Dentistry that treats the whole person.

These last few months have found the staff and myself very busy. We have been attending numberous continuing education courses to keep us up to date so we can offer dentistry that is in line with much of the oral and systemic health information that we are bombarded with on a daily basis. The information that we have learned has helped us now tailor the services we can offer our patients.

In recent years we have come to learn the dynamic relationship between the oral cavity and the rest of our body. It is amazing that infection/inflammation in the mouth can have far reaching affects in the rest of the body. No longer can we look at the mouth and say "a little bit of bleeding, start flossing and it will get better." We are learning about the effect of the oral biofilm and how that biofilm can sometimes need more therapy than just good flossing and brushing can achieve. The far reaching effects of the oral biofilm spreads widely within the body when not treated properly, it is called inflammation and it can be insidious. Firstly the inflammation may just be localized within the oral cavity but after a period of time the body can no longer contain this inflammation and it spreads thoroughout the rest of the body through cells in the bloodstream. This inflammation can affect almost every system in the body and in order to stop this process the initial bacteria that started the process need to be removed so the body can return to a non-inflammatory state.

We now know of a protein that can measure the inflammation in the body and it is called c-reactive protein. This protein can increase when an inflammatory process begins in the body whether it be from a bacterial infection of the mouth to a broken bone. In the case of the broken bone, the inflammatory process begins when the bone is broken and hopefully decreases as the bone heals, the inflammatory process starts because that is how the body tries to heal itself. In other situations, such as with a bacterial infection of the mouth, if the infection is left and the body is unable to heal it the inflammatory process continues and the cells which cause inflammation circulate in the bloodsteam and can affect other organs and body systems. We can now definitively say that there is interrelation between heart disease, stroke, diabetes, lung infections and pre-term low birth weight babies, with more research now being conducted looking at other inflammatory conditions which may be started or exacerbated by oral disease such as gingivitis and periodontitis.

How can we stop the inflammatory process then? Currently many dentists and dental hygienists have few options to treat, arrest and reverse periodontal infection. Previously, dental scaling (removal of calculus/tartar/plaque), irrigation of antimicrobial medicaments, antibiotics (local and systemic) and other means were used to try and treat oral infections. We now have lasers to treat oral infection, these lasers have shown a significant advance in the fight against oral disease as they can obliterate the bacterial biofilm, increase healing time and over many studies we have seen that bone can actually grow back that has been lost. This is very exciting has we have never see periodontal bone loss actually grow back!

So if you see bleeding in your mouth, please don't say to yourself, just a little bleeding, it's normal for me. Bleeding of any kind (when no trauma has occurred) is not normal, this is your body reacting to bacteria and over the long run, if left, may possibly have systemic effects.

One last thought. Put your thumb on each side of your face and wrap the rest of your fingers around your mouth, now pull both hands away and look how large of a size each of those hands respresent. Now, if you had a wound on your chest that big would you leave it alone or would you treat it? Those two hands represent the size of your oral cavity and if an infection is going on, it is the same size, an open wound, would you treat this?