Paying For Prevention

We as the health care provider have the responsibility to teach you how to take care of yourself, and you have the responsibility of doing the work of taking care of yourself.

We have joint responsibility.

I have been given the priviledge of practicing with a doctor that believes in prevention.  Unfortunately insurance companies place little value on prevention and thus compensate inadequately.

Therefore you might have to pay more for this service out of pocket.  But I gaurantee that every dollar paid for preventive education is a dollar well spent.

Sometimes the health care system fails.  Sometimes the patient fails.  Ultimately we share responsibility.  We both must do better.  Together we can improve your health

The Window To Health is Revealed Through Oral Health

Health Of The Mouth Is a Window Into The Health of the Person

How To Keep Your Mouth Healthy: Baby Steps

Every 24 hrs you MUST remove the plaque from all surfaces of each tooth above and below the gumline

1.  SWEEP Brush:  Use a minimum amount of toothpaste on soft bristle brush.  perform at least 5 sweep
     strokes on face side overlapping stokes only.  Position  toothbrush on inside surface of teeth:  downward
     stroke on upper teeth;  upward stroke on lower teeth

2.  FLOSS:   Using 18" of floss PUSH floss in contact with tooth.  Maintaining contact with tooth -scrape
     tooth using at least 5 strokes for each surface or until you hear the squeaky clean sound.  Go as
     deep under the gumline as possible.

3.  SULCULAR BRUSH WITH DRY BRUSH:   Angle toothbrush 90 degrees straight into the gumline
     as possible

4.  PERIO AIDE:   Trace toothpick around gumline and under gumline.   Push against back of tooth and to
     up and down in floss manner.  Rub, trace DO NOT gouge or poke.  You will hear a sweak clean sound

5.  TONGUE CLEANING:  90% OF BAD BREATH COME FROM THE TONGUE  Go back 
     as possible and scrape forward.  Do this several times with rake portion of cleaner.  Apply small   amt
     toothpaste to brush side and brush tongue from back to front several times.  Again scrape forward with
     rake portion several times .   Rinse.

6.  USE a mouthrinse, swishing for 30 sec after cleaning tongue.

DURING COURSE OF THDRY BRUSH BEFORE YOU EAT, AFTER YOU EAT, AND AS FREQUENTLY AS POSSIBLE E DAY

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Dentistry's Dirty Little Secret

When you clean a surface of the tooth the bacteria begin to grow (colonize) .   They cannot feed on their own they only feed as colonies .   Our only defense is to mechanically break up the colonies .  We cannot eliminate bacteria and we would not want to if we could.  Our only defense is disrupting the feeding organization (colonization)   The mechanism for disrupting the colonies require only one thing ...you must come in contact  with them and physically dislodge them.  Our armenentarium in this battle include the only weapons at hand:   1) bristles of a brush under the gums  2)  dental floss and our long neglected allie  :  sharpened wooden stick the lowly toothpick.

You must understand bristles of a brush and dental floss can only clean convexities and on front and back surface of every root guess what is right below where enamel stops  ?   the roots are concave.  You cannot clean that area with a piece of string.   It requires the proper adaptation of a toothpick and that adaptation is close to parallel to the long axis (the up down dimension) of the tooth.  As simple as this may sound it is not routinely taught.   It is dentistry's dirty little secret.

This may read as a complex message ..  it is not.  The message is  bacterial colonies must be disrupted and the weapons that you bring to the fight are brush,  string or floss, and sharpened wooded stick.