Laser Decontamination
Patient Introduction to Laser Bacterial Reduction
We are constantly learning and striving to advance the standard of patient care in our office. As such, we have recently added a new optional procedure to your routine dental cleaning to help fight periodontal disease.
Gum disease affects over 50% of adults and is a growing epidemic in our society. Understanding of this disease has increased greatly over the last few years. Gum Disease is a bacterial infection in the pockets around teeth. Our teeth cleaning appointments now treats Gum Disease with the removal of irritants manually (our standard hygiene appointment), but can also include a procedure that addresses the underlying infection that causes it.
With that in mind, we recommend that all of our patients
with a history of gum disease have their teeth decontaminated at every routine cleaning appointment for 3 major reasons:
- To kill periodontal disease bacteriaand stop their infections before they cause physical destruction or loss of attachment around your teeth. Studies have shown that Laser Decontamination reduces bacterial counts from billions CFU (colonies forming units) to only hundreds CFU’s. It will take up to 6 weeks for bacteria to reach again maximum capacity plateaus.
- To biostimulate new blood vessels, collagen, gum attachment and bone formation.
- To reduce or eliminate bacteriemias. During the normal cleaning process most patients will have some areas that may bleed, this allows bacteria that are present in all of our mouths to flood into the bloodstream and sometimes settle in weakened areas of our body such as a damaged heart valve or artificial knee or hip etc. We pre-medicate those patients that we know have a heart condition or artificial joints with antibiotics so that these bacteria cannot cause harm to these areas. Latest research shows that these oral pathogens have now been linked to a number of other diseases such as cardiovascular disease, rheumatoid arthritis, low birth weight babies, diabetes etc. Anything that we can do to reduce or eliminate these bacteriemias is a positive for our patients.
Bottom line:
The laser decontamination is a low-cost, highly effective and painless procedure that normally only takes about 5-10 minutes and is now, available at our office. At this time, it is not covered by insurance, but the low-cost ($24) makes it affordable at every cleaning. We recommend that you take advantage of this service, particularly if you have a history of gum disease, diabetes, or dry mouth syndrome.