Us folks born from Greatest Generation parents had a whole different dental environment as kids, and as a result face different challenges than younger folks do.
Sugar Corn Pops, Sugar Smacks, Kool Aid (2 quarts water, 1 cup sugar), … you get the idea. Fluoride toothpastes were pretty new on the market. Our parents were raised in the Great Depression and going to the dentist to them was often to just get something pulled, meaning there was no culture of regular preventive visits. There was no such thing as dental insurance to encourage visits. Water fluoridation has really not taken hold yet, so often we simply did not get enough in our diets to properly form our adult teeth. That made for enamel much easier to breakdown when confronted with dental plaque.
In the end, we ended up with a lot more decay and dental infections requiring things like silver mercury amalgam fillings and crowns. However well done they were, over time amalgam fillings corrode and start to leak and allow bacteria back into the interior of the tooth. Gums often recede around crowns exposing the softer root surfaces to plaque bacteria and creation of air gaps between teeth that will trap food particles to feed the bacteria we all have in our mouths.
Our mouths naturally get drier as we get older, both from reduced saliva output that occurs with aging, and from the many medications we take to keep the ticker ticking and our moods balanced. Saliva dilutes the bacterial products that attack the teeth, so we end up with higher risk teeth and less natural defense to protect them. On top of that, there is probably lots of dentistry we got in our thirties and forties that is dying of old age and will need replacement for any number of reasons, often because the exposure of our roots in the dry mouth situation results in perfectly a good dental restoration to basically have it’s foundation undermined by root surface decay. Sort of like little tooth beavers gnawing on the trees.
So, without excellent hygiene and regular checking to find problems when they are small problems, much more complicated and invasive treatment is needed to repair them, if they are indeed repairable. Dental implants are great, but it would be nice to avoid the need.
We offer our Envisia Plus program to reduce the cost and encourage regular care for those who lost their dental insurance when they retired. We welcome new patients, so feel free to give us a call.
Dr. Bob
