Hain Bacterial Testing in Arvada CO

Our mouths are home to countless bacteria. Most of these bacteria aren’t harmful at all. Some, in fact, are quite useful.

But some types of bacteria can cause harm. These types of bacteria are the culprits behind cavities and periodontal disease, and without treatment, they can do a lot of damage to the bone and soft tissues in your mouth.

At Generations Family and Cosmetic Dentistry, we want to always provide the most effective, least invasive dentistry possible. One of the ways we can do this is by using Hain Bacterial Testing to identify the bacteria that are causing problems in your mouth. This way, we can create a treatment plan that targets those bacteria specifically.

Why Not Just Kill All the Bacteria?

One of the biggest problems with many antibiotics is that they eradicate the good bacteria along with the bad. Health care providers often don’t have the time to try to identify the problematic bacteria so they simply prescribe a broad-spectrum antibiotic that wipes out most bacteria.

There are a couple of problems with this approach.

Our goal is not to create a “sterile” environment. This does far more harm than good. Your good bacteria help to keep your mouth healthy by fighting off the problem bacteria as well as other invaders like fungus. It’s not uncommon for someone who is being treated with a powerful antibiotic to come down with thrush, a fungal infection in the throat.

Your mouth has its own ecology and it’s important to keep that in balance. There’s also a lot of interdependence between the species of bacteria in your mouth and that interdependent relationship can be severely damaged by the overuse of antibiotics.

Another problem is that overuse of antibiotics leads to drug-resistant bacteria. If we regularly use antibiotics that don’t target the problematic strain, any bacteria that survive the antibiotic use will pass on their resistant genes and you may develop a drug-resistant bacterial infection. You might have seen reports on the news about “superbugs”—bacteria that are resistant to all available antibiotics. This is a serious situation and one that we certainly don’t want to contribute to.

Why We Test

That said, we don’t want to allow the proliferation of harmful strains of bacteria. Periodontal disease isn’t just harmful to the tissues in your mouth; research has also identified a connection between gum disease and several other serious systemic health conditions including cardiovascular disease and diabetes. If we just try to fix the damage caused by periodontal disease without eliminating the pathogenic organisms that are contributing to the problem, we’ll be fighting an endless battle.

With Hain Bacterial Testing, we can identify the specific strain of bacteria causing the problem and target our treatment to eliminate them without causing harm to the ecology of your mouth. And ultimately, protecting the overall health of your mouth is our long-term goal.

Call to Schedule Your Appointment

If you’ve been experiencing the symptoms of periodontal disease, don’t delay another minute. Call our office to find out more about Hain Bacterial Testing and to schedule your next check-up with Arvada dentist Dr. Lindsay Compton.