Apr
Ozone was pivotal in my practice. No single other concept and practice has affected more change in my thinking, how I view disease and healing, how my therapies are performed and the enormous improvement in treatment outcomes. The use of ozone permeates every portion of our work at Whole Health Dentistry. To say it is non-toxic is a misnomer – it improves healing so much that if science hadn’t already explained how it so predictably improves therapy at all levels, it would be a miracle. Actually as life goes -it is.
In dentistry our challenges are similar to all areas of medicine. As a holistic practitioner a greater challenge is to assist the tissues to reset, and promote a person’s ability to heal. Symptoms of disease in the mouth are mostly infectious or have an infectious component in combination with the patient’s diminished ability to fend off invasion or repair tissues. Ozone in its many forms is a super effective therapy for providing a clean surgical field and tissue thriving, fast healing dental therapy.
The restoration of teeth requires surgery (by any other name), and soft tissue therapy requires exposure of vulnerable deeper layers of tissue (dentin, pulp, mucosa, bone) to the contents of the oral cavity. The mouth is a real working pathogens soup of biofilm. Biofilm is the catch all term describing cohabitating pathogens of bacteria, fungi, viral (+prion) and parasitic slime (in dental school this was known as the infamous “slime layer”) that cover the teeth, gums, mucosa, tonsils and periodontal tissues.
To what exists in the oral cavity let us add the associated medical/dental waterline biofilm creatures Sphyngomonas paucimobilis, Acinetobacter calcoaceticus, Methylobacterium mesophilicum, and Pseudomonas aeruginosa Legionella spp. and free-living protozoa. This is the water squirted into mouth, cavity preparation, hygiene cleaner, and surgical extraction socket during your dental appointment.
The chemical biocides (a substance poisonous to living organisms) sodium hypochlorite, phenol, chlorine dioxide, peroxides, and citric acid, are commonly added to keep waterline biofilm counts low whether it is a closed system(just on the dental chair), or hard plumbed. Less dangerously, the water can be run through electrochemically activated water for microbial control.
One doesn’t have to be a genius to determine that exposing vulnerable tissue to oral cavity biofilm, or chemical biocides during the course of what dentists would call routine care is dangerous. Both pathogens in biofilms and chemical biocides are threats to healthy, thriving tissue and optimal treatment outcomes.
Oxygen, O2, has two available spots with which to connect to other molecules and commonly exists bonded to itself as O=O. Ozone is the triplet form of oxygen, O3, where each oxygen molecule has a less stable bond with the two other in the triplet of the triangle. The tendency to form the most stable bond O=O results in the cast off of the third O(oxygenation).
Ozone is naturally occurring where there is oxygen and energy, such as lightning, rain, water falls, and combustive exhaust from fossil fuels(which are obviously not naturally occurring). Ozone is relatively easily measured in the atmosphere which makes it a handy indicator of air pollution-it should be stressed that ozone is not the pollution but the neutralizing result.
For those who question whether ozone gas actually has the power to affect change, my favorite demonstration is placing the gas only near a latex glove and watching it curl away like paper on fire. Yup, this is the same stuff that disinfects waterlines, surgical fields, allows a fingernail to grow back on a newly burned finger, reduces scar adhesions, and reduces the size of osteonecrotic bone lesions due to bisphosphonates (thank you Ms. Field) in the jaw prior to surgery. Did I mention it did the dishes?
The therapeutics affects of ozone are enormous. Not only are oxygen molecules the legal tender necessary for each cell to perform its every metabolic function, it instantly kills pathogens which have differing metabolic pathways (that makes them successful pathogens) than our own.
Ozone is both the ultimate wide spectrum anitpathogen (killing the most varied forms of bacteria, virus, fungi and parasites) and has no toxic side affects on the tissues with correct dosing(remember even pure oxygen can be dangerous). Ozone stimulates stem cell growth and re-vascularizes the tissues for optimal healing.
The O molecule is negatively charged (oxygen is the gas unique in it’s ability to hold a charge), and being just a minute single molecule it permeates rapidly into positively charged,“sick” dysmetabolic tissues, oxygenating and dramatically affecting it’s ability to repair. Ozone not only completely “tops off” contacting hemoglobin without having to recirculate through the lungs, but makes the resulting red blood cells slipperier, increasing their ability to get where they are needed. For this reason ozone is used on stroke patients en route to hospital in some european countries.
In my office, Ozone is made by flowing medical grade oxygen(100% pure) through a medical grade ozone generator. With the generator I can control both the flow of oxygen, and the intensity of the electrical current to vary the dose. Ozone therapy like any substance therapy has dosing which is specific for the purpose.
If you haven’t surmised already, the same aspect that makes ozone work is its only drawback. O3 wants to revert back to it’s O2 + O- state. This is how it gives up the good stuff to the tissues. The downside is that is has to be made, daily. Cold water holds 25% of perfusion and is 50% less hours later. Refrigerated Ozone Water stays potent for up to two days. Ozonated Olive Oil for months to year, and Ozone Ice indefinitely. Ozone Gas for tooth restoration, surgery, treatment for infection of soft tissue, dental abscess or prolozone-therapy is dosed just prior to injection. This means those of you who come from out of town may end up with an antibiotic prescription as a back up till we can get our hands on you. But we do our best to keep you off the systemic stuff.
Highly concentrated Ozone Water is used in all water lines to keep them absolutely pure. We use pure oxygenating ozonated water in all cleanings and dental tooth surgery keeping the surgical area pristine and the living tissue fat and happy during surgery.
A cleaning with ozone versus a traditional cleaning is like comparing sterilizing the dishes in hot sudsy water to just scraping the gunk off and putting the dishes away dirty, in my observation. Some bacteria will always remain in the mouth somewhere to recolonize, but by killing off the nasty anaerobic pathogens we have sky rocketed the tissue towards self healing.
Both predictable and effective is Ozone Gas infusion into the tissues to treat periodontal infection and dental abscesses with or without adjunctive antibiotic therapy. Often antibiotic therapy is not needed. Ozonation of the bone before during and/or after surgery speeds healing.
Ozonated Olive Oil can be used at home to prevent tooth decay, treat periodontal disease, herpetic lesions, shingles, burns and injuries anywhere on the body, literally (I sometimes get too much positive feedback on that one).
If you have surgery with us, your post-op surgical ice pack is actually Ozonated Ice, when it’s melted we advise you to swish and gargle with the resulting Ozonated Water, it will disinfect and freshen your mouth like nothing else.
So it goes that a solitary molecule can change the face of dental medicine. I recently attended a local dental society meeting which had the highest attendance in record, literally hundreds(this due to the respectability and clout of the visiting guest speaker who was a “traditional” dentist, dental researcher). The speaker separately asked his dentist audience who used Ozone, and who used microabrasion in their practice. I was one of only four who responded for microabrasion, one of two that responded for ozone, and the only who raised their hand to both. Certainly in this respect I concur with Dr Bertolotti that dental practitioners who don’t use ozone for their everyday restorative dentistry are missing the point. I would strongly add that additional education and training in ozone therapies provide dental practitioners with even more effective, safe and overall health improving therapies than ever before. We all benefit from better care.
Best,
Dr. C