One of the many ways our dentist, Dr. Jessica Manske can use laser dentistry to help you achieve a healthier, happier smile is with laser bacterial reduction in Los Angeles, California.
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 procedure to your routine cleaning care to help fight periodontal disease.
Gum and bone disease affects approximately 80% of adults and is a growing epidemic in our society. Understanding of this disease has increased greatly over the last few years. Periodontal disease is a bacterial infection in the pockets around teeth. Now, we not only treat gum disease by removing mechanical irritants and diseased tissue (your normal cleaning or a deep cleaning), but also address the underlying infection that causes it. With that thought in mind, we recommend that all of our patients have their teeth decontaminated prior to cleaning appointments for three major reasons.
1. To reduce or eliminate potential infections. 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 can’t cause harm. 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. Needless to say, anything that we can do to reduce or eliminate these potential infections is in our patients’ best interest.
2. To prevent cross-contamination of infections in one area of your mouth to other areas. Decontamination minimizes the chance that we may pick up bacterial infection in one area of your mouth and move it to another.
3. To kill periodontal disease bacteria and stop infection before they cause physical destruction of gum and bone around your teeth.
The laser decontamination process is painless and normally takes about 10 minutes. We highly recommend that you take advantage of this service as part of your routine cleaning.
Laser decontamination is NOT covered by insurance. Unfortunately, insurance coverage is almost always behind the leading edge in high tech healthcare.
Please ask your hygienist if you have any questions regarding this treatment. For more information, and to schedule your appointment, call Melody Dentistry for Kids at 424-322-4780 today.
