blockage in one girls ear. The wax plug was really hard and required some hydrogen peroxide to soften before using hot water to flush out. It took about 20 minutes but finally the ear wax came out. It was 3 mm wide and 6 mm deep!! The little girls first response was "I can hear again!" Glad we could help!

Afterwards we played with the kids. One of the girls was learning how to braid hair and wanted to practice on "Barbie" aka me. So I figured why not! She did a pretty good job and it required little to no talking haha

Pizza!! 

Today was a pretty "down" day since we were all super upset to leave La Merced. To make it better we decided to go and find a pizza place and have a little slice of home. After several failed attempts due to restaurants being closed, we finally found El Italio near Parque de Tupac. It was SO good!! We were so excited to have it that I forgot to take a picture!! Oh and we kinda forgot to tell our host parents to not make dinner so we got home and dinner was ready so we all had to attempt to eat it... Talk about a full stomach!

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Fluoride Treatment

Now that we had plaque testing down pat, it was onto fluoride treatments. We visited two schools on Friday. At the first school, we handed out toothbrushes and toothpaste after teaching them how to properly brush. The next volunteer group will do fluoride since they weren't prepared for us today. 

At the second school (Escuela Virgen de Fátima - San Pedro), we treated over 300 children! Talk about team work! First we treated the children who were at recess with plaque testing and then fluoride. These kids had a ball with the purple teeth and were really funny about it!

Next, each of us were assigned an ENTIRE classroom of children by ourselves! I was given a 4th grade class who were pretty well behaved, which was great since no one spoke a lick of English in there... I had a script to follow and the dentist explained what going to happen before he left me there but still there are many things that could've gone wrong. 

My script is as follows... 

For plaque testing: saca le lengua (stick out your tongue), regaló todos dientes (spread dye over all teeth), esculpe en la baño (spit out extra in the bathroom). 

For fluoride treatment: muéstrame los dientes (show me your teeth), abra la boca (open your mouth), sierra la boca (close your mouth). 

Medicina Humana - Universidad Peruana de Los Andes

Our next big campaign deals with taking vitals so we all went to the Medical School to practice. We learned how to take blood pressure, heart rate, respiration, and temperature. I've done all of these before but still needed some refreshers on how to do it manually. 

¡Discoteque!

David and Aniña taking us out on the town. We're going to El Jeque Discoteque. Can't wait to see what they've got in store for the night!