Cosmetic Dentist No Disease Article
Our Santa Rosa, CA office serves Sonoma County & the Bay Area including San Francisco, Petaluma, Napa
The Goal: No Disease
Many of you know me by now. If you don’t, then you are in need of a dental hygiene therapy appointment, so give Debbie a call to schedule! Dr. Klim and I have been revamping the periodontal department to meet the newest research on whole body health in regards to inflammation. Did you know that bleeding of your gum tissues may be a sign of chronic inflammation and that this inflammation can lead to stroke, heart disease, need for increased insulin in diabetics and low birth weight premature babies? This is something I can help you prevent with proper treatment here in our office and at home with proper oral hygiene techniques, equipment and possibly oral disinfection using specialized products designed for this purpose.
What is inflammation?
Inflammation is a response to tissue injury. This is not necessarily a bad thing, in fact we could not survive without this response. Inflammation is the release of biochemicals by mast cells located in the tissue surrounding blood vessels. These cells defend the body against infection and help repair tissue.
The biochemicals cause the release of C-reactive protein by the liver. CRP is considered a marker of systemic inflammation. High CRP serum levels have been linked to chronic diseases such as atherosclerosis and diabetes. So, this is the bad part.
I bet I have the attention of my heart and high blood pressure patients by now and others of you who are health savvy. CRP is getting a lot of press these days.
Oral inflammation and systemic disease
In periodontal disease, plaque penetrates deep within the gum tissue. This plaque contains bacteria which triggers the inflammatory response. As periodontitis (gum disease) progresses, CRP is produced. The more periodontitis one has, the higher the CRP.
How can this be prevented?
Keeping teeth free of bacterial plaque, aka, biofilms. You know the drill, brush and floss, brush and floss… Well, we have other ways to remove plaque for those of you that can not or will not floss. In fact, many mouths or areas in mouths would be better cleaned by other methods or additional methods. This is something I can personalize for each client at their periodontal therapy appointment or in a separate oral hygiene instructional visit. There are more ways to clean plaque off than you could imagine.
Can inflammation be treated?
Yes! It is such a great time to be a periodontal therapist, aka, dental hygienist. There are new modalities and technologies to help me manage your gum disease. As you know, we use micro ultrasonic scaling to debride, fancy word for clean, the periodontal pockets. This method of cleaning around and under the gums removes much more bacteria than hand scaling. It is gentler to the root structure, removing 10 times less root surface than hand scaling. But, the pinnacle of bacterial kill rests with my LASER!
To really zap the bugs that cause gum disease, the laser has no match that I am aware of. This simple light, that is what a laser is, kills bacteria in the diseased gum tissue and removes the diseased gum tissue only. The inside of the diseased gum pocket is dark red and is full of dead tissue. The laser we have is specific for penetrating only this tissue and stops when healthy tissue is reached. Treating periodontal inflammation can be simple, requiring only a small laser treatment during your regularly scheduled periodontal therapy appointment or some may need more extensive laser therapy to help reduce pockets that are too deep and have too much inflammation. We can also apply an antibiotic that is place directly into the pocket and dissolves over a 2 week period in conjunction with laser therapy. This localized approach to antibiotic therapy reduces systemic uptake to a very tiny amount so we do not cause antibiotic resistance in our patients.
The days of a little scraping and polishing are over. Today’s technology allows us to treat disease as soon as it is detected instead of waiting until the bone is so broken down that patients need the services of a periodontist. As new technology comes along, rest assured that Dr. Klim and I will be ON IT!
Our office is located in Santa Rosa, but we welcome patients in from San Francisco, Sonoma County & Bay Area.