Decay Is Infection Too

Enamel the outer layer of the tooth above the gumline is the hardest substance known to man.  It is harder than bone.  The sugar eating bacteria live above the gumline.  They are nasty little critters.   Once they colonize they convert what we eat into sugar, ingest the sugar and produce ACID.  This acid destroys the enamel and creates enamel infection.   If left unchecked the enamel infection will progress to the pulp or nerve of the tooth .  Once the infection gets to the pulp it goes systemic.  This feeding activity of the colonized sugar eaters can be stopped by breaking up the colonies of bacteria before you eat ...   DRY BRUSH before you eat.  The areobic bacteria cannot feed and produce acid if they are not in a feeding unit ... break the colonies up with a dry toothbrush because the taste of your food will not be altered and toothpaste is unnecessary for breaking up these feeding units. 

Stop the decay by dry brushing before you eat.   Chose  health.    Keep a toothbrush handy and dry brush as frenquently as possible during the day.  It becomes a habit...a compulsion if you will and you will begin to get a healthy mouth which will also effect your body in good ways.

Irma's Fantastic Voyage

Let me take you on a journey an expedition if you will below the gumline or gingival margin.  the entrance to the cavernous dark sulcus.  As I begin my descent and the light begins to fade I turn on the headlamps of my nano (vehicle) of my submersable.   I first encounter the motile carnivorous bacterial species that inhabit this environment.  I approach the Great Wall of the cavern that is the cemental surface of the tooth and observe a frightening display they have joined in a battle group  and a feeding unit united for one purpose seek and destroy.   I turn my vehicle 180 degrees and look at the soft vulnerable epithelial barrier, the sulcular epithelium.   The only barrier that keeps them from invading and ravaging the host organism.  I watch their tactics hoping to find some measure of defense.  Once colonized and organized into a feeding unit their first wave of their attack is biochemical warfare.  They release toxins that kill the epithelial cellular soldiers.  They are quickly overcome and perish bavely in the battle but the barrier is breached they have successfully invaded the host.  I feel despair is their nothing that can stop the carnage.  BUT wait I see thin nylon cylinders attacking the colony.  a silken rope appears and adds reinforcement.  Most of the colony has abandonded their base camp, and now a sharpened wooden device eliminates the last of their battle group.  The epitheliar soldiers at the barrier gain recruits and the invasion is over for now.  but i see the colony beginning to form again, and realize this is a never ending day to day battle.

Whoa !  I must have drifted for a moment,  but I'm much better now.   I remember I'm a Hyienist in Knoxville America.  I'm teaching Comprehensive Self Care, subgingival disruption of biofilm.  Yes ! that is how you must adapt the brush for sulcular cleaning, yes that's how you must adapt the floss for the submarginal convesities and the perio Aide for submarginal concavities.  Mission accomplished.  What's that Carol.........Yes,   Next Patient !

Sulca Brushing

There is a piece of tooth under the gum tissue that needs cleaning.    Angle the bristles that are closest to the tooth 90 degrees straight into the gum tissue.  Initially if the tissue is infected it will bleed but cleaning this area daily the bleeding WILL stop within 3 days to a week.    Wiggle the bristles into the gum tissue & give 3 wiggles and then sweep forward.    Inside & outside of every tooth once a day.   Do Not put toothpaste on the brush.  Toothpaste is an abrasive and this surface that you are cleaning is the dentin of the tooth which is less dense than the enamel.   Your gum tissue will become firm like an orange peel.  Coral Pink the color of health.   Once a day , take the time.   Your health is worth the time invested.

A perfect time to sulca brush or cleaning your tongue or just dry brushing is in the shower.  You will brush longer because the water feels relaxing and automatic rinse water.

Dry Brush

Toothpaste is an abrasive and not necessary to break up the bacterial colonies that eat, sleep, and poop  in our mouths  with that said DRY BRUSH      Stick a toothbrush in your pocket and dry brush during the course of the day as often as you can.   Don't worry about making your mouth dirty with a brush from your pocket .   You could drop the brush on the floor, pick it up and put it in your mouth and make the brush dirtier from the bugs in your mouth than from having placed it on the floor.

    Your mouth is a Vat of Bacteria.  The bacteria live there harmoniously.  They do not cause problems unless they are in a bacterial colonie with that said  break the colonies up during the course of the day with a dry toothbrush.   Easy   just get a little OCD about it ;  such health and beauty benefits.   OCD =  Oral Compulsive Disorder

Oral Health

" A person can' t have good general health without good oral health "

 --  Former US Surgeon General C. Everett Koop

Periodontal Disease and Overall Health:

The relationship of oral disease to overall disease is certainly no  new concept.  For centuries, the role of oral infection and inflammation in contributing to diseases elsewhere in the body has been studied and reported.  Going back to ancient times in Greece, we learn that Hippocrates treated two patients suffering from joint pain by removal of teeth.  Clearly, this was an early example of oral disease being associated with afflictions elswhere in the body.  Then, moving forward in time from 1912 to around 1950, the era of "focal infection" dominated our thinking.  Reports by individuals such as WD Miller, William Hunter , and Frank Billings noted that in their opinion many of the diseases of humans could be traced to specific foci of infection elswhere in the body,  such as the teeth and gums, then tonsils, or the sinuses.  While these observations were not supported by sound scientific evidence, and in fact led to largely incorrect practices, they nontheless brought attention of the effect of the mouth on the rest of the body.

Association Between Periodontal Diseases and Diabetes Mellitus

A Pervasive Disease Affecting Global Populations

Association Between Periodontal Disease and Atheromatous Diseases

Periodontal Disease and Pregnancy Complications

Oral Health and Diseases of the Respiratory Tract

Periodontal Disease and Osteoporosis

Association Between periodontitis and Rheumatoid Arthritis

Oral Health, Periodontitis , and Cancer

Cardiovascular Disease

Ray C. Williams

Robert J. Genco  Ray C. Williams  ,copyright2010 by the Colgate-Palmolive Company. , Referenced from Periodontal Disease and Overall health A Clinician's Guide 2010 C

The Smell Of Death

When you wake up in the morning and your breath smells like poop....that's the smell of death.   The bacteria that once were alive have died and encrusted on your tongue.   First thing go to the sink scrape your tongue.  Go as far back as you can and come forward with rake type device.   You will not believe what comes off your tongue.   I call it tongue snot.    Stuff that drains from your throat and collects on the tongue  dead tissue and bacteria.  Dry brush with a toothbrush and no toothpaste.   Then go have your coffee or bagel with a morning fresh breath and mouth.  

The bacteria in our mouths are alive and dead and depending on that time line that 's the odors that are happening in our mouths .

Tongue scrapers are about $2 at Walmart or Walgreens OR when in a pinch use your fingernails ....always , daily .   Fingernails are not AS effective as scraper but cost effective and always available

The Tongue

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

•     

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.

Mission Statement

The dental profession is all about fixing things .  The secret of oral health is teaching the individual how to eliminate the need for rehabilitation .   Rehabilitation is not necessary if the ravages of disease can be prevented.  My  vision,  is   to teach   people how to take care of themselves.    I believe that I am  spiritually obligated  to blaze this trail.  You are invited on this journey.  Feel free to ask any questions that you might have about your oral health.  I will answer with the truth as I know it.

Oral Disease Can be prevented.    There are steps that can be taken and tools that can be used to prevent oral disease, and I know the secrets.   Ask and you shall receive.. 

Oral Disease

If Taught You Can Prevent Oral Disease.   There are steps that can be taught and tools that can be used

daily that can prevent oral disease, and I know the secrets

Think Prevention

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.....this is true with self care

A Healthy Mouth ... A Healthy Body

How many of you believe that infection is good for you ? 

How many want to be gumming corn off the cob when you're forty ?

How many of you want to be the stinkiest person in the room ?

Good News ...  All of these goals are achievable    You just have to leave the nasty little tooth, gum and bone eating  critters  that live on you teeth,  also known as plaque , alone.

And guess what you get a bonus the infections that they cause significantly contribute to cariovascular disease, kidney disease, lung disease, diabetes, altheizmers and low birth weight babies

If you are one of the few that does'nt want any of these things I am going to guide you through a process that will prevent all of this.  I am here to teach you how to accomplish the task

The format of this teaching program will be that I will give you one assignment a week  on Sundays.  Please join  me this coming Sunday for your first assignment