BackTeeth Boys Podcast Ep. 7 - Dose of Dental Podcast #249 x Dr. Gallagher's Podcast

Top 5 Topics:

- The Root Tip That Vanished Into a Patient's Nerve Canal — And the 45-Minute Fight to Get It Back

- Truth: Sometimes It’s Better to Leave the Root Tip Behind

- Inside the Different IV Sedation 'Cocktails' Oral Surgeons Use Daily

- The Hidden Physical Toll of Oral Surgery: One Dentist's 8-Week Recovery From Nerve Surgery

- "It Was Pumping!” - Oral Surgeons Share Stories of Terrifying Bleeds, And How To Manage Them In Surgery

BackTeeth Boys Band Members:

- Dr. Serv Wahan - Seattle, Washington

- Dr. Amir Tahmasebpour - Toronto, Canada

- Dr. Joe Doctora - Nashville, Tennessee

- Dr. Brendan Gallagher - Long Island, New York

Quotes & Wisdom:

11:57 — Joe: "I try to give as little medication as possible to accomplish what I need to accomplish. I wish I was always taught that less is more."

34:20 — Amir: "I feel like you need to get your hands wet and dirty, get a sense of what drilling bone is like, what drilling out roots is like... you gotta get comfortable with having poor vision sometimes and using tactile sensation."

36:48 — Amir: "After extracting around 200 teeth, you've kind of built that feedback system into you. It's like a pedal of a car — you don't have to look at the tooth directly anymore, and you know exactly what's happening at all times."

45:10 — Joe: "If you bring the retained root tip to their attention and talk about it... give them a copy of the x-ray, be completely transparent and just say keep an eye out for this — then that neutralizes some of that risk because you’re working in their best interest."

49:03 — Joe: "I think there's less morbidity with leaving root tips in there than advertised."

54:56 — Joe: "A lot of the lingual nerve paresthesias happen, from my experiences, when you least expect it."

54:43 — Amir: "That's tiger territory" — on attempting advanced lingual-protection techniques without significant surgical experience.

Questions:

02:16 — Brendan: "Where do you get your bone wax by the way? Where's your go-to site where you're getting stuff?"

07:57 — Brendan: "What do you do for that 20 minutes?" (waiting for Precedex to take effect)

14:57 — Amir: "So how much total Midaz do you give?"

16:12 — Brendan: "Are you guys also doing the Midaz-ketamine combo that I’m using?"

17:10 — Joe: "When do you inject local in IV sedations? Do you inject immediately, or do you wait for your patient to be deeper?"

21:04 — Brendan: "Do you guys find that you can predict when those curved roots are really gonna give you some trouble?"

23:43 — Amir: "How often are you guys leaving in root tips?"

34:18 — Brendan: "Why 200 extractions? Let's dive into this — why'd you pick the 200 point?"

This episode is sponsored by: Could be you! Let us know and we’ll connect

Now available on:

- Dr. Gallagher’s Podcast & YouTube Channel

- Dose of Dental Podcast #249

- BackTeeth Boys Podcast Ep. 7

8.2026

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