January 27, 2024 • 20 mins
Discover the ripple effects of aging on your pearly whites as Dr. Alex joins us to unravel the intricate connection between our advancing years and the well-being of our mouths. Are you aware of the silent adversary lurking in the shadows of middle age, known as dry mouth? It's more than just an inconvenience; it's a gateway to a myriad of dental dilemmas. This episode lays bare the stark realities of xerostomia, the unseen threat induced by everyday medications that staunch the flow of saliva—our natural plaque-fighting champion. With Dr. Alex's expertise, we examine why it's imperative for dental professionals to step up their game in educating and keeping a vigilant eye on the oral changes that come with age.
Brace yourself as we chart a course through the choppy waters of maintaining stellar oral hygiene in the golden years. From the struggles with brushing finesse due to dwindling dexterity, to the harsh truth of hormonal upheavals wreaking havoc on gum health, we leave no stone unturned. Our conversation sails through the importance of tailored dental tools like electric toothbrushes and how regular checkups can be your lighthouse in the storm. As we bid our listeners goodbye, we don't just leave you with a warm farewell, but with actionable advice and a heartfelt recommendation for Jeremy's dental journey—because a vibrant smile doesn't have to fade with time. Join Dr. Alex and me as we share how to safeguard that grin for years to come on Word of Mouth.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jeremy (00:06):
Hello everyone.
We are back for another episodeof word of mouth.
I'm your cohost, jeremy Wolf,joined by your host, dr Alex
Semede.
Dr Alex, hello, so nice to seeyou again, my man, always a
pleasure.
We were just getting into someinteresting topics of gum
(00:27):
disease and I know you wanted totalk a little bit.
As you know, I just turned 44.
I think you said you're turning41.
So we're getting there, we'regetting up there, so aging
health Especially middle-agedbrother.
How time starts to fly so fast.
Dr. Alex (00:44):
It happened, it happened.
Jeremy (00:45):
How, I don't know, but it happened.
I never thought it would come,but not last.
So aging and oral health right.
Give us an overview of how theaging process affects oral
health.
Dr. Alex (01:01):
All right.
So everybody knows, as wemature, things change Right I
get, better I get better.
Jeremy (01:12):
Like a fine wine, I get better.
We'll go with that brother.
Dr. Alex (01:15):
Yeah, in certain aspects and in others, things
start to dip and sag and thathold up as well and the things
happen.
So the mouth is really nodifferent man and as we're
getting older, things like thisstart coming into our radar.
(01:38):
So I just wanted to take acouple minutes today and talk
about some of the things thathappen with the mouth as we age
and as we get older and some ofthe flags that we can be looking
out for to prevent issues andcatch them as early as possible.
So, yeah, we'll kind of justjump right into it.
(02:02):
One of the top things that wesee in our demographic right,
like mid to late 30s and beyond,is we start incorporating a lot
of medications into our lives.
Oh, blood pressure's high Doc,put me on a pill.
Cholesterol is a little high,got me on the Crestor Get.
(02:24):
Certainly, you know, startstart having the rumblings of
the potential diabetes, the prediabetes and things like that.
And, of course, like we havemedications that are important
to control whatever it is that'shappening in the body.
But have you ever read the sideeffect list of any medication?
(02:45):
It is its insanity.
Jeremy (02:49):
Yeah, it's terrifying.
It's almost like it's almostcomical in a way.
The stuff you read on thereit's so obscene that you have to
reading it.
You're thinking like why am Itaking this again?
Dr. Alex (03:03):
Like everything starts with dry mouth and ends with
yeah, yeah, yeah, it starts withdry mouth and ends with anal
leakage, and like everything inbetween, it's like holy smoke.
I'm just, I need an aspirin.
Jeremy (03:16):
It's part of that, though.
Just because they're like theywant to cover all basis.
It's like, if you take thismedication, like any of these
things could happen to you.
But they're not likely.
But yeah, it does seem insane.
It's like, yeah, taking thismedicine to you know help.
Some seemingly benign problemcan lead to heart failure.
Dr. Alex (03:34):
Okay, right to other issues.
Right, and the more extreme thepotential adverse effect, the
more rare, right, but there area lot of secondary effects that
are super common, like almostfor everyone, okay, and one of
the one of the main ones is drymouth, or what we call zero
(03:55):
stomia, zero stomia, zero stomiais the technical term for dry
mouth.
Jeremy (04:02):
Interesting.
Dr. Alex (04:02):
Zero with an X, x-e-r-o Stomia.
I'll take your word for it.
I'll take your word for it.
Yeah, yeah, just keep it in thebank and, you know, throw it
out at a dinner party People aregoing to be blown away.
So it's super important.
Like I always really try todrive home this fact with my
patients is that saliva in yourmouth is like it's like motor
(04:27):
oil for your car's engine.
Without a proper flow andquality and type of saliva,
things go downhill very quickly.
All right, so I'm going to takea little bit of a step back.
Why is saliva so important?
The we talked a little bitabout in previous podcasts about
(04:51):
bacteria, right, plack germs inthe mouth, right.
So what plaque and bacteriadoes is it eats sugar from your
diet, whether it's candy orbread, and it poops acid.
So it's byproduct of all thatbacteria is acid, and it's the
acid in our mouth that leads toall the damage.
(05:12):
It's the acid that leads to thehole in our teeth that we call
cavities.
It's the acid that leads to thebreakdown of the tissue that we
call gum disease.
So we scraped the plaque off toprevent the acid from ever
building up.
But now saliva buffers thatacid.
So, okay, you have the bacteria, you're going to eat some sugar
(05:36):
or bread or whatever.
They're going to eat that sugar, they're going to make the acid
and eventually you'll getaround to scraping it off your
teeth, but in the meantime,saliva is buffering that acid to
prevent it from getting out ofcontrol and from doing too much
harm.
So now, what happens if we shutoff the flow of saliva in the
mouth, or not even, it doesn'thave to be like super, like dry,
(06:01):
right, just less saliva thanyou used to have.
Now that acid lingers longerand does more damage, right, and
it's an insidious process,right.
This happens very slowly andyou start taking that
hypertension medication and youdon't even notice that your
mouth is dry, like.
I can't tell you the number oftimes that I'm talking to a
(06:24):
patient during their new patientexam and I'm like Jeremy, is
your mouth, do you feel likeyour mouth's dry?
You know, and they're like notalk, feels.
I feel normal and I can tell,looking across the room, not
enough saliva there, yes, yeah,like their mouth is super dry.
They're struggling to talkbecause of how dry their mouth
(06:46):
is and it's not a perceivedissue.
Now, the effects in the mouthare happening, right, so it
rests upon us you know, dennis,and hygienists of the world, and
now all of you that know thisto stress about the importance
of saliva in the mouth.
And medications have take ahuge toll on just that our
(07:10):
body's ability to produce saliva.
So medications is hugeBasically every I'm sorry, go
ahead.
Jeremy (07:17):
Oh no, I mean I cut you off.
So what do you do if you havethis constant dry mouth, lack of
saliva?
I mean, obviously I knowdrinking a lot of water is great
for you, but what's thesolution to fix this?
Dr. Alex (07:31):
Yeah, it's tricky, right, because you're not gonna
go off the meds that you need inorder to control the other
things, but doing things inorder to minimize the number of
meds we need, right, like, ifyou're on a hypertension
medication, okay, like, we canexercise, we can control our
diet, we can eat less salt, wecan lose some weight, to
(07:54):
hopefully get off the medicationso that you're not on this pill
for the rest of your life.
Because unfortunately, we kindof live in a medical system
where the folks, the older weget, like we're on cocktails of
medications, like folks are onfive, six different kinds of
meds and this problem compounds,right, so one medication is bad
(08:18):
, two is worse, three, it's oneof those classic one plus one
equals 11, not two, yeah, as faras the damage that it's doing
to our bodies.
So making sensible choices,making healthy decisions for our
lives is as difficult as thatis right.
But understanding that therepercussions go beyond.
(08:40):
Oh, I'm taking a pill and I'mgood.
Right, the blood pressure isgood.
Now, there's no such thing as afree lunch, right, like, the
pills help in something, butit's probably maybe
dysregulating something else,right?
Yeah, these are conversationsthat these are conversations
that people need to have withtheir physicians, right, like,
how do we maybe try differentmedications or try lowering the
(09:02):
dose of medications, andhonestly, having conversations
about how do we avoid getting onthese meds in the first place,
like, hey doc, like do Iabsolutely need the pill or can
I try and lose, you know, 20pounds over the next three
months and maybe I don't needthe medication anymore?
So I feel like those are veryimportant conversations that we
(09:22):
need to have, not only for ouroverall health and longevity and
quality of life, but veryspecifically here for, you know,
our oral well-being too.
Jeremy (09:32):
Yeah, I think oftentimes probably more often than not
these pills act more like abandaid than a solution to a
problem.
And because we live in such afast-paced, instant
gratification society, you knowpeople don't want to do the hard
work required and thepreventative work required and
(09:54):
to avoid having to take these.
So they go to the doctor andthey're looking for a way to fix
a problem quickly and it's likewell, just take this pill and
it almost masks the underlyingcondition.
In many cases, that is onlyaddressed through preventative
treatment, building the righthabits for these things
long-term, which again requireshard work and don't get me wrong
, man, like these medicationssave lives Absolutely.
Dr. Alex (10:14):
Yeah, I'm not discounting it, Like that is not
to take anything away from themedications.
It's just sometimes we end uplike there are other things that
we could do to gain the sameresults that are, overall, a lot
healthier for us.
Jeremy (10:29):
Yeah, it all goes back to education.
It all goes back to so we'rehere, brother.
It all goes back to man how weraised our kids, the habits
we're instilling upon them at anearly age.
It just becomes so much moredifficult to change your
routines and your habits whenthe older you get obviously On
the North side of 40 now to tryto change things that have been
(10:52):
ingrained in my brain fordecades.
It requires an incredibleamount of struggle and mental
anguish very rewarding when youget to the other side and you
make breakthroughs, but it'sjust so much easier.
I try to talk to my childrenabout this all the time.
It's so funny.
I was just not just at apodcast with somebody and I tell
my kids all the time.
Now I try to impart my44-year-old wisdom and I tell
(11:14):
them about all these lifelessons I've learned later in
life.
And it just goes in one ear outthe other.
Don't listen to me.
Why not 44 years old?
I've been here a lot longerthan you have on the planet.
So I was talking to my motherthe other day and I told her the
story.
I said you know, mom, when Iwas young, I don't ever remember
you sitting down with me andimparting wisdom and telling me
(11:36):
life lessons.
She's like Jeremy.
I used to talk to you aboutthat all the time, no
recollection in one year out theother.
So it gave me some perspective.
So at least I understand whenmy kids are coming from when
they don't listen to me.
So I thought that was kind offunny.
I literally have no recollectionof any of those conversations
at all.
Dr. Alex (11:53):
I was in another world , as most children are, so it is
just history repeats itself,man, like we, you know.
But yeah, that's, it's the bestwe can do right is just try to
try to and not only, not onlytell them, but show them right,
like I feel like kids kidsfrequently pick up more from
(12:14):
what they see than what theyhear and and just kind of Trying
to do the best we can right andand set the example for them
and hopefully give them a rolemodel that they want to emulate.
But it ain't easy, man, itain't easy, and the older they
(12:35):
get, the harder it becomes,seems like.
Jeremy (12:39):
Indeed, indeed, it does.
Anything else you want to shareon this topic?
I'm trying to think, maybe forI guess we just talked about
kids for and I know we'retalking about aging in, you know
we're talking aboutpreventative things but I guess
for folks that are Gettingelderly now right, that are yeah
(13:00):
well, but well beyond wherewe're at right, maybe 78 years
of getting older, like what aresome words of wisdom or advice
you can give to somebody thatyou know it's toward the end of
their journey to make sure thatthey Maximize the most of their
oral health?
Dr. Alex (13:16):
so so definitely, at any stage in life, a lot of the
the preventive, you know,at-home care things that we've
discussed in the past, it holdtrue, right, the older we get,
we start, you know, entering therealm of some dexterity issues.
You know, for older folks itbecomes, it becomes harder to
brush and floss, right like that.
That ability to Do what we needto do in the mouth it kind of
(13:40):
diminishes a little bit.
So, you know, electrictoothbrushes are great.
There are toothbrushes withlarger handles for folks that
struggle to grasp small objectsand kind of make that easier.
For, you know, the geriatricpopulation, regular checkups,
right, more, much more frequentfor our older, you know, for our
(14:00):
parents and our grandparentsthen then then, for us, right,
like Older folks that havedifficulty maintaining a nice,
healthy, clean mouth should beseen by a dentist every three
months to make sure that thingsDon't spiral out of control.
You know a couple of Two otherthings that I wanted to kind of
just bring out and put inpeople's mind to keep in mind.
(14:23):
For women specifically,menopause has a huge impact on
on oral health, does it really?
Yeah, yeah menopause.
That's connected never wouldhave thought.
Right.
But think about what menopauseis, right, it's a huge hormonal
dysregulation in the body andthat affects everything, right,
(14:45):
Like?
Think about what happens withwomen when they're pregnant,
right, there are things likepregnancy gingivitis, right,
where gums will go out ofcontrol simply as a response of
the hormones being out ofcontrol in the body.
So that hormonal imbalanceduring menopause can also have,
(15:06):
you know, pretty significantimpacts.
If you have gum disease and areentering menopause, it can
advance much more quickly duringmenopause.
So make sure to get checked out, make sure to have your dentist
or your periodontist do athorough evaluation and monitor
you and go see them every threemonths to make sure that things
are healthy and that the gumsare staying, you know, in a
(15:29):
relative state of health.
And I'm also going to mentionsomething called cyclical
fatigue, right, and cyclicalfatigue is a term used by anyone
who deals with materials ingeneral.
Right, think of the coat hangereffect.
And if you take a coat hangerand you bend the wire, the coat
hanger will bend.
If you bring it back, it'llbend.
(15:51):
But do that 50 or 60 times andeventually what happens?
It breaks.
Yeah well, yeah, well, yeah,the metal itself will just snap
and it'll break in two.
So that is a result of thatcyclical fatigue, right?
We're bending and bending andbending and bending and bending
and ultimately material fails.
The same sort of thing happensin the mouth and it happens with
(16:15):
our teeth, right.
The more reps we have ofchewing and clenching and
grinding and talking andbrushing and all of those things
, the more the materials thatour teeth are made out of break
down and wear.
It happens to crowns andbridges.
It happens to fillings, right,and it especially happens I
(16:38):
don't know, I feel like any ofus that are 35 plus if we ever
had fillings as kids.
Jeremy (16:43):
we have the big silver fillings in the back that look
like massive cavities, you knowI don't have those anymore
because of my lovely experiencethat I shared with you, where I
won't get into that now.
Dr. Alex (16:55):
I got to more actively replacing those.
Got them all replaced with theclear fillings which is great,
yeah, but any filling in themouth isn't as good as the
original manufacturer product,right, right?
So when you have a big fillingin the mouth, that means that
(17:19):
you have less tooth structureavailable on that tooth.
Right, the more filling, theless tooth and eventually, if
you have a really big filling,you basically have like a little
shell of tooth holding thatfilling in place.
Yeah, right.
So now when you chew and grindand talk and do all of the
things that we do with our teeth, now there's less tooth
(17:41):
structure holding that yeah.
Exactly, exactly.
So we enter into that cyclicalfatigue a lot quicker.
So we think we see things likestress, fractures, like cracks,
broken teeth I can't tell youthe number of like failed silver
(18:02):
fillings in the back, that arecracked teeth that we end up
having to remove and place animplant because the tooth fails
over time.
Right, and it's not that thedentist did anything wrong, that
the procedure was donebeautifully.
But materials fail ultimately.
Right, and the more stress weput on those things, the less
(18:25):
ideal the circumstances are tobegin with and the more stress
we put on it, the higher thelikelihood of failure becomes.
Right.
So large fillings, crowns, themore dental work we have,
unfortunately, the higher thelikelihood is that something is
going to break down, especiallyif we're not treating and caring
(18:49):
for it properly and getting itchecked out and hopefully
catching those cracks or stress,fractures or breaks when
they're tiny and they'rerepairable versus now.
This becomes a very unfortunateconversation, mr Wolfe, like
there's nothing we can do tosave these teeth.
Let's talk about what thetransition looks like.
Jeremy (19:12):
Yeah, and I think everything goes back to can
hammer this home enoughpreventative care and brushing
flossing, just making sure youdon't do what I do sometimes and
put off going to the dentistfor checkups and get those
routine checkups and just do thethings that are required to
(19:32):
prevent these problems fromhappening in the future in the
first place.
Dr. Alex (19:36):
Yeah, and 100% not coming from a holier than now
position here.
No ivory tower.
I'm way overdue for my checkup,but it's important for us to
know what the consequences are.
Jeremy (19:52):
Well, hey, I know a good dentist, so you're in good
hands.
Yeah, give me his number, I'llgive him a call All right man
Always a pleasure, Jeremy, it'sgreat man.
All right To our listeners.
Thanks for tuning in and wewill catch you all on the next
episode of word of mouth.
Everyone, have a great day andtake care Bye, Thank you for
(20:15):
joining us on word of mouth.
Remember a healthy smile is areflection of your well being.
Until next time, keep smilingand caring for your dental
health.
We'll be back soon with moredental.
Hello everyone.
We are back for another episodeof word of mouth.
I'm your cohost, jeremy Wolf,joined by your host, dr Alex
Semede.
Dr Alex, hello, so nice to seeyou again, my man, always a
pleasure.
We were just getting into someinteresting topics of gum
(00:27):
disease and I know you wanted totalk a little bit.
As you know, I just turned 44.
I think you said you're turning41.
So we're getting there, we'regetting up there, so aging
health Especially middle-agedbrother.
How time starts to fly so fast.
Dr. Alex (00:44):
It happened, it happened.
Jeremy (00:45):
How, I don't know, but it happened.
I never thought it would come,but not last.
So aging and oral health right.
Give us an overview of how theaging process affects oral
health.
Dr. Alex (01:01):
All right.
So everybody knows, as wemature, things change Right I
get, better I get better.
Jeremy (01:12):
Like a fine wine, I get better.
We'll go with that brother.
Dr. Alex (01:15):
Yeah, in certain aspects and in others, things
start to dip and sag and thathold up as well and the things
happen.
So the mouth is really nodifferent man and as we're
getting older, things like thisstart coming into our radar.
(01:38):
So I just wanted to take acouple minutes today and talk
about some of the things thathappen with the mouth as we age
and as we get older and some ofthe flags that we can be looking
out for to prevent issues andcatch them as early as possible.
So, yeah, we'll kind of justjump right into it.
(02:02):
One of the top things that wesee in our demographic right,
like mid to late 30s and beyond,is we start incorporating a lot
of medications into our lives.
Oh, blood pressure's high Doc,put me on a pill.
Cholesterol is a little high,got me on the Crestor Get.
(02:24):
Certainly, you know, startstart having the rumblings of
the potential diabetes, the prediabetes and things like that.
And, of course, like we havemedications that are important
to control whatever it is that'shappening in the body.
But have you ever read the sideeffect list of any medication?
(02:45):
It is its insanity.
Jeremy (02:49):
Yeah, it's terrifying.
It's almost like it's almostcomical in a way.
The stuff you read on thereit's so obscene that you have to
reading it.
You're thinking like why am Itaking this again?
Dr. Alex (03:03):
Like everything starts with dry mouth and ends with
yeah, yeah, yeah, it starts withdry mouth and ends with anal
leakage, and like everything inbetween, it's like holy smoke.
I'm just, I need an aspirin.
Jeremy (03:16):
It's part of that, though.
Just because they're like theywant to cover all basis.
It's like, if you take thismedication, like any of these
things could happen to you.
But they're not likely.
But yeah, it does seem insane.
It's like, yeah, taking thismedicine to you know help.
Some seemingly benign problemcan lead to heart failure.
Dr. Alex (03:34):
Okay, right to other issues.
Right, and the more extreme thepotential adverse effect, the
more rare, right, but there area lot of secondary effects that
are super common, like almostfor everyone, okay, and one of
the one of the main ones is drymouth, or what we call zero
(03:55):
stomia, zero stomia, zero stomiais the technical term for dry
mouth.
Jeremy (04:02):
Interesting.
Dr. Alex (04:02):
Zero with an X, x-e-r-o Stomia.
I'll take your word for it.
I'll take your word for it.
Yeah, yeah, just keep it in thebank and, you know, throw it
out at a dinner party People aregoing to be blown away.
So it's super important.
Like I always really try todrive home this fact with my
patients is that saliva in yourmouth is like it's like motor
(04:27):
oil for your car's engine.
Without a proper flow andquality and type of saliva,
things go downhill very quickly.
All right, so I'm going to takea little bit of a step back.
Why is saliva so important?
The we talked a little bitabout in previous podcasts about
(04:51):
bacteria, right, plack germs inthe mouth, right.
So what plaque and bacteriadoes is it eats sugar from your
diet, whether it's candy orbread, and it poops acid.
So it's byproduct of all thatbacteria is acid, and it's the
acid in our mouth that leads toall the damage.
(05:12):
It's the acid that leads to thehole in our teeth that we call
cavities.
It's the acid that leads to thebreakdown of the tissue that we
call gum disease.
So we scraped the plaque off toprevent the acid from ever
building up.
But now saliva buffers thatacid.
So, okay, you have the bacteria, you're going to eat some sugar
(05:36):
or bread or whatever.
They're going to eat that sugar, they're going to make the acid
and eventually you'll getaround to scraping it off your
teeth, but in the meantime,saliva is buffering that acid to
prevent it from getting out ofcontrol and from doing too much
harm.
So now, what happens if we shutoff the flow of saliva in the
mouth, or not even, it doesn'thave to be like super, like dry,
(06:01):
right, just less saliva thanyou used to have.
Now that acid lingers longerand does more damage, right, and
it's an insidious process,right.
This happens very slowly andyou start taking that
hypertension medication and youdon't even notice that your
mouth is dry, like.
I can't tell you the number oftimes that I'm talking to a
(06:24):
patient during their new patientexam and I'm like Jeremy, is
your mouth, do you feel likeyour mouth's dry?
You know, and they're like notalk, feels.
I feel normal and I can tell,looking across the room, not
enough saliva there, yes, yeah,like their mouth is super dry.
They're struggling to talkbecause of how dry their mouth
(06:46):
is and it's not a perceivedissue.
Now, the effects in the mouthare happening, right, so it
rests upon us you know, dennis,and hygienists of the world, and
now all of you that know thisto stress about the importance
of saliva in the mouth.
And medications have take ahuge toll on just that our
(07:10):
body's ability to produce saliva.
So medications is hugeBasically every I'm sorry, go
ahead.
Jeremy (07:17):
Oh no, I mean I cut you off.
So what do you do if you havethis constant dry mouth, lack of
saliva?
I mean, obviously I knowdrinking a lot of water is great
for you, but what's thesolution to fix this?
Dr. Alex (07:31):
Yeah, it's tricky, right, because you're not gonna
go off the meds that you need inorder to control the other
things, but doing things inorder to minimize the number of
meds we need, right, like, ifyou're on a hypertension
medication, okay, like, we canexercise, we can control our
diet, we can eat less salt, wecan lose some weight, to
(07:54):
hopefully get off the medicationso that you're not on this pill
for the rest of your life.
Because unfortunately, we kindof live in a medical system
where the folks, the older weget, like we're on cocktails of
medications, like folks are onfive, six different kinds of
meds and this problem compounds,right, so one medication is bad
(08:18):
, two is worse, three, it's oneof those classic one plus one
equals 11, not two, yeah, as faras the damage that it's doing
to our bodies.
So making sensible choices,making healthy decisions for our
lives is as difficult as thatis right.
But understanding that therepercussions go beyond.
(08:40):
Oh, I'm taking a pill and I'mgood.
Right, the blood pressure isgood.
Now, there's no such thing as afree lunch, right, like, the
pills help in something, butit's probably maybe
dysregulating something else,right?
Yeah, these are conversationsthat these are conversations
that people need to have withtheir physicians, right, like,
how do we maybe try differentmedications or try lowering the
(09:02):
dose of medications, andhonestly, having conversations
about how do we avoid getting onthese meds in the first place,
like, hey doc, like do Iabsolutely need the pill or can
I try and lose, you know, 20pounds over the next three
months and maybe I don't needthe medication anymore?
So I feel like those are veryimportant conversations that we
(09:22):
need to have, not only for ouroverall health and longevity and
quality of life, but veryspecifically here for, you know,
our oral well-being too.
Jeremy (09:32):
Yeah, I think oftentimes probably more often than not
these pills act more like abandaid than a solution to a
problem.
And because we live in such afast-paced, instant
gratification society, you knowpeople don't want to do the hard
work required and thepreventative work required and
(09:54):
to avoid having to take these.
So they go to the doctor andthey're looking for a way to fix
a problem quickly and it's likewell, just take this pill and
it almost masks the underlyingcondition.
In many cases, that is onlyaddressed through preventative
treatment, building the righthabits for these things
long-term, which again requireshard work and don't get me wrong
, man, like these medicationssave lives Absolutely.
Dr. Alex (10:14):
Yeah, I'm not discounting it, Like that is not
to take anything away from themedications.
It's just sometimes we end uplike there are other things that
we could do to gain the sameresults that are, overall, a lot
healthier for us.
Jeremy (10:29):
Yeah, it all goes back to education.
It all goes back to so we'rehere, brother.
It all goes back to man how weraised our kids, the habits
we're instilling upon them at anearly age.
It just becomes so much moredifficult to change your
routines and your habits whenthe older you get obviously On
the North side of 40 now to tryto change things that have been
(10:52):
ingrained in my brain fordecades.
It requires an incredibleamount of struggle and mental
anguish very rewarding when youget to the other side and you
make breakthroughs, but it'sjust so much easier.
I try to talk to my childrenabout this all the time.
It's so funny.
I was just not just at apodcast with somebody and I tell
my kids all the time.
Now I try to impart my44-year-old wisdom and I tell
(11:14):
them about all these lifelessons I've learned later in
life.
And it just goes in one ear outthe other.
Don't listen to me.
Why not 44 years old?
I've been here a lot longerthan you have on the planet.
So I was talking to my motherthe other day and I told her the
story.
I said you know, mom, when Iwas young, I don't ever remember
you sitting down with me andimparting wisdom and telling me
(11:36):
life lessons.
She's like Jeremy.
I used to talk to you aboutthat all the time, no
recollection in one year out theother.
So it gave me some perspective.
So at least I understand whenmy kids are coming from when
they don't listen to me.
So I thought that was kind offunny.
I literally have no recollectionof any of those conversations
at all.
Dr. Alex (11:53):
I was in another world , as most children are, so it is
just history repeats itself,man, like we, you know.
But yeah, that's, it's the bestwe can do right is just try to
try to and not only, not onlytell them, but show them right,
like I feel like kids kidsfrequently pick up more from
(12:14):
what they see than what theyhear and and just kind of Trying
to do the best we can right andand set the example for them
and hopefully give them a rolemodel that they want to emulate.
But it ain't easy, man, itain't easy, and the older they
(12:35):
get, the harder it becomes,seems like.
Jeremy (12:39):
Indeed, indeed, it does.
Anything else you want to shareon this topic?
I'm trying to think, maybe forI guess we just talked about
kids for and I know we'retalking about aging in, you know
we're talking aboutpreventative things but I guess
for folks that are Gettingelderly now right, that are yeah
(13:00):
well, but well beyond wherewe're at right, maybe 78 years
of getting older, like what aresome words of wisdom or advice
you can give to somebody thatyou know it's toward the end of
their journey to make sure thatthey Maximize the most of their
oral health?
Dr. Alex (13:16):
so so definitely, at any stage in life, a lot of the
the preventive, you know,at-home care things that we've
discussed in the past, it holdtrue, right, the older we get,
we start, you know, entering therealm of some dexterity issues.
You know, for older folks itbecomes, it becomes harder to
brush and floss, right like that.
That ability to Do what we needto do in the mouth it kind of
(13:40):
diminishes a little bit.
So, you know, electrictoothbrushes are great.
There are toothbrushes withlarger handles for folks that
struggle to grasp small objectsand kind of make that easier.
For, you know, the geriatricpopulation, regular checkups,
right, more, much more frequentfor our older, you know, for our
(14:00):
parents and our grandparentsthen then then, for us, right,
like Older folks that havedifficulty maintaining a nice,
healthy, clean mouth should beseen by a dentist every three
months to make sure that thingsDon't spiral out of control.
You know a couple of Two otherthings that I wanted to kind of
just bring out and put inpeople's mind to keep in mind.
(14:23):
For women specifically,menopause has a huge impact on
on oral health, does it really?
Yeah, yeah menopause.
That's connected never wouldhave thought.
Right.
But think about what menopauseis, right, it's a huge hormonal
dysregulation in the body andthat affects everything, right,
(14:45):
Like?
Think about what happens withwomen when they're pregnant,
right, there are things likepregnancy gingivitis, right,
where gums will go out ofcontrol simply as a response of
the hormones being out ofcontrol in the body.
So that hormonal imbalanceduring menopause can also have,
(15:06):
you know, pretty significantimpacts.
If you have gum disease and areentering menopause, it can
advance much more quickly duringmenopause.
So make sure to get checked out, make sure to have your dentist
or your periodontist do athorough evaluation and monitor
you and go see them every threemonths to make sure that things
are healthy and that the gumsare staying, you know, in a
(15:29):
relative state of health.
And I'm also going to mentionsomething called cyclical
fatigue, right, and cyclicalfatigue is a term used by anyone
who deals with materials ingeneral.
Right, think of the coat hangereffect.
And if you take a coat hangerand you bend the wire, the coat
hanger will bend.
If you bring it back, it'llbend.
(15:51):
But do that 50 or 60 times andeventually what happens?
It breaks.
Yeah well, yeah, well, yeah,the metal itself will just snap
and it'll break in two.
So that is a result of thatcyclical fatigue, right?
We're bending and bending andbending and bending and bending
and ultimately material fails.
The same sort of thing happensin the mouth and it happens with
(16:15):
our teeth, right.
The more reps we have ofchewing and clenching and
grinding and talking andbrushing and all of those things
, the more the materials thatour teeth are made out of break
down and wear.
It happens to crowns andbridges.
It happens to fillings, right,and it especially happens I
(16:38):
don't know, I feel like any ofus that are 35 plus if we ever
had fillings as kids.
Jeremy (16:43):
we have the big silver fillings in the back that look
like massive cavities, you knowI don't have those anymore
because of my lovely experiencethat I shared with you, where I
won't get into that now.
Dr. Alex (16:55):
I got to more actively replacing those.
Got them all replaced with theclear fillings which is great,
yeah, but any filling in themouth isn't as good as the
original manufacturer product,right, right?
So when you have a big fillingin the mouth, that means that
(17:19):
you have less tooth structureavailable on that tooth.
Right, the more filling, theless tooth and eventually, if
you have a really big filling,you basically have like a little
shell of tooth holding thatfilling in place.
Yeah, right.
So now when you chew and grindand talk and do all of the
things that we do with our teeth, now there's less tooth
(17:41):
structure holding that yeah.
Exactly, exactly.
So we enter into that cyclicalfatigue a lot quicker.
So we think we see things likestress, fractures, like cracks,
broken teeth I can't tell youthe number of like failed silver
(18:02):
fillings in the back, that arecracked teeth that we end up
having to remove and place animplant because the tooth fails
over time.
Right, and it's not that thedentist did anything wrong, that
the procedure was donebeautifully.
But materials fail ultimately.
Right, and the more stress weput on those things, the less
(18:25):
ideal the circumstances are tobegin with and the more stress
we put on it, the higher thelikelihood of failure becomes.
Right.
So large fillings, crowns, themore dental work we have,
unfortunately, the higher thelikelihood is that something is
going to break down, especiallyif we're not treating and caring
(18:49):
for it properly and getting itchecked out and hopefully
catching those cracks or stress,fractures or breaks when
they're tiny and they'rerepairable versus now.
This becomes a very unfortunateconversation, mr Wolfe, like
there's nothing we can do tosave these teeth.
Let's talk about what thetransition looks like.
Jeremy (19:12):
Yeah, and I think everything goes back to can
hammer this home enoughpreventative care and brushing
flossing, just making sure youdon't do what I do sometimes and
put off going to the dentistfor checkups and get those
routine checkups and just do thethings that are required to
(19:32):
prevent these problems fromhappening in the future in the
first place.
Dr. Alex (19:36):
Yeah, and 100% not coming from a holier than now
position here.
No ivory tower.
I'm way overdue for my checkup,but it's important for us to
know what the consequences are.
Jeremy (19:52):
Well, hey, I know a good dentist, so you're in good
hands.
Yeah, give me his number, I'llgive him a call All right man
Always a pleasure, Jeremy, it'sgreat man.
All right To our listeners.
Thanks for tuning in and wewill catch you all on the next
episode of word of mouth.
Everyone, have a great day andtake care Bye, Thank you for
(20:15):
joining us on word of mouth.
Remember a healthy smile is areflection of your well being.
Until next time, keep smilingand caring for your dental
health.
We'll be back soon with moredental.
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