Integrative Dental Medicine

Since 2000, dentistry's focus has concentrated on digital technology and is now moving toward integrative dental medicine, which looks at a dental patient as a whole person. We concern ourselves with issues such as diabetes, systemic inflammation, cardiovascular health, gastric reflux, toxins, stress factors, drug interactions, and other issues related to the convergence of oral and overall health. Addressing airway and breathing disorders during childhood and throughout life will be the key focus of integrative dental medicine moving forward.

Patients can develop airway and breathing disorders at any stage of life. Issues such as allergic reactions, chronic congestion, malocclusions, mouth breathing, improper tongue position or tongue-tie, and other age-related and associated risk factors must be treated to correct the source of obstruction and reestablish proper naso-diaphragmatic breathing. Other conditions with similar symptoms, such as TMD, must be considered during treatment planning in order to avoid complications during therapy. Among older patients, treatment for airway and breathing disorders not only restores proper breathing function but can also reverse some of the damage seen in brain scans. Because an open airway and proper breathing are foundational to oral and systemic health, every patient treated, regardless of age, should be screened for disordered breathing.

An understanding of the critical role of airway obstructions and disordered breathing significantly influences proper treatment planning in dentistry. Here at Dental Excellence Integrative Center, our provides are highly trained to recognize early signs and symptoms of manifestations such as dental malocclusions, bruxism, tongue-tie, attention deficit, poor sleep, sleep apnea, daytime fatigue, TMD, and morning headaches. So that every patient can be treated, giving them the best chance of living a healthy and happy life.