Classic Periodontal Disease after COVID with Brenda Sullivan RDH

Challenge: Patients are avoiding routine dental visits due to fear of contracting COVID. This patient had missed several hygiene appointments during the pandemic. Our goal was to re-establish health and increase homecare to help this patient’s general immunity. Background: This case study involves an 84-year-old male with a history of scaling and root planing, who before this assessment was in good periodontal health. His blood pressure was 114/72 and his pulse 83. He has a history of cancer,...
Read More

Periodontal Disease and Rheumatoid Arthritis – Controlling Two Birds with One Stone?

  Challenge: Our case study represents an example of the emerging evidence from interventional and, more recently, animal studies showing how seemingly unrelated diseases such as periodontal disease and rheumatoid arthritis can be related through similar genetic, biological, and clinically consistent mechanisms.1,2,3,4 Background: The initial medical assessment for a 57-year-old female diagnosed with palindromic rheumatoid arthritis was conducted at our functional medicine clinic....
Read More

Classic Periodontal Disease

Challenge: A new patient with poor home care and lack of dental attention presented wanting whiter teeth along with a cleaning. Background: A male 40-year-old new patient whose last dental appointment was 3/8/2017 presents with adult chronic periodontal disease, severe wear on anterior teeth and decay on #19. The patient appears generally healthy (BP 118/79) with no medical conditions or medications. There is a suspicion of sleep disordered breathing along with an anterior tongue tie. Solu...
Read More

Classification of Periodontal and Peri-Implant Diseases and Conditions

As a periodontist, there are two topics that other clinicians frequently ask me about. The first is the updated Classification of Periodontal and Peri-Implant Diseases and Conditions. The second is my experience of working with salivary diagnostics. Both of these initiatives have become an essential part of my daily practice in periodontics. I moved to Dubai in 2010 to work as a specialist periodontist at a well-known private clinic. During my time in Dubai, it became increasingly clear that ...
Read More

Life and Death of a Saliva Test

  Sometimes I get so frustrated with the profession of dentistry. Here is my case in point: Five oral originating pathogens have been identified as causative in the development of atherosclerosis by the BaleDoneen™ peer reviewed study published in the British Medical Journal. Wait a minute, so they concluded that these oral bacteria are causative of atherosclerosis? Seriously? Yes!! And in the last one hundred years, atherosclerosis has killed more Americans than any other disease. A...
Read More

A Common-Sense Approach to Diagnosis and Treatment Planning: Weekly Case Reviews with Dr. Lee Sheldon

Most webinars explore new, innovative, fabulous procedures. What about the day-to-day procedures such as the new patient, the periodontal case, or the restorative case? What about the basics? • How to communicate to the patient? • How to prioritize to make dentistry within reach of the average person? • How to gain greater case acceptance? • How to remove the insurance obstacle? Dr. Sheldon brings his whole team approach to patient management and communication to his new webinar series....
Read More

A Clinician’s Resistance to Acceptance in One Case

When I opened my practice almost two years ago, I was introduced to OralDNA® Labs’ testing services. I believed the value of laboratory testing would provide a higher quality of care for my patients; however, I was hesitant to incorporate something new into my patient case conversation. My hesitation stemmed from a belief that my patients would think we were adding another “cost” to their treatment plan and that made me uncomfortable. I continued to practice without OralDNA® Labs testing, unti...
Read More

Periodontal Inflammation Primes the Systemic Innate Immune Response

This week, Dr. Ronald McGlennen - President & Medical Director of OralDNA® Labs provides a review of the recently published article "Periodontal Inflammation Primes the Systemic Innate Immune Response” written by N. Fine, J.W. Chadwick, C. Sun, K.K. Parbhaker, N. Khoury, A. Barbour, M. Golberg, H.C. Tenebaum, and M. Glogauer. This article appears in the Journal of Dental Research, October 2020. The complete article can be accessed here. Enjoy the VLOG and please feel free to share any...
Read More

Case Study: Class II Periodontitis

  Background: The patient is a 54-year-old female who presented with the chief complaint “My gums bleed when I brush, there are possible cavities and I don’t like the tooth crowding.” Her last dental visit was about 6 years ago. There is a family history of diabetes, cardiovascular disease, stroke and cancer. The home care consisted of manual tooth brushing 1-2 times per day with occasional antibacterial mouth rinse. During the clinical assessment, it was discovered that several amal...
Read More

A Progressive Oral Wellness Center in Rural America

In our rural practice (McCreight Progressive Dentistry) in Northwest Colorado, we see periodontal disease on average in about one of every two patients, or around 46%. This is representative of the CDC statistic as posted in the May 2015 Journal of Periodontology. Whenever we read these statistics, we are puzzled. In an industrialized nation where home care tools and dental technologies are readily available, how can there be so much disease? Here are some measures (newer technologies) we ha...
Read More