Is Dr. Russo a “progressive dentist”?
It’s not enough to simply call yourself ‘progressive’. It takes understanding and an approach to tying dental health to complete health and wellness.
I am proud to consider myself a “new-school” (not, old-school) progressive dentist. Not to be confused, being a progressive dentist does not mean performing radical dental procedures or going off the grid. A progressive dentist takes an approach in that believing disease is disease and believes in being proactive to prevent said disease.
Let’s start from the beginning – too many times I see new patients come into my office having gone to the same “old-school” dentist for years and years and years. The problem? Their teeth are literally falling apart: decaying fillings, crowns hanging off of their teeth, holes in crowns, active dental abscesses, mercury fillings in their mouth.
Don’t laugh, don’t cringe – this is real!
My first question: Did your previous dentist inform you of the status of your mouth?
Usual patient response: “They said if it’s not broken or hurting yet, to wait on it”.
“What! Are you serious?!” I’ve come to understand that this is a typical, old-school way of dentistry; and many times what patients want to hear. For what it’s worth, I always imagine myself in the patient’s point of view. Let’s say I’m the patient and that I have an infection or things I could be improving. Here’s the best way to look at issues in your mouth:
A little decay is: decay
A little bleeding is: inflammation
A little opening in your filling is: a portal of entry for bacteria
A little abscess is: eating away at your bone
Do you see how I’m thinking now? Once a tooth breaks – or hurts – you are, at minimum, looking at a root canal and crown or extraction and bone graft.
Don’t you want to prevent these things? I would if I were sitting in your shoes.
I believe in being educational, transparent, and providing solutions to address and prevent dental disease. The reason I practice dentistry this way is simple:
