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| Cool Star Wars lightsabers- not the same kind of lasers we use in dentistry. |
When I was first entering dentistry, lasers were already in use in most areas of medicine. I wanted one. Every boy who ever saw Star Wars wanted one- they're really cool! While lasers are a wonderful tool, they have limitations.
After looking into lasers it seemed to me that here was a great widget, with lots of cool buttons and such, that had no real use in my daily routine. Many of my peers have invested thousands of dollars in the latest and greatest laser just to have a really expensive place to pile stuff, kind of like that treadmill in your basement. But lasers just seem so great! And they are... just not in dentistry. They can be used for contouring the gums, root canal treatments, whitening, and even removing decay. However, there are other more efficient and less painful ways to do the same tasks. Lasers work by precision burning, which is essentially third degree burning. This means they are really great tools in other areas of medicine because they can stop bleeding with minimal damage to surrounding tissue. While this is a great advancement in medical technology, dentistry can't really benefit because teeth hate heat, it kills them. Inside every tooth is a nerve, artery, and vein. When you heat a tooth up too much, or come too near this area, the tooth will die, causing a lot of pain.
One caveat that I have to no lasers in dentistry is for their use in gum disease. Lasers are great for treating some forms of gum disease, but only in conjunction with other treatments. The laser can remove gum diseased tissue around the teeth and kill the bacteria hiding below the gums that are causing the disease. With proper maintenance and other therapy this can help reduce gum disease in certain patients. We refer to several gum specialists who offer these services.
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| Gingivitis. |
Gum disease, or periodontitis, affects millions of people every day. Unfortunately for these people, gum disease never goes away. It is a chronic condition that has no cure, only treatments to lessen the damage. This is the same problem encountered by diabetics; there are treatments for diabetes like insulin, but no cure. Once you are diabetic, you will be diabetic for life and the same is true for gum disease. Once you have gum disease, you will have it for life. Sorry.
Blame your parents or blame your significant other. Gum disease is caused by bacteria and your body's failure to resist that bacteria. If you have gum disease you weren't born with the bacteria that causes it, either your parents or significant other passed the bad bugs to you. But the bad bugs alone do not cause gum disease, you need a bad gene pool as well. You get the picture: blame those around you.
Gum disease is communicable, which means that we can pass the bacteria that causes gum disease from one person to another through intimate contact or even through food. For example: mom blows on baby's food or tests the food to see if it is cool enough and BLAM! Baby now has gotten the bacteria for gum disease. All adults carry the bacteria that cause gum disease, but not all adults get gum disease because some of us are resistant to it or have taken superb care of our gums and teeth.
So what do you do if you are diagnosed with gum disease? The first step is to get the bacteria at bay and reduce their numbers so that your body's defenses can get a foothold. This is done by having a gum treatment: the patient is numbed up and the teeth and gums are given a thorough cleaning. After the gum treatment(s) a light antibiotic, like Periostat, is prescribed that will be taken twice a day, along with a mouth rinse to be used twice as day. In addition to the prescriptions, using an electric toothbrush is always a good idea to help control and prevent gum disease.
After initial treatment, the gums will need to be checked at regular intervals and cleanings will need to be scheduled at least four times a year. If there is advanced damage, or if the gums do not respond well to the treatments, we will refer the patient to a gum specialist for further evaluation. Remember, even though your gums have been treated and you may have no symptoms of gum disease you will always have gum disease and must continue with treatment. The day you decide not to continue with treatment is the day your gum disease will pick up where it left off and destroy your gums and teeth at an accelerated rate.
A Family Dental Care Center: Dr. Seth Rosen
2030 West Main St. Norristown, PA 19403
610.631.3400
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