Integrative Dental Medicine

Integrative dental medicine may be defined as the art and science of blending the best of conventional restorative and preventive dentistry with a systems approach to the treatment of the whole patient as well as the physical disorder. It is an understanding of how dental diseases and systemic diseases inter-relate. It means asking, "what type of patient has this illness, rather than what type of illness afflicts this patient." A conservative restorative approach is often best here.

Our oral health is often an indicator of our general health and there is a statistically significant association between oral infection (periodontal disease) and cardiovascular disease, diabetes, spontaneous pre-term births, and stress (Genco). Many medications, illnesses, and treatment modalities can cause a decrease in saliva flow with resultant potential for rampant caries and periodontitis.

There is a growing body of evidence-based science suggesting that chronic stress depresses our immune system, especially in areas of lymphocyte production and natural killer cell activity - white blood cells necessary to fight infection and disease, and that as much as 80% of all illness may be stress-related. This is the realm of psychoneuroimmunology - how our emotions affect our immunity. About half of us seem to naturally cope with stress well, while others do not, and the impact to our overall health can be profound. Often how patients cope with chronic stress is a common underlying factor in the outcome of both the dental and systemic illness.

Integrative medicine, in general, stresses prevention, self-care, and establishing healing partnerships by recognizing all parts of the body - the spiritual and emotional, as well as the physical. It is essentially the "weaving of the best of the scientific and the intuitive, the ancient and the modern, the clinical and the caring to facilitate the emergence of a new medical system, a new paradigm, that provides the most effective healthcare available in a form individually crafted to each person and their particular needs with a minimum of risk of side effects and a maximum of patient understanding and self-empowerment (IBIS)." This is what we try to bring to our dental practice, and our vision of what an ideal fee-for-service dental practice can be in the future.

The following ideas on our approach to mind/body health all have a sound medical and scientific basis, and are all thoroughly researched. Sources are provided for the quoted authors. Among the things that we and the "wellness" community believe are: