Articles by or Featuring Corinne Scalzitti, D.M.D., M.A.G.D.
Healthy Living: Window to Health Often Opens With the Mouth
Although healthy teeth are an essential component of overall
wellness, public perception hasn't yet embraced dentists in the same strata as surgeons.
As more data connects oral health to heart disease, diabetes and stroke and
more patients suffer from sleep apnea, dentists are expanding their education
so they may see beyond the X-ray.
Technological advances in laser dentistry, porcelain veneers and oral cancer
screenings have propelled dentistry further into the modern medical age.
Although initial costs for lasers still take a bite out of dentists'
pocketbooks, their versatility and speed more than make up for the expense.
Lasers can remove fillings and heal blisters and ulcers. They also are highly
effective in shaping gums and treating gum disease with procedures taking less
time and patients healing more quickly.
Many dentists who use the lasers refuse to offer traditional
gum surgery. Bee Cave
dentist Corinne Scalzitti, DMD has attracted patients from as far away as Canada
for laser gum surgery.
"I love that. You couldn't take it away from me," Scalzitti said.
"The healing is magnificent."
"Now we can take a laser and go around the gums to help sterilize the gum
pockets to help eliminate that bacteria to promote healing," Patel said.
"That's a brand new thing we're bringing in."
"It is all interrelated," Lakeway dentist Dr. Tejas Patel said.
"As people make a conscious effort to get healthier by working out and
eating right, hopefully they are taking their mouths into consideration because
that is a window to their overall health."
Severe gum disease affects about 14 percent of adults ages 45 to 54, according
to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Oral cancer affects
about 5 percent of the U.S.
population, but if it goes untreated severe symptoms can include death.
Those who have a sore in their mouths or lips or lumps in the neck that do not
go away within one month should contact their health-care provider. Early
diagnosis and treatment of oral cancer greatly increases the chances of
survival.
Chewing tobacco and drinking heavily may put people at risk of oral cancer, but
it can be detected during routine cleanings and dental examinations by rinsing
with a staining solution such as ViziLite that glows under a blacklight when
abnormal tissue is present in the mouth. Some dentists may use a Velscope to
detect abnormalities.
"These devices help determine if it's something to worry about or
not," Patel said. "Those are getting more prevalent with more and
more offices."
More patients are coming in with complications related to sleep apnea, a
sleeping disorder that prohibits sufficient oxygen from reaching the body and
brain.
Breathing stops or gets very shallow. Each pause in breathing typically lasts
10 to 20 seconds or more, and these pauses may occur up to 30 times or more an
hour with patients gasping for air at night.
"If you are not breathing properly, you are not supporting and nourishing
your body organs," Patel said.
Snoring and fatigue are just some of the symptoms that not only lead to poor
health but strained relationships in which spouses sleep in different bedrooms.
Sleep apnea patients can fall asleep while driving or working.
"It can compromise their quality of life," Patel said.
Doctors frequently recommend CPAP, or Continuous Positive Airway Pressure
machines, that use masks and ventilations systems to supply oxygen, but many
patients find them uncomfortable or won't wear them.
Dentists can fit a patient with a nightguard or mouthguard that repositions the
jaw forward and restricts the tongue from collapsing back in the throat so air
may pass through the mouth more freely.
As more patients are coming in with health and image concerns relating to their
smiles, advances are being made in crafting more natural-looking, stronger
materials.
"We had beautiful, beautiful materials that were not very strong, and now
we are combining the strength and the beauty," said Scalzitti, who
specializes in cosmetic dentistry and dentures. "We're doing things now we
just weren't able to do before. We are getting so sophisticated."
Dentures popping out of the mouth while someone is eating or speaking is nearly
an embarrassment of the past. Implant dentures avoid erosion of bottom ridges,
a common problem for long-time denture wearers.
Many patients are getting porcelain crowns and porcelain veneers, which are
thin, custom-fitted facings that bond to each tooth to close spaces between
teeth, hide crooked or misshapen teeth, whiten stained teeth or improve the
appearance of chipped, cracked or worn teeth.
Some dentists have milling machines in their offices to scan, design and mill
crowns on site rather than sending photos to a lab for a crown to be made there
and shipped back to the office.
Patients are always looking for the latest dental procedures, but good oral
hygiene habits start as a child. Dental decay is the most prevalent disease
among elementary school absences after asthma.
The American Academy
of Pediatric Dentistry and American
Academy of Pediatrics
have launched a major initiative to have children visit dentists within six
months of getting their first primary teeth or by the time they turn 1 year
old.
The initiative, titled Dental Home, encourages a child's first trip to the
dentist similar to visiting a pediatrician for a well child exam.
"It used to be that parents were told, ‘Oh, when [their children] get all
their baby teeth, bring them in," said pediatric dentist Angie Hernandez,
DDS, co-owner of Hill Country Pediatric Dentistry. "But now, with that
shift and that new philosophy, we are hoping to focus more on prevention."
Pediatric dentists hope to put children on the road to oral health to turn the
tide of 2- and 3-year-olds who have mouthfuls of decayed teeth.
Hernandez' husband, Steve, recently treated a 95-pound 4-year-old girl in a
surgical operating room because her weight would have been a health risk if a dentist
attempted an in-office sedation.
"That's just a risk you shouldn't have to take to fix your teeth,"
she said. "Her teeth were badly decayed because she's probably on a total
sugar drink, carb diet."
Hernandez, who also serves as an operating room pediatric dentist, addresses
nutrition, diet counseling, other methods of prevention and teeth eruption
schedules with parents. She is also monitoring patients to look for other
systemic conditions such as diabetes, hand-foot-and-mouth disease and viral infections.
If something looks amiss, pediatric dentists are better equipped to get
children the proper care.
"We could say, ‘You know what, last time I saw Timmy I didn't see this,
but this time I'm a little concerned about this. You might want to call your
pediatrician and follow up on this," Hernandez said.
