Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Dr. Kanka

Hey all,

Not to much going on in my life.
I started watching Black Hawk Down and only got about 20 minutes into before I fell asleep on the couch. Not because of the movie I have just been tired lately.

One funny thing...I haven't told you I have started Marathon training. Now for those of you who have been with me for the whole time, I think, my marathon blog was the funniest of all of them.

Anyways we are about 2 months into our training. I am signed up to do the Marine Corps Marathon at the end of October and the Miami marathon at the end of January of '09.
We are slated to run 18 miles on Saturday morning at 4:15am. It just sounds crazy as I am writing it.
The funny thing is I have not lost any weight since the start of my training. Last year, as much as I ran, I never lost weight.
So I have always wanted to be about 10 pounds lighter to make my runs a bit easier.
So I found a guy that I run with and I noticed he is a little "puffy". So I asked him if he wanted a put a little wager on losing weight.
He was in.

$100 to see who can lose 5% of our body weight first. I am 200 (listen don't laugh, muscle weighs more than fat) , so I have to lose 10 pounds and he is about 170 so he has to lose 8 pounds.
This started about 10 days ago.
Okay so I am eating less, I have cut out all desserts, and I only drink water. At the end of the week I have lost 0 pounds.
Not one or a half pounds , ZERO pounds. I am eating 6 times a day like they say to do. I am drinking all the time.
I am eating a lot of fiber. All the stuff they tell you to do. I know it is going to take time but we are talking about a $100 bucks here.
So I talked to him on Saturday and he says he hasn't been feeling so well and he hasn't been eating either so he has lost 2 pounds.
Oh, crap, he is almost half way there and I have lost ZERO.

I know through hours and hours of running together that his weakness is MandM's. So I am resorting to Guerrilla tactics...I sent him two huge bags of MandM's today in the mail.
$100, as you may know I don't part with my money well.
That was low wasn't it.
If you can't beat them...cheat.

Okay on Monday.
I talked to you about John Kanka. This is a dentist/lecturer that is from Illinios. He has been around a long time.
I told you I like his passion and he was a pretty good lecturer.
We think a lot alike.
I told you he uses and pushes his own products.
I have a hard time jumping in with both feet when someone is pushing a product that they profit from.
So I wrote to the man at REALITY, Michael Miller. Don't think I am all that and a bag of chips, because anyone can write him. If you are a member you have the ability to use their forum.
But he moderates the forum. So I wrote him and he wrote me back in an hour. I asked him a question and he didn't know the answer to so he wrote the main man at 3M and he got back with me in another hour.
I was very impressed.
What an advantage for little guys like you and me. All I have to do is ask this guy and he will tell you the 411 on anything you want to know. He has NO vested interest in any product.

So I asked him about a couple of things.
I asked him about the Duralon thing. For all of you who didn't read on Monday, Kanka pushes Duralon for pulp exposures.
This is where he wrote to the 3M (the makers of Duralon) guy and his response was...3M doesn't even think that Duralon should be used for pulp exposures.
WHAT?!!
He even showed the article that Kanka uses to back up his claim and it says Duralon should NOT be used as a pulp cap.
Then I asked Dr. Miller what he thought of Surpass. This is the bonding material that Kanka made and now endorses.
He says that Kanka has not submitted it in to Reality to have evaluated.
Interesting!!
He went on to say that when Reality evaluated his last product, Simplicity, the results were very inconsistent. Meaning the product might not hold water, at least not all the time.

So Kanka has his own forum. So I wanted to give him the ability to defend what they were saying.
I went on Kanka's forum and asked him about the Duralon thing.
I was going to put the whole thing on here but it gets real long.
You can read it at your leisure.
You can tell by the way he writes that he kind of is an egomaniac (pot, have I introduced you to kettle?)
I am trying to get a straight answer out of him and he is being a smart ass to me.
Anyway you can read it yourself.

http://www.apexdentalmaterials.com/db/index.htm (if you do read it I would like to hear what you think)

Lastly, in another thread, I asked him if he has sent his new product to REALITY. And he just answered, "NO."
No explanation or anything.
I kept probing and asked him why.
He says, "I don't have a real good relationship with them (meaning they don't like me)" but he adds, "Gordan Christiansen and others liked it".

I have told you before that as a dentist it is hard to make heads or tails of products.
It is hard to pick products. You think you are going to pick a guru and use his products.
Then you see another guru and he says the first guru doesn't know what he is talking about.
This is a real problem in our profession.

I still think REALITY and CRA are the way to go.
But what if these guys don't agree?
I don't even want to think about this.

Have a great day and I will talk to you Friday,
john

4 comments:

patti said...

you GO on the marathon training! BRAVO! I did my first 5K in May and loved/hated it. Yes, Ill be doing another one though, its great motivation! Love your blog dear friend!

Anonymous said...

will the m and m's melt in the mail?

Anonymous said...

What material do you use for pulp capping?

gatordmd said...

I had to read this blog again just to figure out what it was about. Boy was I long winded.

Good Question about the pulp exposure.
I will be perfectly honest with you...I clean the area, gain hemostasis and put on vitrebond. This is the ol' stand by. It has been around for years and it is working for me and my patients.

Now I know Biodentine from Septodont is gaining some traction. I might be looking at this soon.
MTA is probably the best but it is too hard to mix and takes forever to set up and it is not cost effective.

Hope that helps
j

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