Although most of my patients cannot seem to understand why someone who is perfectly capable of succeeding in any number of careers would choose to become a dentist, I point out to them that you just never know how the shoes feel until you actually walk in them.  The reason why I love practicing dentistry is because it satisfies almost every intellectual and professional need that I have.  The doctor/patient relationship is a very special one and one that I never take for granted.  Whenever a new patient entrusts their care to me and gives me the power to alter their post precious possession, I take that very seriously.  Each procedure, whether it be a five minute filling or a ten hour reconstruction, garners 100% of my focus, my effort and my attention in order to achieve the best possible result and not my best possible result but the best possible result because that what each of my patients deserves in return for their trust and loyalty to me.  My efforts and my work make people healthier, more physically attractive, more comfortable and painless and definitely live longer.  There are not many careers that offer that kind of return on effort and that is why I love this career.  I think that most people think of dentistry on the most obvious level of working so closely with the mouths of strangers and thereby exposing yourself to potential hazard.  Both of my parents and two of my siblings are physicians so I grew up in the medical field and especially with two of them being surgeons, you can imagine and the extent and magnitude of their interactions with the human body so for me, teeth and gums are no big threat!

 

One of the things that I would like patients to think about is the link between oral health and systemic health.  Years ago, we never would have thought that tooth and gum disease  could be damaging us below our necks and even shortening our lifespans.  Now, it is a certainty.  As more new research is unveiled, the strength of the correlation between oral health and systemic health increases.  Gum disease or periodontitis, especially needs to be diagnosed and treated better than in the past.  While studies show that 75% of Americans have some level of gum disease, most of these people either do not seek treatment out at all or if they do, they are not properly diagnosed and treated.  Gum disease is a progressively degenerative disease and most of the damage is irreversible.  This means that if it starts and progresses in a patient for one, two, five or even ten years, the damage can be chatastrophic to the mouth and body.  The way this happens is through bacteremia, or bacteria in the blood.  We all have bacteria in our mouths.  This is unavoidable.  However, normal levels of bacteria are not harmful and are kept in proper balance through good oral hygiene and our own immune system.  When bacteria are allowed to colonize areas of the gums that are difficult to clean, then the problem starts.  These bacterial colonies slowly grow causing inflammation in their immediate vicinity.  This inflammation leads to a zone of bone loss in which even more  bacteria can colonize.  These bacteria get into the highly vascularized gum tissue and are then carried throughout the body where they start a cascade that has been proven to affect several organ systems contributing to heart disease, diabetes, lung disease, pancreatic cancer and pre-term low weight infant births to name few.  At Stanton Dental Excellence, we will properly evaluate your gum condition and if gum disease exists, you can be assured that we have the experience, techniques and modalities to create the best opportunity to stop the disease.  Remember that for best results, it must be caught and treated early and treatments are much different than in the past with surgery almostnever required.