Personalized care for dental patients is more important today than ever! Oral inflammation has been established as the driver for many systemic diseases such as cardiovascular disease, stroke, diabetes, and autoimmune diseases. Periodontal disease is one of the most prevalent inflammatory diseases and does not always respond well to “cookie cutter” treatment. We now know, treatment must target the bacteria that cause the patient’s infection, and every patient is different. Dental Hygiene Excellence (DHE) calls this treatment “targeted” or “personalized” treatment. Dental clinicians can have a huge influence on patients’ overall health by shutting down this inflammation source, periodontal disease, with more effective personalized care. Personalized care is more effective today with OralDNA® testing. OralDNA® testing has helped us to determine a true objective diagnosis and a specific treatment plan for individual patients based on the test results.
Before salivary testing, I explained to patients that they had periodontal disease, a bacterial infection. Many patients would respond with the question, “If I have an infection, shouldn’t the dentist give me an antibiotic?” At that time, I had to reply, “The antibiotic might really help, as periodontal infections are caused by oral bacteria. Unfortunately, we don’t have any way to know which bacteria you have so we would have to guess which antibiotic to give you and it may or may not be effective. Let’s do the therapy and see how you respond.” As you probably have experienced in your own practice, some patients respond better than others to periodontal treatment and nearly all patients have recurrence of the infection at some point. After using salivary testing for the past 7 years, and being able to treat the specific microflora, we have seen amazing results and less recurrence for many patients. Better patient outcomes are a direct result of more effective personalized treatment modalities, including: effective instrumentation techniques, healing products and probiotics for repopulating the oral biofilm, to a healthier bacterial level. We can and must help our patients achieve better treatment outcomes and inflammation control utilizing OralDNA® testing and personalized targeted treatment.
On a good day we can save a smile… on a great day we can save a life!
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- Ask Why? Medicine - April 23, 2021
- Dental Hygiene Excellence: A Personalized Treatment Approach - October 12, 2018