Laser-Assisted
Periodontal Therapy
Mary Lynn Smith, R.D.H. Periodontal management
visits can be a dreaded appointment. You're listening to your patient's
description of an awful taste and now a particular tooth hurts when
chewing. As you recline the chair, you hold your breath and hope the
pockets haven't gotten deeper and the bleeding sites haven't increased.
The examination, however, confirms that another tooth is lost to
periodontal disease.
Conventional periodontal treatments,
unfortunately, only buy a little time. This extended time is only
effective when extensive home care regimens are completed.
I hated telling my patients they weren't
getting better knowing they were spending 30 minutes or more every day
ridding themselves of plaque. Worse, I could tell that some threw in the
towel and decided it didn't matter what they did at home. Their infection
increased. Today,
we have something better: lasers> With soft tissue lasers we can provide
modulation therapy by decontaminating the pocket to such an extend that
the body can actually quit fighting itself and begin to rebuild. Together
with root debridement procedures, the laser is giving us results to feel
good about. I see characteristics indicating healthy tissue more
consistently than with conventional methods. Tissue is coral pink,
stippled, with sharp, not rolled, margins.
To see just how good
the results were, I launched an informal study of patients who had
received periodontal root debridement treatment. I began by comparing the
data from the comprehensive periodontal evaluation collected at each
visit: total bleeding sites, 4 mm+ pockets, and number of teeth affected
with disease. The
comparison of these categories before and after laser-assisted therapy was
astonishing. I found 60 percent less bleeding, 74 percent pocket
reduction, and 61 percent fewer teeth affected with disease. This
consistent improvement through laser-assisted therapy has been exciting
for both our patients and our overall practice. Patients know they are
getting better and want to come back for their periodontal management
visits. They no longer have the hopeless feeling that surgery, with weeks
of discomfort and tooth sensitivity, is required to save their teeth.
Because current research has found that
periodontal disease impacts the whole body, being able to help my patients
achieve and maintain better overall health makes going to work something
to look forward to. I want to make sure every person who shows signs of
periodontal infection has the option of the best treatment available.
Laser-assisted periodontal therapy is proving to be just that—the best
treatment.
(This article was originally published in
Aesthetic Dentistry, Winter 2005 issue.)
Mary Lynn Smith, R.D.H. is a member of the ADHA, Kansas DHA,
International Congress of Oral Implantology, and the Academy of Laser
Dentistry. She has over ten years of dental experience as a hygienist.
Mary Lynn works for Dr. Jon Julian in McPherson, Kansas.
To find books about periodontal therapy,
click here.
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