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Why it is important to choose a good dentist.

Your teeth are as much a part of your body as your fingers and toes. They do not regenerate like hair, or nails. Once you lose an adult tooth, it is gone for the rest of your life — the way your finger, or an arm or leg would be gone for the rest of your life if you lost it. Yet some people seem to view teeth much like they view fingernails, rather than the way they view fingers. There are cultural factors that contribute to this way of viewing teeth; however this view is not supported by scientific knowledge. Only the thin outer enamel layer of a tooth is comparable to a fingernail.

The same insurance that covers your fingers, if you injure them, or if their function is affected by a disease, should, by all standards of common sense, also cover your teeth. But very often it doesn't.

Your teeth are multifunctional. They are a vital part of your digestive system . They also are a vital part of your ability to communicate via facial expression and to communicate via spoken language. Furthermore, dental and peridontal problems can impact your other vital organs, including your heart, kidneys, and liver. There is a good deal of research showing that dental infections can lead to coronary artery disease, pericarditis, and death.

Digestion can start as soon as you even think about food. Or it may start as soon as you smell food, or put it in your mouth. Any of these events will cause the first part of digestion to occur: secretion of digestive fluids within the mouth, and perhaps even in other parts of the digestive system.

After those digestive secretions start, the second step in digestion is biting and chewing. Good chewing enables your mouth and the rest of your digestive system to get the most nutrition from the food. Good chewing creates particles of a good size for the rest of your digestive system to work on — by chemical break-down of the food, and by physical movements of the stomach and intestines. You cannot chew food without securely attached teeth. Removable dentures just do not work as well as securely and relatively permanently attached restorations.

Chewing also strengthens the tissues that hold your teeth in place. This is similar to how muscles grow and become stronger with exercise; the peridontal ligaments that attach your teeth to your bones become stronger with chewing. Chewing helps your teeth remain securely attached to your body. While chewing can cause slightly loose teeth to become a bit looser, they will generally tighten up again, to the optimum amount. The peridontal ligaments serve not only as attachment fibers, but also serve as shock absorbers between the teeth and the bone surrounding the teeth.

Numerous studies have shown that people having a good set of natural teeth, or having teeth that have been restored with good quality permanently affixed fillings and restorations, have a better quality of life than those people who are missing teeth, and those people who have removable restorations. Not only that -- they also live longer.

Many organs are multifunctional. For example the palatine tonsils not only function as immune system glands; they also contribute to the structure and shape of the pharynx, to maintain the pharynx at an ideal shape for swallowing comfortably, for directing a bolus of food in the proper direction. Similarly, teeth do more than help us chew, and contribute to facial gestures and spoken language. Teeth also serve to maintain bone shape and bone density of the upper and lower jawbone, so as to make it suffiently strong for biting and chewing. Without teeth, the jawbones get smaller in size, and thinner. They become weaker both in terms of thickness, and bone density. In maintaining the size and density of the maxillary bone and mandible bone, teeth not only make biting and chewing better, but also improve the bone and muscle contours of one's face. A person's facial expression affect how other people respond to the person as a whole.

Biologists and behavioral scientists tend to agree that babies are have an inherited ability to recognize and respond to faces and facial expressions, including an inherited ability to understand the difference between a smile and a frown. It seems certain that much of what we learn from people, by observing their faces — is something we know from the moment we are born, rather than something we learn over time. And no-one could argue against the idea that healthy looking teeth communicate a healthy, vital state of being. And, not incidentally, teeth, along with healthy facial bone structure, communicate this healthy, vital state of being, more so than hair or nails. In addition, being happy about one's appearance, can lead one to have a true smile. A true smile, combined with healthy-looking teeth and face, encourages other people to respond to us positively. Healthy teeth that help people respond to us better can truly affect the quality of lives, much the way healthy teeth that help us bite, chew, and digest food, better, can affect the quality of our lives. Both ways, healthy teeth help us take a bite out of life.

Modern dentistry can help improve both aspects of our teeth, appearance and function. There is generally no need to sacrifice chewing ability to maximize our appearance. And for the most part, restoring teeth to good appearance does not require a lot more labor and materials or cost, than restoring them to good chewing ability.

Choosing a dentist.

However choosing a dentist can make a big difference. Not all dentists are willing or able to do dental work which meets what are the generally accepted standards of good practice, in the modern world. These standards are sometimes in conflict with cultural and economic values. Cultural values retained from 60 years ago or longer, before the development of tooth-saving root canal procedures, and before improvements in peridontal care, tend to lead some people to accept a lower standard of care than the modern standard actually is, and to regard teeth more like hair or nails, than like fingers and toes. Our belief is that care for the teeth should be not be valued less, culturally or economically, than care for other parts of your body — and a dentist's required training is on par with that of a doctor -- and way beyond the training of a hair esthetitician, or manicurist.

Most of the teeth that are extracted today, could easily have been saved. Many teeth are lost, not because modern dentistry did not have the capability to save them, but because of cultural values and consequent economic values. Those teeth were lost because today's standard of care — costs a tremendous amount for people whose income is low and who don't have adequate medical and dental insurance. The science and art of dental care is on par with that of medical care. But culturally and economically it is far far behind. Saving teeth instead of extracting them has been the standard of care, in dentistry, for over 60 years now, however culturally, and economically, in the United States, availabilty and delivery of dental care has lagged way behind availability and delivery of other medical care.

Once you have lost a tooth, it cannot be replaced. Teeth that have had less than modern standards of care can not only be lost, but can cause years of pain. No removable appliance provides anywhere near the same quality of life, as a good set of teeth. That is why you should do everything possible to choose a primary-care dentist and dental specialists who are commited to and capable of providing excellent care and service -- and accept nothing less. If you accept a lesser standard of care, it may not be possible to compensate, later on, for the problems this can cause. Once that tooth is gone, it is gone. Once your other teeth start moving around in response to the missing tooth, it is difficult and time-consuming, if not impossible, to correct the damage. It is important to get good care, from the start, as early as you can, and get things done right the first time.

Why Drs Magrisso and Beckstein provide excellent care: details of training, attitude, experience. They keep up with advances in dentistry. They have up-to-date equipment that enables better care. They have computerized their record keeping, both medical and financial. This saves man-hours f record keeping and enables them to keep costs down.

For example digital x-rays. They enable instant viewing. They can be stored in a much smaller place, in computer media. They take up much less office space. This helps keep costs down. They can be sent to another dentist, or your doctor, electronically, over the internet, in a moment.

Details of what Magrisso and Beckstein's office environment is like, and what equipment they have.

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