Drilling may be on the way out
-at least out of your family's life-
if you heed the words of these dentists
PREVENTION has been talking to some dentists, and we have some
good news and some bad news. We're going to give you the good news
first.
The terror of the dentist's office, that buzzing nemesis that
sends
a chill through your very marrow even before it actually starts making
its way there in person - the dentist's drill - may soon be little more
than a
relic. Whereas the fearful drill is now actually a part of the
dentist's chair itself, in years to come the dentist may have to roll
the monster
out of the closet and wipe the dust off before putting it to occasional
use.
Sound like a PREVENTION editor's typewriter dream? (We don't
smoke pipes around here.) Actually, the fact that yopu could think of
such a thing as a dream bears out what one of the dentists we talked to
said. Robert O. Nara, D.D.S., from Houghton, Michigan,* told us,
"People almost universally believe the untruth that dental disease is
inevitable. The dental profession itself views disease as something to
be supressed but not effectively prevented." And when Dr. Nara says
prevention, he's not talking about the TV commercial's brand of
prevention.
"On TV you see this kid coming home from the dentist's
office
bragging that he only had one cavity this time. Then the commercial
recommends
that you see your dentist twice a year. Well, figure it out: If the kid
has
'only' one cavity at every checkup, and he goes twice a year from age
six
to 21, by the time he's 21 he'll have had 32 teeth filled! That's
prevention?
That's not preventing anything. It's just superficially
controlling it a bit," he maintains.
O.K., so prevention is something you expect to be talked
about in this magazine. Preventing dental disease is, of course, the
sure way
of keeping the drill out of your mouth. But there's more good news:
"Doctors, dentists and other people have no trouble understanding other
physical healing processes. Broken bones knit, cut tissues heal, hair
and fingernails grow back after being cut. The body restores itself
naturally. Why can't the sae thing happen with teeth?
That's quite a question and Dr. Nara wouldn't have asked it unless
he had a good answer. Apparently, the same thing can happen to
teeth.
How Does A Tooth Heal?
Dr. Nara told us just how
much healing could be expected from a
tooth: "It ranges from some little pinpoint cavities here and there all
the way
to a tooth that's rotted right off at the gum line, you're not going to
grow a whole new crown on it. The little ones will heal, remineralize
up to about two millimeters deep. What will happen in a tooth that is
severely decayed is that the stump will firm up. Instead of being soft
and mushy, it develops a leathery consistency. A healed tooth will
remain resistant to decay as long
as the oral conditions are beneficial."
Erling Johansen, D.M.D., Ph.D., a dental researcher at the
University of Rochester, also told PREVENTION that teeth can heal
themselves. "The
extent of remineralization depends on the location of the cavity. If
the
cavity is in an area where the saliva has access to it - and if you
have
sufficient saliva - that cavity can be hardened. The cavity won't
progress
any further. If the person decides he or she wants it filled for
aesthetic
reasons, you can just touch it up a bit. The drilling is much simpler,
then."
Well, that's the good news: Your trips to the dentist don't have
to
make you feel that enough oil to solve the energy crisis has been
discovered
somewhere in your jaw. But we did say there was some bad news, too.
Here
it is: There's no miraculous treatment or pill newly discovered that's
going
to prevent dental disease that's already there. There's no magic here -
other
than the magic of your body's natural healing powers.
Fortunately, there's more good news than bad. After we got the
good
news and the bad news from the dentists we talked to, we didn't let
them
get off that easy. we asked them how we could all make that good news
part
of our dental future.
Visual: 
Video: 
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