Do wildfires cause bad air quality? How bad is it for you? Here's what Arizonans must know
JoAnna Strother, Phoenix-based regional senior director of advocacy at the American Lung Association, said smoke can travel in the air hundreds of thousands of miles.
"Even if the wildfire might be in Nevada, California, it can still impact us here in Arizona," Strother said.
The way smoke travels depends on wind patterns and whether there's rain or cloud cover.
Arizona Department of Environmental Quality meteorologist Matthew Pace said smoke in the day and smoke at night move differently.
In the Arizona daytime, Pace explained, light-to moderate smoke moves northeast. The biggest concern looms at night, as fire smoke drops to the ground because temperatures are cooler, Pace said.
"Smoke is particulate matter that's 2.5 microns and smaller, so essentially 20 times smaller than the human hair," Pace said. "Those, obviously, when you're breathing them, they can go further down into your lungs."
The Arizona Department of Health Services states small particles in the wildfire smoke cause:
Burning eyes.
Runny nose.
Scratchy throat.
Headaches.
Illness such as bronchitis.
The Health Department also warns wildfire smoke worsens these preexisting conditions:
Heart disease.
Lung disease.
Asthma.
Emphysema.
COPD.
Children and the elderly are also at risk.
The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality lists three levels of precaution:
Level 1: Stay smoke-aware (no smoke, to haze, to light smoke, to smoke in the vicinity).
Level 2: Minimize outdoor activities (smoke in the vicinity, from patchy smoke to widespread moderate smoke).
Level 3: Stay inside (heavy to dense smoke).
The department's website includes forecasts on wildfire smoke when air quality could be impacted, and it also offers hourly updated air quality reports for different Arizona cities.
Phoenix.
Tucson.
Yuma.
Flagstaff.
Prescott.
This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: How bad is breathing in wildfire smoke? What to know in Arizona
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Time Business News
6 hours ago
- Time Business News
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Yahoo
8 hours ago
- Yahoo
They wanted Hollywood smiles. They got dental nightmares.
Lyndsay Carreno was on a date a few years ago when she bit into a sushi roll and felt a veneer slip out of place. She didn't panic; it was a sensation she had felt before. Carreno was 24 when she had porcelain shells placed over four of her own front teeth, something she did to improve the appearance of her smile. Within a couple of years, she'd had two of her new teeth replaced, and she regretted having the procedure done in the first place. 'Aesthetically, they give me what I want,' Carreno, who is now 31, tells Yahoo of the veneers. Her natural teeth were jagged and too large for her liking. 'But to this day, I'm still dealing with issues.' The pursuit of perfect-looking teeth has fueled the demand for veneers, which has a global market that's predicted to be valued at $3.88 billion by 2031. Data shows that over 50% of dental visits are currently driven by aesthetic concerns rather than dental issues. 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TikTok influencer Alix Earle recently talked about having a similar feeling of regret after getting 10 veneers a few years back. She told her followers about the experience in a video in which she was filing down a veneer that had chipped while traveling, and encouraged viewers to embrace their natural teeth. Dr. Sandip Sachar, a New York-based dentist who specializes in smile makeovers, tells Yahoo that veneer regret is a real thing that's often experienced by people who don't do enough prior research about the process or go to the wrong doctor. 'These patients were not fully educated and informed on the process and what to expect prior to starting, leaving them in shock after realizing a good amount of healthy tooth structure had been filed off irreversibly,' she says. 'This can have lasting consequences that no one really talks about.' 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She trusted his opinion, and before long, he was shaving her teeth down to get them ready for some covers. 'I didn't really know what I was getting myself into. I didn't realize how much of a process it was going to be,' says Nichols, now 30. 'Going into it, I was just excited to have a new smile. Then once we actually started the process, and my teeth were prepped and there was no going back, that's when I was like, 'What did I do?'' This is a common time for patients to experience some doubts, according to Sachar. She calls it prep regret. 'You may think you're OK with filing down some of the tooth, but as soon as it's actually done and you realize how irreversible it is, you're going to go home with the sinking feeling of, What have I done?' she says. It's a normal response, even for those who have carefully thought through the decision and vetted their provider. For people who haven't, or those who are filing down healthy teeth, that regret might be worse, especially when the process continues to unfold in a way that makes a patient lack confidence. Nichols recalls being sent home from her dentist's office in temporary veneers, typically made of resin and worn while the permanent porcelain teeth are created, which is a common practice. However, hers weren't secured to her natural teeth, and she was told she had to be on a liquid diet in order not to disrupt them for the interim weeks. She lasted less than 12 hours before making an emergency return to the office and having the owner of the dental practice take over her case. The eight veneers that she initially agreed to get done turned into eight crowns — which cover the entirety of the tooth, rather than just the front surface — and four veneers because of the mistakes the original dentist made in prep. Some of the teeth were filed down too much, and her bite pattern wasn't taken into consideration, Nichols adds. 'What should have been like a two-week process turned into four months,' she says. 'It was just a really bad experience.' Continued complications Nichols changed dentists once her permanent veneers were on. She has to go every three months for a cleaning and a laser treatment to take care of bacteria and inflammation of the gums that are caused by the mouth's reaction to a foreign object (aka the veneers). She says she's also in need of a root canal because of damage that resulted from a veneer that wasn't properly secured to her natural tooth. 'I had the worst sensitivity because of it. I couldn't even breathe in air without it hurting,' says Nichols. 'I just haven't done [the root canal] because I don't want to go through the process of getting a veneer taken off and put back on again.' Carreno switched providers after moving states and having multiple veneers pop out, even just from flossing her teeth. She's also had to have a veneer replaced because of gum recession that it caused. 'This is $2,000 every time I'm saying one's been replaced by the way, because you've got to get a new tooth made at the lab,' she says. 'And every time one has to be replaced, I'm getting a [numbing] shot in the front of my mouth, getting a temporary [veneer] put on, getting the shot again, getting the real one glued on. And it's four or five weeks between all of that.' Ali Holston got veneers to address dental problems caused by a recurring benign teratoma tumor in her jawbone. The 37-year-old has dealt with various complications ever since. From the temporaries alone, she experienced bad breath (known as veneer breath) because of bacteria that formed between her natural tooth and the ill-fitting cover. Within the first week of getting her permanent veneers, three of them popped off. 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But trading that self-consciousness with the constant worry that she might have a dental emergency isn't worth it for her. 'I've just lost so many veneers that it's a constant fear,' she says. 'I am in a situation now where I have to have disposable income always in case I lose a tooth and need to get it replaced.' The experience isn't uncommon among celebrities either. Actress Jennifer Lawrence lost a veneer while filming Don't Look Up and had to film most of it toothless. (A tooth was added in postproduction, so it wasn't visible onscreen.) And model Ashley Graham posted an Instagram video revealing the stub of her natural tooth after a veneer popped off when she bit into a cookie. It's an unfortunate result of some dentist's faulty work, according to Sachar, but not the case for many people who get veneers. 'If everything is done correctly, veneers will last easily over 25 years,' she says. 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USA Today
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- USA Today
Lawmakers want independent re-do of Air Force missile community cancer study
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