Dental Practice Heroes:
Daniel Gordon
Daniel Gordon is the Implant Treatment Coordinator at North Raleigh Periodontics in Raleigh, NC. He has been diligently working with them for almost 3 years as their local implant representative. Daniel joined the practice in 2019 in the role of Implant Treatment Coordinator. He is the man behind the curtain ensuring the practice has everything they need to provide the best periodontal treatment for their patients.
Periodontal disease is the number one health problem in the world, the number one cause of tooth loss in adults. It can be life-threatening because of the systemic response or the inflammatory response that occurs with the bacteria that causes periodontal disease. To control oral health, you are also controlling systemic health. So, the two go hand in hand. You brush and floss not only to help your gum tissues to be healthy, but also overall health.
When I speak to patients, I ask them, what do they think causes periodontal disease? I say, "There's one word." And most of the time they say, "Well, I don't know," or they say “food” or “genetics.” I say, "No, it's bacteria." Trying to educate the patient to understand is the nature of the beast. You can have a filling done, you're done. You have a crown done, you're done. With periodontal disease, it's an ongoing treatment. It's the removal of bacteria daily. And that's a very difficult concept for patients to understand when they don't feel it and it doesn't hurt. They don't know they have a problem. Most of the time they come in and say, "I don't know why I'm here. I don't notice a problem."
Generally, when you educate a patient about what periodontal disease is, they want to pursue treatment. There are different levels of treatment. I call it the golf bag of treatment options; you pick out the right club at the right time. You don't need to be aggressive. It's really simple to treat gum disease. You just physically manipulate the plaque. Above the gum is the patient, below the gum is what we do, and there's several options for treatment. I try to diagnose the problem, give a prognosis, and give the treatment for the patient. Their systemic health, their factors, medication they take will determine what we try to do. The most important part of understanding gum disease is what causes it and then how we treat you. Anything we do is going to help.
Perio Protect is an adjunct to oral hygiene. When we do periodontal treatment in the office, we get into areas that the patient can't get to. At home, a patient can't clean deeper than three millimeters, so the procedures we do here are geared to getting below the gum, removing the live bacteria, and removing the dead bacteria, the calculus that gets on the root of the tooth. If we go through treatment and we still have calculus on the root of the tooth we go through conventional therapy where we try to see it, remove it, and that's the regeneration procedure, laser assisted.
The Perio Protect trays come into play when I see we've done periodontal therapy and the patient is still bleeding with gum issues. We've exhausted all techniques, particularly the oral hygiene technique that the patient use. If a patient is experiencing manual dexterity issues or they are susceptible to gum deterioration, they grow the bacteria more aggressively than some people. The trays are a wonderful adjunct to active periodontal therapy, but also it's a long-term process as part of the brushing and flossing routine that they do daily. To be honest, everybody probably should have trays because it controls the bacterial growth. If a patient doesn’t have areas that are deep, using the trays routinely and brushes and flosses, we can have a better handle on treatment. The trays are good for people who have probing depths deeper than three millimeters, whether they've gone through treatment or not. It's an adjunct for hygiene and a great way to control bacterial growth.