Month: June 2019

Although cancer treatment has advanced steadily in recent decades, the most used therapies continue to be radiation and chemotherapy to eradicate cancerous cells. And while they often work, both can cause “collateral damage” in healthy tissues near the targeted cells.

This can create a number of indirect consequences for a patient’s health, including in the mouth. The salivary glands, for example, can be damaged by radiation treatments aimed at the head or neck. The effect on these glands can interrupt the normal flow of saliva and cause xerostomia or “dry mouth.”

Lack of adequate saliva causes more than an unpleasant, sticky mouth feeling. One of saliva’s main functions is to neutralize acid that builds up naturally after eating. Without it, high acid levels can cause enamel and root surface erosion and lead to tooth decay.

Cancer treatment can also contribute to gastro-esophageal reflux disease (GERD). This disease causes stomach acid to bypass the natural tissue barriers of the esophagus and enter the mouth. As with dry mouth, the increased acid level from GERD can be just as devastating to enamel—and the damage will be permanent.

To minimize these effects on your dental health, it’s important to take proactive steps before, during and after cancer treatment. If at all possible, have any needed dental work performed before you begin radiation or chemotherapy—it’s better to start it with teeth and gums as healthy as possible.

During treatment, try to continue regular dental visits to monitor your oral health and receive any needed preventive or therapeutic treatments. Depending on your condition and the advice of your dentist, you may need to increase your visit frequency during this time. Your dentist can help with boosting your saliva production and strengthening your tooth enamel. But you should also practice daily brushing and flossing, drink plenty of water and seek treatment for any resulting GERD symptoms.

Even with the best efforts, though, your teeth and gums may still incur damage while treating your cancer. Fortunately, there are a wide array of materials and procedures that can effectively restore them to health. So, once your treatments are completed consult with a dentist on your options for improving the health and appearance of your teeth and gums.

If you would like more information on caring for your teeth while undergoing intensive medical treatment, please contact us or schedule an appointment for a consultation.

You’re not just a patient to your dentist—you’re also a partner for achieving your best oral health possible. And it takes what both of you do to achieve it.

No doubt your dentist always strives to bring their “A Game” when providing you care. You should carry the same attitude into your personal oral hygiene—to truly master the skill of brushing.

Like its equally important counterpart flossing, brushing isn’t mechanically complicated—you need only a minimum of dexterity to perform it. But there are nuances to brushing that could mean the difference between just adequate and super effective.

The goal of both brushing and flossing is to clean the teeth of dental plaque, a built-up film of bacteria and food particles most responsible for dental diseases like tooth decay and periodontal (gum) disease. Brushing removes plaque from the broad front and back surfaces of teeth, while flossing removes it from between teeth where a toothbrush can’t reach.

While a lot of cleaning tasks require bearing down with a little “elbow grease,” that’s unnecessary with brushing—in fact, you may increase your risk of gum recession if you brush too vigorously or too often. All you need is to apply a gentle, circular motion along all tooth surfaces from the gum line to the top of the tooth—a thorough brushing usually takes about two minutes, once or twice a day.

Your equipment is also important. Be sure your toothbrush is soft-bristled, multi-tufted and with a head small enough to maneuver comfortably inside your mouth. Because the bristles wear and eventually lose their effectiveness, change your brush about every three months. And be sure your toothpaste contains fluoride to help strengthen your enamel.

One last tip: while it may sound counterintuitive, don’t brush immediately after a meal. Eating increases the mouth’s acidity, which can temporarily soften the minerals in tooth enamel. If you brush right away you might slough off tiny bits of softened enamel. Instead, wait an hour before brushing to give your saliva time to neutralize the acid and help re-mineralize your enamel.

Unlike your dentist partner, your role in caring for your teeth doesn’t require years of training. But a little extra effort to improve your brushing proficiency could increase your chances for a healthy mouth.

If you would like more information on best practices for personal oral hygiene, please contact us or schedule an appointment for a consultation. You can also learn more about this topic by reading the Dear Doctor magazine article “10 Tips for Daily Oral Care at Home.”

Every year U.S. dentists perform around 25 million root canal treatments and save countless teeth from the ravages of decay. But if you search “root canal” on the Internet, you might encounter an unsettling charge against this tooth-saving treatment—that it causes cancer.

Root canal treatments are routinely used when tooth decay has infected the pulp, the innermost layer of a tooth. During the procedure, we access the pulp and remove all the infected tissue. We then fill the empty pulp and root canals, seal the access hole and later crown the tooth to prevent further infection. Without this intervention, the decay can continue to advance toward the roots and supporting bone, putting the tooth in imminent danger of loss.

So, is there any credibility to this claim that root canal treatments cause cancer? In a word, no: there’s no evidence of any connection between root canal treatments and cancer—or any other disease for that matter. On the contrary: root canals stop disease.

As with other types of urban legends and internet hype, the root canal-cancer connection may have arisen from another discredited idea from the early 20th Century. A dentist named Weston Price promoted the notion that leaving a “dead” organ in the body led to health problems. From his perspective, a root canaled tooth with its removed pulp tissue fit this criterion.

In the mid-1950s, dentistry thoroughly examined Dr. Weston’s theory pertaining to treatments like root canals. The Journal of the American Dental Association devoted an entire issue to it and found after rigorous scientific inquiry that the theory had no validity in this regard. Another study in 2013 confirmed those findings. In fact, the later study instead found that patients who underwent a root canal treatment had a 45 percent reduction in oral cancer risk.

Given the freewheeling nature of the Internet, it’s best to speak with a dental professional about your oral health before trusting a post or article you’ve found online. Not only are they more informed than an unverified online source, they would certainly not knowingly subject you to a procedure to save a tooth at the expense of your health.

If you would like more information on root canal treatment, please contact us or schedule an appointment for a consultation. You can also learn more about this topic by reading the Dear Doctor magazine article “Root Canal Safety.”