By Alexander Germanis
Astroll down any suburban street will reveal lawns in various states of care. Verdant ones clearly receive constant attention; others are maintained at the bare minimum, while still others show serious signs of neglect. The work and effort to bring these latter lawns to the fore require special attention to be paid to the roots — applications of pesticide and herbicide to destroy weeds and grass-killing grubs. If such care is not taken, the lawn may perish.
As important as maintenance is for a healthy lawn, regular care is even more crucial when it comes to maintaining a healthy mouth. Avoiding the onset of cavities should be reason enough, but there is also the threat of periodontal disease.
“Periodontal disease can be broken down into different categories,” explains Bloomington’s Emil Verban, DDS. “The first stage is gingivitis, [which] occurs when you have a superficial inflammation of the gums that has not progressed into the deeper tissue level. It can be there simply because you need to get your teeth cleaned.”
Should that inflammatory process continue unabated, however, a more serious condition known as periodontitis may result. A certain type of bacteria can accumulate and form a hard deposit known as calculus — what is recognized by most dental patients as tartar. Although calculus is cleaned off the crowns of the teeth by dental hygienists during a regular checkup, calculus buildup below the natural gum line can lead to a serious issue.
“If the hard deposits are not removed,” Dr. Verban says, “it’s going to cause a chronic inflammatory response and the bacteria that causes that inflammatory response liberates toxins that cause the bone to melt away from the tooth. There are people that have never had a cavity but can lose all their teeth due to periodontal disease.”
“The only way to remove that calculus with the instruments is to scale the crown and plane the root of the tooth,” Dr. Verban adds. During the twin procedures of scaling and root planing, instruments called scalers and curettes are used to remove the calculus deposits but, the doctor stipulates, “the only way to scale and clean the root you have, is to give local anesthetic to numb it. It would be like if you had something up under your fingernail. It’s going to hurt to go in and take it out.”
Unfortunately, there is a perpetuated fear that anyone who has not received a dental checkup in several years is an instant candidate for this procedure. As Dr. Verban explains, this is simply not true.
“When you go in to have your teeth cleaned, the hygienist will probe around each tooth and judge the depth of the sulcus [the gum pocket around the base of the body of the tooth].” “So if you have a measurement of four millimeters or more,” Dr. Verban says, “you could be a candidate for scaling and root planing. But if you have not gotten your teeth cleaned for several years and you have measurements of four or five millimeters, those depths are going to shrink down to the normal limit by simply getting your teeth cleaned.”
“If someone tells you ‘you need four quadrants of root planing,’ just get your teeth cleaned and improve your oral hygiene.” Improvement in oral hygiene means daily brushing, flossing, and use of a mouth rinse. You can “then have it reassessed in six months, because periodontitis is such a slow, ongoing process.”
Although regular brushing and flossing may prevent the calculus-causing bacteria from setting up residence under the sulcus, even simply “using a toothpick on a regular basis is going to enhance the level of health in the mouth,” Dr. Verban instructs. “When you massage the gum tissue and increase the blood flow to it, you will have more of your natural antibodies fight off this opportunistic infection of gum disease. That’s why improving the level of care in between your teeth is a good approach before you get involved with scaling and root planing. The idea behind cleaning the teeth is to maintain health, whereas scaling and root planing is a procedure that is done to create health.”
Just as important to oral hygiene as the retention of good cleaning habits is the abstention of bad habits like smoking. “Smoking is a big issue as far as periodontal disease,” Dr. Verban says. “I’ve noticed that patients of mine who smoke have a certain amount of inflammation. They kick the habit of smoking and their gum tissue health improves remarkably; nothing’s changed other than they have stopped smoking.”
As with keeping a lush, green lawn, “with periodontal disease, there is no endpoint of treatment,” he reiterates. “It’s constant, ongoing daily maintenance on the individual’s part.”
For more information, you may contact Emil Verban, Jr., DDS at 309-662-8448 or visit www.mcleancountydental.com. McLean County Dental is located at 2103 E. Washington Street in Bloomington. Dr. Verban provides his patients both general dentistry expertise and the ability to provide specialized services such as cosmetic procedures and dental implants.
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