Local veterans get free dental care at the MouthMobile

Monday marked the first time in four years that Mike Szpakiewicz sat in a dentist’s chair.

Though the Longview native served 23 years in the Army and National Guard, he doesn’t qualify for dental coverage through the Veteran’s Administration, which has strict eligibility guidelines for dental care.

On Tuesday, Aspen Dental offered veterans like Szpakiewicz free care through its MouthMobile, a dental office squeezed into a trailer parked at the Kelso-Longview Elks Lodge. The mobile clinic has served an average of 25 veterans at each stop along a 30-city tour of the United States this year.

“Dental care is just so expensive,” Aspen dentist Sagar Madagula said. “The general population (we see), they haven’t been to the dentist for 5, 10, 20 years. … It adds up. A stitch in time saves nine.”

On Tuesday, Madagula fixed Szpakiewicz’s cracked tooth and denture for free. Those procedures would have cost Szpakiewicz, who is unemployed, up to $500.

Dental problems kept Szpakiewicz, now 59, from continuing serving in the National Guard. He said he wanted serve in the Iraq War after finishing his first 12 years with the Guard, but he was rejected due to dental and vision problems.

“It’s sad that the government doesn’t think that veterans need dental care,” Szpakiewicz said. “A lot of them need it to build their (self) esteem to get a job.”

That was exactly the situation Szpakiewicz found himself in in 2011, when he enrolled in Longview Housing Authority’s Veteran Integration Program (VIP) after depression led him into homelessness. He got a set of dentures through the VIP program in 2011.

“It helped me with my self-esteem to be able to go out and find work,” he said.

He found a job at the Housing Authority but was laid off this January. He now lacks insurance and won’t receive retirement pay for another year.

Szpakiewicz sympathizes with veterans who haven’t escaped homelessness and still need dental care.

“Some of the homeless veterans don’t know about this,” he said. “You don’t know where they’re at. It would help them get (a job).”

Source: http://tdn.com/news/local-veterans-get-free-dental-care-at-the-mouthmobile/article_892ab838-e366-5db9-a10f-cc196d334f11.html

In other fashion news: Aurident's 3D dental scanners offer superior quality for both model and impression scanning. The Optimet DS 6000 Scanner uses patented proprietary conoscopic holographic technology to generate highly accurate and consistent scans. The DSi 6000 Impression & Model Scanner overcomes the limitation of other scanners by accurately scanning impressions and models where other scanners have difficulty.