Posts Tagged ‘health’

I was chatting with a patient the other day about maintenance…

We take care of our cars by carefully watching the mileage and changing oil, filters and such when the manufacturer suggests. Few of us do this for the pleasure of reading old magazines in a smelly car repair shop. Fewer still enjoy the delight of doing it ourselves as we burn fingers on hot oil plugs and leave fragrant stains on the driveway. We do it because we know it will help our car running better and longer.
We love our cars, but most of us will get rid of that prized car in not too many years, replacing it with a newer model.

I bet you can guess where I’m going here… if our cars fail us, we figure out a way to get a newer one. But we only get one body. If we mess it up, we can’t get a new one! So perhaps we should spend a lot more energy assuring exceptional maintenance of our bodies than we do our cars.
In Dentistry, this involves providing for:

• strong teeth – not just patched up teeth with multiple fillings
• gum health, the foundation for those strong teeth
• a balanced bite, so all teeth share the load and none wear out prematurely

It is true that dental care takes time and energy, and that means money too. But keeping a gorgeous healthy smile for a lifetime is perhaps a better investment than keeping our favorite car running!

Everyone knows that they should keep their teeth clean to prevent tooth decay, or cavities.  And while this is very true, there is much more to oral health than just brushing!

Gum disease is a chronic, or long term, infection of the gums.  Gum disease can silently, usually painlessly dissolve the bone support away from teeth, causing them to loosen and eventually fall out.  Most folks wearing dentures suffered from gum disease, and now pay the price of missing teeth having to be replaced with dentures.  This disease process can be halted, but it first needs to be identified, and then positive therapy needs to be actively pursued.

In addition to causing bone and tooth loss, gum disease can affect many other systems in the body.  The gums are very vascular – there is tremendous blood supply in gum tissues.  That is good news when we remove the factors causing gum disease, because the great blood supply helps the area heal fast.  But if the factors are not removed, the large blood flow means the infection is transmitted throughout the body.  A chronic bacteremia, or long standing elevation of bacteria in the bloodstream, may cause serious damage elsewhere.  Research is showing strong relationships between certain heart diseases and gum disease.  There are also relationships between gum disease and incidence of stroke, diabetes, and complications with pregnancy. 

This high blood supply to the gums also means that some systemic problems can be noticed early in the mouth.  Earlier detection of problems can lead to a better and healthier you!  It is very important to have regular dental examinations that include periodontal measurements (evaluating gum health) and soft tissue examinations and oral cancer screenings.  It is also important that the areas in between teeth, the bone support, and the root tips be evaluated with x-rays as needed.

Do you know someone who wears dentures? Does he hate the lower denture, saying it floats up and pinches? Tell him about implant supported dentures!

Two implants placed in the lower jaw can provide wonderful stability to a lower denture. It stays in place, nice and solid, and since it doesn’t move it doesn’t pinch! The implants are fitted with what looks like a very tiny trailer hitch, and the modified denture snaps right into place and stays there! This makes the denture wearer far more comfortable, letting him eat well and laugh long, knowing the dentures won’t come out and surprise anyone! Denture wearers know that the bone dissolves away under lower dentures, making the fit more difficult as years go by. Implant supported dentures preserve bone, so they will fit much longer.

If you know someone who has dentures that won’t stay where they belong, tell them the good news about implant supported dentures!