As we brought out in our last post, there would be 3 parts to this topic of using the laser in our hygiene room. This is Part 2. Enjoy.

As some of you may have seen, we have a microscope in our hygiene room. We have been analyzing plaque samples that we collect from periodontal pockets, pockets that show signs of gum disease and inflammation. Signs of disease include pocketing of 4 millimeters or greater, inflammation, and bleeding. It is amazing to see how much bacteria is in even the tiniest of plaque samples. I haven’t been this excited since my Microbiology and Histology courses in college! Some results have been surprising. For example one sample was from a moderately healthy pocket, three millimeters deep with only a little evidence of inflammation, but upon analysis of the plaque, there were harmful spirochetes evident on the slide. The spirochete family is a nasty one. This is actually the same type of oral bacteria involved in Alzheimer’s disease, and here is a link that has research on this: Alzheimer’s and oral bacteria