Biolase Laser Treatment

BIOLASE® has given us the ability to offer our patients the best care possible, from treatments to improve dental hygiene to alternative, less invasive treatments for many other procedures. This means it can result in shorter healing times, eliminating more bacteria in the mouth and less post operative pain.

At Schara Dentistry, we are always learning and striving to advance the standard of patient care in our office. As such we have recently added a new procedure to your routine cleaning care to help fight periodontal disease. Periodontal disease affects approximately 80% of adults and is a growing epidemic in our society.  Understanding of this disease has increased  greatly over the last few years.  We now  know that Periodontal Disease is a bacterial infection in the pockets around teeth.  As such,  we now not only treat Perio with removal of mechanical irritants and diseased tissue (your normal cleaning) but are also addressing the underlying infection that causes  it.  With that thought in mind we recommend  that all  of our patients  have their teeth decontaminated prior to cleaning appointments for three major reasons.

1. To reduce or eliminate bacteremia. During the normal cleaning process most patients will have some areas that may bleed, this allows bacteria that are present in all of our mouths to flood into the bloodstream and sometimes settle in weakened areas of our body such as a damaged heart valve or artificial knee  or hip etc.  We pre-medicate  those patients that we know have heart condition or artificial joints with antibiotics so that these bacteria can’t cause harm to these areas.  Latest research shows that these oral pathogens have now been linked to a number of other diseases such as cardiovascular disease, rheumatoid arthritis, low birth weight babies, diabetes etc.  Needless to say anything that we can do to reduce or eliminate these bacteremias is a positive for our patients.

2. To prevent cross contamination of infections in one area of your mouth to other areas.  Decontamination minimizes the chance that we may inadvertently pick up  bacterial infection in one area of your mouth and move it to others.  

3. To kill periodontal disease bacteria and stop their infections before they cause physical destruction or loss of attachment around your teeth.

The laser decontamination process is painless and normally takes about 5 minutes.  We highly recommend that you take advantage of this service as part of your routine cleaning. Be sure to ask your hygienist about LBR at your next routine cleaning visit!