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Best /best/ adj. 1. Of the most excellent, effective or desirable type or quality.
What is the BEST dentistry? And where can you get it? These two questions are important, and lucky for you, easily answered. What is the best dentistry and where can you get it? At my office of course! Wink, wink. Completely kidding, I swear. Seriously, I’m totally kidding. So what’s the answer? The best dentistry you can ever receive is……. No dentistry. Want even better news? Where can you get the best dentistry? You don’t need to go searching for it. You already have it, you were born with it (in most cases, excluding rare genetic and development influences). Wait, What?!. Did a dentist just say the best dentistry is no dentistry? Yep, I did. But let me clarify. When I say dentistry, what I’m talking about is irreversible work a dentist does to your teeth like fillings, crowns, root canals, implants, periodontal surgery. I’m not talking about preventative care like regular cleanings, fluoride treatments, sealants, having braces to align your teeth in better positions for cleaning. Is all this work needed, absolutely! Many dentists around the world, including myself, do this work daily because there is such a need. But, the point I’m trying to make is most of us (all but a very small percentage) are born with the best. Naturally. We are extremely lucky in this country to have access to amazing dental technology. We can even replace individual teeth now with dental implants (I have one!). But hands down nothing is as good as your original teeth. Every time a tooth gets a filling or a crown or has a root canal it gets weaker from a loss of natural tooth structure. Also, everything has a life, everything breaks down. Meaning, once you have a filling, that filling will breakdown in the future. It will need to be replaced. Your crown will eventually breakdown, as well as your root canal, your implant, and all dental work will need to be replaced in the future. This leads to a cycle of needing work and then replacing that work once it starts to break down. Again, this work is vital to keeping our teeth for a long time, and it’s inevitable that at some point in your life you will probably need some dental work. But less is more. If you can delay your first filling until you’re 22, as opposed to 7, then you’re buying longevity of your natural teeth and pushing out the eventual breakdown even further. None of our fillings or crowns or even implants are as good as natural teeth. It gets better, we know how and can prevent the need for ever needing dental work. If, at starting from a young age, you visit the dentist for regular cleanings, expose your teeth to the recommended amount of fluoride, get sealants and brush your teeth daily we can almost guarantee you will not need extensive dental work throughout your life. The less dental work you need throughout your life because your teeth and mouth are healthy, the better for your teeth, the better for your overall health, and the better for your wallet. In the following posts, I’m going to clarify the different parts of our mouths, talk about their importance, and explain how you can preserve those amazing natural teeth we're given for free!
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The purpose of this blog is to........you guessed it........simplify dentistry so people without a dental degree can have a better understanding of their mouth, teeth, and dentistry in general. Even though I grew up with a dentist for a father, and I attended fours years of dental school, many dental topics didn't make sense until I witnessed them everyday in my practice. In today's world, we're bombarded by information. So much information, and so much junk information, it can be hard to sift through the bulk and focus on what's important. My goal is to help quiet the noise and give useful, practical information to improve your dental life which will help improve your total life. Everyday patients ask me questions like: "Why do I need to replace that tooth?" or "My tooth doesn't hurt, why do I need to fix it?". Often when I'm asked these questions, I want to say well.......it would take a two year course with hours of instruction and reading to answer your question, but I'll try to explain it in 10 minutes. Over my years of practice, I've come to the conclusion that if patients understood why their dentist was recommending various needed (not elective) treatments they would say yes almost 100% of the time. The purpose of this blog is to do that, to simplify dentistry so everyone can understand it.
If you have a dental question, or a question about the dental profession in general, you can email me at [email protected] and those questions will influence the topics I present here. Obviously, I cannot diagnose anyone's individual dental problem through an email. This is not meant to be a replacement for your dentist. People are unique. Each tooth is unique. Because of those two facts, it makes it virtually impossible to diagnose through email so I won't be answering any of those individual treatment questions. However, if you have a question about fluoride I can answer that......how about silver versus white fillings? How often should people get their teeth cleaned? So feel free to ask. I look forward to hearing from you. |
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