Unlock the Power of Saliva: Mastering Salivary Testing Comes to Centennial, CO!

Posted on May 16, 2025May 15, 2025 by Katie Lee DDS

Are you ready to take your dental practice to the next level? If you’ve been looking to incorporate salivary diagnostics into your clinical offerings but don’t know where to start—or how to interpret the results—then this course is for you. Join Dr. Katie Lee at the new Collective Education Society on Friday, July 11, 2025, for Mastering Salivary Testing, an immersive in-person course led by Dr. Emily Stein, Ph.D., co-founder and CEO of Primal Health LLC. Dr. Stein’s expertise in microbio...

Beyond the Probe: How OralDNA Testing Transformed Our Protocols and Outcomes

Posted on May 2, 2025May 1, 2025 by Jonathan Evans

For decades, we've understood that periodontal disease is bacterial in origin, yet many of our treatment strategies remained nonspecific. We scaled, we cleaned, we hoped for the best. OralDNA® testing changed that for us - it brought specificity, clarity, and purpose to our protocols. At our practice, every periodontal patient and every medically high-risk patient receives an OralDNA® MyPerioPath as a baseline test. This includes individuals with diabetes, cardiovascular disease, or auto...

Saliva Microbiome Testing: The Future of Dentistry is Here

Posted on April 18, 2025April 18, 2025 by Katie Lee DDS

Close your eyes. Imagine a day when patients no longer avoid or complain about coming to your dental office. You no longer have empty appointment slots or patients not showing up for appointments. Instead, patients are seeking out your expertise because perhaps you hold the key to ending their chronic suffering and their ability to achieve optimum health. You don’t have to imagine this day because it has already arrived! The landscape of dental care is undergoing a transformative shift. Dent...

Pregnancy Gingivitis: Test, Don’t Guess

Posted on May 19, 2017May 19, 2021 by Kim Miller, RDH, BSDH

Recently, I was training in a well-established dental practice of more than 30 years. The four woman, very talented and all out of school less than a year hygiene team, prompted the question about my opinion of pregnancy gingivitis. I answered with a question of my own, “What did you learn in school about it?” Quite frankly, their response left me speechless, “It’s caused by increased blood flow and it will go away once the baby is born.” WHAT? Is this really being taught to the next genera...

Patient Expectations in the Dental Office

Posted on April 28, 2017May 19, 2021 by Richard H. Nagelberg, DDS

Most patients seem to have reasonable expectations of the care they receive from their dental providers. It is reasonable for our patients to expect us to provide the right amount of treatment for their dental needs- no more and no less, for a reasonable fee. For the majority of patients, the dental service most often received is of a periodontal nature, such as a prophylaxis or periodontal maintenance procedure. This generally occurs two to four times a year. Restorative treatments such as ...

Missing the Boat When it Comes to Perio Therapy

Posted on April 7, 2017May 19, 2021 by Kim Miller, RDH, BSDH

During a recent national speaking engagement, a hygienist told me that they used to do clinical laboratory testing. “We stopped doing it because when we tested months later, the bacteria had come back and the patient had an active infection again. We decided ‘it’ wasn’t working so we stopped,” she explained. I thought to myself, wow, this is very interesting and a perfect example of ‘throwing the baby out with the bath water’! It wasn’t the clinical laboratory testing that wasn’t working, it ...

Perio Pathogens CAUSE Atherosclerosis – Now What?

Posted on February 24, 2017May 19, 2021 by Richard H. Nagelberg, DDS

“[It is reasonable to state PD, due to high-risk pathogens, is a contributory cause of atherosclerosis. Distinguishing this type of PD as causal provides a significant opportunity to reduce arterial disease.]” This quote was cited in a previous blog post discussing the first journal article that demonstrated perio pathogens cause atherosclerotic plaques, which lead to cardiovascular events including heart attacks and strokes. The last half dozen words in the quote above are the most impactful; “...

My Staff Won’t Do It

Posted on January 20, 2017May 12, 2021 by Richard H. Nagelberg, DDS

There are many justifications, rationalizations, and excuses in non-testing practices, all of which signal some level of disinterest in enhancing patient care. One of the most difficult to understand is; “My staff/hygienist just won’t do it.” If the doctor is the driving force behind testing implementation and one or more team members are resistant, a staff meeting is in order. Leadership comes from the top and it is the doctor’s responsibility to set the direction for the practice, including th...

Stop Diagnosing the Pocketbook

Posted on January 13, 2017May 12, 2021 by Richard H. Nagelberg, DDS

Cost is a consideration for all of us, which we take into account when deciding whether or not to purchase a wide variety of goods and services. Our responsibility as clinicians is to make recommendations to help patients achieve the best health possible, without letting our preconceived ideas about the patient’s ability to afford treatment get in the way – what I refer to as diagnosing the pocketbook. One of the things we do not know and cannot predict is how much value the patient puts on thei...

Causality: It Was Only a Matter of Time

Posted on January 6, 2017May 12, 2021 by Richard H. Nagelberg, DDS

We as dental professionals have a significant role in combating the number one cause of death: cardiovascular disease. “High-risk periodontal pathogens contribute to the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis” is a powerful piece and I recommend you read it. There is scientific evidence that [periodontal disease] PD caused by the high-risk pathogens can influence the pathogenesis triad in an adverse manner. With this appreciation, it is reasonable to state PD, due to high-risk pathogens, is a co...