BIOMIMETIC DENTISTRY SAVES TEETH

Avoid Root Canals & Crowns If At All Possible

Following is the transcript for the above video.

Avoid Crowns and Root Canals

Did you know that you never actually need a crown or a root canal? This is something that really bothers me, it's one of my pet peeves. When a patient comes in and tells me a dentist told them you need a root canal, well, let's talk a little bit about what both of them are, why or why not you might need them, or want to get one, and what's so bad about them, why you would maybe want to avoid them and what your options are. There is something called biomimetic Dentistry, which means that we're mimicking nature; we're recreating what nature gave us. Well both the root canal and a crown are actually not mimicking nature. We want to increase the strength of the tooth. We want to increase the resilience and the longevity of the tooth. We want to improve the function of the tooth and if possible we'd like to make it even look a little bit better. So there are issues with both root canals and crowns in this arena. Let's talk about root canals first. When a root canal is done, the inside of the tooth where the nerve and the blood vessel lives, is cleaned out and filled up. Unfortunately, there are all sorts of little tubes that go off of that main canal that's cleaned and filled that cannot be cleaned or filled, so dead tissue remains. What this does is leads to an area that is very susceptible to infection. That dead tissue always attracts bugs and those bugs start to create little communities all around the dead tissue, which we call an infection. That infection then starts to destroy the bone in the area. This is especially problematic for root canals, because the nerve is gone. You can't feel it. Your early warning system about these problems is actually missing. So a lot of times the infection spreads throughout your body, but particularly into the jaw bone. And you don't actually even know it's happening. This is going to jeopardize the longevity of the tooth. It's going to affect your overall health and a root canal procedure all on its own actually weakens the tooth. The tooth is hollowed out. There's kind of a core drilled through the center of it. It's more brittle. It's not alive anymore. There's no blood flow and it's very prone to breaking, which is why after a root canal is done, typically it's recommended to do a crown, because you have this hollowed out brittle tooth left that has to have something over it to support it and strengthen it. If a tooth that has had a root canal doesn't have a crown, frequently the tooth ends up breaking and often it breaks in a way that it's no longer restorable. You can't actually put a crown on later, so these are two bad fills. Basically, when a root canal is done, pretty much always the crown is done after ,so ideally we would avoid the root canal entirely. Right. I'm going to tell you how we can do that. Let's talk about the crown second. Sometimes it is on a tooth that has had a root canal, but often times it's on a tooth that just has an old big filling. It has a big cavity. It has something that's broken off, you know. Let's say a front tooth that lost a chunk, because you fell and broke the tooth, so then a dentist again tells you you need a crown. Well let's talk about, do you really need it or not? A crown is a little different than a root canal. A crown is meant to be supportive or to strengthen the tooth. However, if the tooth still has enough strength on its own, if there's still enough tooth structure, there's still enough enamel, there's still enough left, there's still cusps left, there's still enough there, then my preference is not to do a crown, because let me explain what we do. When we do a crown, the tooth is here. To do a crown we have to make space all the way around the tooth for the material, for the porcelain, that the crown is made of, as well as room on the top of the tooth for the material, so in order to do that, we have to remove tooth structure all the way around and all the way across to the top. And it's a fairly significant amount of tooth structure that we have to remove a millimeter to a millimeter and a half of enamel is removed from the tooth all the way around. Well on most teeth that's all the enamel they have, so I like to think of this as removing all the insulation, all the protection, and all that's left behind is the dentin and the nerve, which is going to be sensitive. First of all, this is why it has to be covered over, but it's also going to be more prone to being sensitive. Even that trauma alone may kill the tooth. The tooth may end up dying, because of the crown procedure that's done. Not only that, but bonding, or the way that we glue the crown on, works best if we can glue it to enamel, but remember, I told you we just removed all the enamel, so what are we gluing it to? We're gluing it to the dentin. And those bonds, the gluing potential or strength between dentin and a material, a dental material, is much less than it is to enamel. So you're chewing with this Crown, it's rocking around, doing these kinds of things, and often a little leak will form, a seal will break, because that bond or that glue isn't very strong, the seal will break. It will start to leak and you get new cavities underneath the crown. You can't clean underneath there. We can't see underneath there and we don't know if the cavity is quite large. These are the issues with crowns and root canals. It often leads down a typical path. A tooth goes from healthy tooth, nothing wrong, small cavity, small filling, bigger cavity, bigger filling, crown, root canal, tooth is lost and you end up doing a replacement of some variety. This is shown in literature over and over and over again. The life cycle of a tooth once a crown or a root canal has started, most likely that tooth will be lost at some point in that tooth's future. Can we avoid all of this? The answer is yes. This is such great information and I will love that I'm able to share it with you, this biomimetic Dentistry that we're talking about. We want to mimic nature. So let's go back to the root canal. What can we do instead? Well a root canal is usually done when the nerve is affected or infected. Now what are the differences between those two things? Affected means, let's say you've had a break on your tooth, a crack on the tooth, and the nerve is hypersensitive now, because it's exposed. The nerve itself isn't exposed, but there's tooth structure there that's exposed, and that tooth structure has little tubes that go directly to the nerve, so it's hypersensitized. It hurts, it's sensitive, it's hot-cold sensitive, those kinds of things. Well in that case, if the tooth is just affected, there's something we can do about it. The other side of the coin is if the tooth is infected. What that means is a cavity or something has gone all the way to the nerve of the tooth and it's actually already killed the nerve inside of the tooth and there is already bacteria growth inside of that nerve tissue and that root canal area, so once a tooth is infected, it's already dead and it already has bacteria growing there. The option of choice is going to be to remove and replace that tooth. Now you might think that that sounds really drastic, but I told you, if you do a root canal, it's heading that direction anyway, but you may be very ill, because of it, in between the time that the root canal was done and the tooth was removed, so what we say is, let's just remove it now before that impact has happened to the rest of your body. Remove and replace it the right way, because your body is healthier now than it's going to be down the road, if this is reinfected. So that's the infected side. The other side is the one that we really want to talk about. If the tooth is just affected, it's sensitive, it's cold, it's hot sensitive, it hurts a little to bite on, but the tooth is still alive, we know it's still alive. This may because of a break, it may because of a deep cavity. Most commonly it's going to be because of a deep cavity. Well this is where we are able to fix a tooth that has the nerve exposed, meaning we can actually see the nerve inside of the tooth. It will often lead to death. That tooth will die. The idea is, we don't want to expose the nerve tissue if at all possible, so what we do is we remove the cavity down to the point where the nerve is right there, but we haven't exposed it yet, we haven't uncovered it yet. Now there might still be a little layer of decayed tooth right on top of it. We can treat that. We use ozone and ozone kills all bacteria, doesn't matter what it is, it'll kill it. We use ozone to treat that little thin layer of decayed tooth right on top of the nerve, treat right there and kill all the bacteria. What that does is it makes that tooth structure no longer infected. There's no bacteria in it anymore. It's not going to spread any further. We treat it, we kill it and then we fill on top of it. The beautiful thing is, now we preserved the tooth. The nerve is exposed and the tooth is able to heal itself and continue living. Once it continues living, we have other options for how to replace the missing part. If you have a lot missing, we have a lot of people come to us just for this one thing alone. They say my dentist told me I needed, remember I hate that word, I need a root canal. What do you say my first question always out of my mouth is? Does the tooth still hurt? Is it still sensitive? If it is, I am so happy, yes I'm so glad that tooth is so sensitive. Why? Because that means the tooth's still alive. We also have ways to check the vitality, to see if the tooth is still alive or not. We take the x-rays of course. If it's still alive, we have a great shot of saving it. We do what I just explained to you. We remove the cavity down to the deepest part, don't expose the nerve, ozone it, fill over top of it, and rebuild the tooth. We have about a 95% success rate in this instance, that we don't have to kill the tooth in order to save the tooth, which is amazing. And you know it's interesting that 60% of traditional crowns and root canals can actually be avoided. Just because that tooth is affected doesn't mean it needs a root canal. Let's save the tooth. Now once the tooth is saved, you've rebuilt it with a filling material, it might not be enough, so then a dentist might say you need a crown. At this point, because there's not a lot of tooth structure left, here's the key. How much is left? If there's still a cusp tip, meaning if one of those bumps on the tooth is still alive, is still there, if there's still a front or a back of the tooth that the cavity hasn't extended onto, if there's still a significant amount of tooth left, then it doesn't need a crown. We do something called an onlay, that's much more conservative. What an onlay is is we remove just the affected portion of the tooth, we clean it out, we strengthen it, and then we cover over just that portion, so rather than taking off tooth all the way around and all the way across the top to put a crown over the whole thing, we just clean up and shape around the parts that are already missing because of the cavity, because of the break, whatever it might be, and we just cover over those portions. So it's more conservative and you keep the enamel. Remember the enamel is that insulation, it's that protective piece that you really need. We're able to prevent you needing a crown, which often prevents the tooth from dying in the future, and then that whole downward spiral that we talked about. This is absolutely huge. So this kind of dentistry, what it really does is, it intervenes between what Nature has given you, what you know, what you were presented with, and what we do to keep a tooth from being lost in the future, we stop it here. We say what can we do? Can we treat it with ozone so we keep the tooth alive? Can we cover it with an onlay and keep it healthy? I love doing this kind of dentistry. It preserves the natural tooth structure. It minimize the stress on the tooth. It's presenting you with a lot of long-term benefits, including keeping this tooth around. So how do you find a qualified biomimetic dentist? Somebody that can do this kind of thing? Well first of all, ask dentists these questions. Do you do onlays? Is that something you do? Do you use ozone in your office? Can you do that? They do need some specialized training and that's why I have my directory to direct you to people that have more of the training that's going to qualify them to be able to do this kind of dentistry. This is the sort of thing that gets us excited here at Total Care Dental, because we're able to save teeth that other people said were impossible to save. And if we can save teeth, then a lot of times it's going to save your health as well. Learn about these different things that you can be asking dentists for and ways to save your teeth by just mimicking Nature's design. We are able to rebuild your tooth, preserve your tooth, preserve its function, its structure, its strength, and the way it looks for hopefully the rest of your life. Thank you for allowing me to share about Biomimetic Dentistry. This is something you need to know about.

Finding a Qualified Biomimetic Dentist