 Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Dr. Jill Live on this Tuesday afternoon. I'm so excited to have my new friend Whitney here today. One of the topics that you may not hear a lot about but is so crucial to overall health is our oral microbiome, our dental health and we're going to dive deep because Whitney is a dental hygienist and has made it kind of her calling in her work to talk about this and the systemic effects that our dental health and our oral microbiome can have on things that you would never suspect like risk of dementia, who knew, right? Or risk of systemic cardiovascular disease. So super excited to get into this talk today and really bring awareness around this topic. Whitney is a registered dental hygienist who's also known as Teeth Talk Girl on social media. Her journey of spreading dental health awareness began on YouTube platform where she continues to create educational videos for the public. She's extremely passionate about sharing information regarding the importance of dental health and I couldn't agree more so welcome Whitney. Thanks for coming on today. Thank you so much for having me. I can't wait to talk about all this. Yeah, you're welcome. So and again, I feel like this is so critical and functional medicine. We look at the whole body of course and I am not a dental expert. I can't pretend to know everything about it but I know enough to know a lot of my patients complex chronic disease comes from the oral microbiome, from cavitations, from old root canals or things that are creating more burden on the system. So we'll dive into that. But I always love the story as far as how did you get where you are as far as dental hygienists? Did you always know you wanted to do this? Tell me kind of your journey to get into this field. Yeah, of course. So I actually always thought I was going to be a dentist when I was a kid. I just loved going to the dentist. I was one of those kids that was like I couldn't wait to get my sticker at the end of the appointment. I just liked my dentist. She was very young and knew at the time when I was a kid and I just she was spunky and fun and I think I just liked her and I thought I want to be her when I grow up and I didn't realize she was like a dentist. I don't know but in my mind that was always in my mind. But then when I got to college you know I still was like you know what I'm doing this. I'm pretty good at science. Let's do this. And so and then in college we had to do shadowing and observation hours in pre-dental club and that's where I quickly found out that I do love dentistry but I don't love the restorative aspect as much as the preventative aspect. I always found myself, I was watching. It's awesome what you can do to fix teeth. I of course watched all the exciting procedures, root canals, crowns, fillings. I loved watching but then I was always like what's going on in that other room? What do they do? I was always like turning my head to watch the hygienist because I was so interested in preventing all this from happening you know. I don't know. I just so then I kind of did a little shift. I was like maybe I don't want to go to dental school so I never applied. I thought you know what let's try dental hygiene first and then maybe I'll go to dentistry later. Like just I want to make sure that this is what I want. I don't know what I want. So I went to dental hygiene school and I never looked back. I fell in love. I was like this is for me. This is exactly what I love. I want to prevent. I love. I was also a dental assistant so after all that so I you know I love watching the procedures. It's very cool to see a tooth get pulled out. I mean I think it's cool but I was like wait a signal I want to prevent this from ever happening. So that's kind of where the whole journey began on becoming a dental hygienist. I love that because in some a similar way I went to medical school. I wanted always going to help people heal and prevent disease and I remember like surgery rotation amazing right because like I don't want to do this. I don't want to take out organs or cut that blood vessels or sew up things. I want to be there like saying why did this happen in the first place and how we prevented or so it's so parallel in some ways. That makes yes. Yeah yeah so very very cool and I love and you know what hygienists are really so crucial at least when I go to my dentist I spend a lot more time with my hygienist than I do the actual dentist and I love my I have three of them. Oh awesome yes that's another thing I always notice that too like you said you know I want to really build a relationship with my patients and really I want to see it's so yeah right so many healthcare fields. There's so many that don't get to see their patients every six months or every three like we really have a good routine of seeing the same people, patients over and over and I was like I want to spend as much time with them and really get to know them and know their overall story versus just their teeth. Gosh I love that so on to the next topic which is like many people are my listeners are very aware that dental health is so important but let's kind of go back to basics like why would what's in your mouth affect your heart or your brain or other organs? Give us the basics on why this matters so much. Totally so it's the oral systemic link I just always want to say that word I'm always like oral systemic link oral systemic link I'm trying and just to like get the the information out there on what this is but basically the mouth is the gateway to the entire body as we know right when we eat we talk we drink everything we do from our mouth and so you know if something is infected in the mouth such as gum disease is an infection of your gums it creates a constant source of inflammation we all know inflammation isn't good it can strain the immune system so poor dental health specifically causing gum disease or whatever the infection is in your mouth has been linked to several health issues like you mentioned because specifically heart disease was one of the first ones they found with research because with gum disease there's bad bacteria right there's harmful bacteria in the mouth associated with gum disease and when this bad or harmful bacteria enters the bloodstream through the gums it can travel throughout the body and it can travel to other parts of your body and cause inflammation in other parts and damage to the tissues and the organs so gum disease can increase your risk of heart disease diabetes kidney disease Alzheimer's a bunch of other conditions there's so much exciting research happening now really showing us these links and I think it's something to be aware of that your teeth and your mouth and your gums everything dental health related is not just about having fresh breath and a pretty smile that's part of it we love that but it's also about improving your overall well-being yeah no I couldn't agree more I would say some of the most complex chronic patients that I treat which is kind of my specialty you've had symptoms of you know headaches or chronic fatigue or fibromyalgia whatever often it comes down to if we've done all the work of the body I'll say you need to go see a biological dentist and someone who can really look at the mouth so where would you start with asking questions for patients who might think that their dental health could be connected what kinds of questions you ask them or where would you go with that so so many so many ways it depends but I would say my mind was like oh my goodness where do I start I think it depends on always getting a thorough assessment first from your dentist and or dental hygienist right there's so many things of course the appearance of your gums can give you some clues some signs into maybe something's going on with the gums but oftentimes gum disease is like a silent unknown thing especially with smokers you could have gum disease and not even know it most people know the symptoms of like bleeding gums red puffy ginger butt right but if you're smoking sometimes that constricts like the blood vessels so much in your mouth that you you could go unknown we didn't even realize you had gum disease so a thorough assessment of your gums is so important and giving a complete medical history health history to your dental professionals is so important too I have so many patients that'll say you know I'll say any updates in your medicine anything new and they're like nothing that has to do with my teeth and I'm like I gotta hear it all yeah I'm like oh I mean I get where you're coming from but like if you changed a different medicine or this there's I mean there's so much that relates to what goes on in your mouth and what you're doing with your overall body so I think I would just start with let's get a comprehensive exam really figure out your whole background history what's going on and then a thorough assessment really checking your gums making sure if there's a patient or someone out there that's wondering if like oh maybe my dental health has to do with some other systemic things I would say make sure you're getting a thorough exam with periotarding that's a big one that I think sometimes goes overlooked and unfortunately so make sure they're checking your gums when they call out all the numbers that's so important I feel like go over for the people who might be listening and maybe doesn't know what that is yeah when you hear them exactly so when you're hearing them call out all the numbers I I think that's so important to just ask hey did you check my gums and if they say yeah they look fine I would say ask me or I would say tell me more about what you found in the gums you don't have to know all the technical things because I don't want to like overwhelm anyone but like I think the biggest thing is when we're checking your gums to understand is that there's a natural space between your gums and your tooth that natural space should be between you don't have to remember the numbers but it should be between one and three millimeters so when we're going around calling a bunch of numbers if you hear a bunch of ones Susan threes some hygienists might say it out loud some don't some say it in their head and then chart it you know so just ask if you didn't hear them saying it and if you got a bunch of healthy numbers you're great if you have some fours like a four not the end of the world inflammation might be present but fours are pretty reversible we'll handle it depending on your overall situation but if you get a lot of fives and above that natural space is now a pocket and that pocket is spots that bacteria pathogen stuff can get stuck in there we don't want that when there's more surface area to clean you might need a different type of cleaning so I always just urge patients to make sure that you're not just going in and out of the dentist like you don't want to hi how you doing good bye and it takes like five minutes for a cleaning you want to make sure you're getting comprehensive exam at least they at least you want them to acknowledge that they checked your gums because the source of infection is most likely your gums no I love that you say that because we deal with a gut the lipopolysaccharide which is coating a bacteria it can happen in the mouth as well and you get a direct link to the bloodstream which means that what we have is endotoxemia from the mouth not just the gut and so what these things can do is just leak those little bacteria into the blood and that I think is one of the most potent inflammatory triggers to the immune system so back to all the things that you said risk what kinds of concerns or conditions might you be if you hear the patient say I have diabetes or I have what things would you be most concerned about with dental health and the connection so a lot of all of this I don't want to say all of but most of the systemic any diabetes heart disease they all kind of relate in the mouth it's very hard to determine like oh this is going in your mouth this is going on in your mouth you probably have diabetes or this is going on you probably have heart disease it's very hard to say which one it is but we can say one of these things might be going on but say it is diabetes if I know a patient has diabetes I'm always like with everyone I triple check but with some of diabetes we also talk about home care a lot home care is so important there's only so much we can do every six months or every three months depending on what your dental regimen is of going into the dentist but there's only so much we could do for you in the office and a lot of it goes back to the patient talking about what they use at home do they use electric toothbrush do they use a regular toothbrush are they using it properly whatever they use I like to dive into home care like I am a home care I go into it like a wild person I love home care because it's so it shows when someone does the work at home and they come back in six months and I could say wow things look pretty stable there's a few spots here or there that will you know reduce some plaque or tartar levels there but if if it's pretty good and stable it's often due to home care so the questions I would ask is what are you doing at home hey everybody I just stopped by to let you know that my new book unexpected finding resilience through functional medicine science and faith is now available for order wherever you purchase books in this book I share my own journey of overcoming life-threatening illness and the tools and tips and tricks and hope and resilience I found along the way this book includes practical advice for things like cancer and Crohn's disease and other autoimmune conditions infections like Lyme or Epstein bar and mold and biotoxin related illness what I really hope is that as you read this book you find transformational wisdom for health and healing if you want to get your own copy stop by readunexpected.com there you can also collect your free bonuses so grab your copy today and begin your own transformational journey through functional medicine in finding resilience what are you doing at home good okay so say I'm like okay I don't know what to do at home what would you advise the average patient I'm in my 40s so what would you say is the ideal home regimen for someone like me I always say that every dentistry is based on the individual right so like one thing that works for one person might not work another but I do have a generalized answer there's three things everyone needs to do I always say it's like there's only three things you need to do for your teeth one is brush twice each day of course two minutes each time whether you're using an electric toothbrush or a manual toothbrush it doesn't matter however it's worth noting that an electric toothbrush has less chance of user error electric toothbrushes are easier to use so you can use either of them like the American Dental Association says they are equally effective in removing plaque however you got to use them right and that's why I like electric toothbrushes because even for me sometimes we're rushing in the morning or at night I'm like I rather my electric toothbrush make sure it's doing a good job than me trying to so I recommend that but if you like your regular toothbrush that's fine just make sure you're using it right so brush twice each day once in the morning once at night I always say in the morning it should be before breakfast before you eat or drink anything a lot of people want to fight me on that but it's because you know they're nervous that the toothpaste the mint is going to ruin the taste of their you know whatever they're going to eat for breakfast but there's ways to rinse it away it's so important it's so critical to clean off that layer that that biofilm layer that accumulated overnight even if you're a perfect brusher when before you go to sleep it's inevitable there's always bacteria in our mouth there's still going to be stuff on your teeth when you wake up so we want to remove that before you eat your breakfast so that was all number one that was a lot but number one's important we really really need there's so I think there's a there's polls out there that say it's about 40 or 50 percent of Americans say they only brush once a day I'm like we got to change that and we will just more and more people and we realize how important is to brush twice now the second thing is cleaning between your teeth I try not to say flossing because there's other options I don't know about you but I I prefer I love my water okay good water flossing is great I think that's perfect so that's a perfect example I'm happy you do that so that's what I always tell patients is like if you don't like the traditional string floss don't just say I'm not doing anything you still have to clean your teeth between your teeth with something and whether that's a water flosser a proxy brush an interdental brush those are the little ones that they look like little bottle brushes almost like really micro floss picks something's better than nothing with the handles sometimes dexterity issues or you just have bigger fingers it's hard to get in there with the floss I rather you use something that you want to use because if you want to use it you're going to use it exactly so that's my second thing clean between your teeth at least once a day you'll need to do once before bed is the most optimal time but um yeah and then the third thing this is a lot of people don't realize either is a tongue scraper a tongue scraper I you know I love a tongue scraper you don't yes you dental hygiene 100 um yes I love a tongue scraper because 90 I think it's yes 90 between 90 and 95 percent of bad breath bacteria is found on your tongue so right there like don't we all just want fresh breath I try not to make it a cosmetic issue or but it is a big deal to have bad breath you don't want that because when you think about it that bad breath bacteria is also bad bacteria that you don't want accumulating going into your throat or your your gums that you just want to reduce the bad bacteria you don't want to kill it off but let me scrape some off so I love a tongue scraper I do recommend I have some patients that will say like you know I just I brushed my tongue with a toothbrush is that is that good enough not really it's better than nothing but really getting in there and scraping it I always say you can use a spoon from your kitchen a metal spoon it works actually really well so those are my three things brush are you better I'm sorry you're fine and and don't scrape no what's up so brush between the teeth I love that and I haven't heard many hygienists talk about the tongue scraping back in our eubetic medicine it's so classically part of there so I have some specific questions for you because I'm all about the quality of what we use to so in particular there are a lot of plastics they have chemicals they have polysorbates they have polyethylene glycol which is anti-free so I'm a big big proponent of the mineral toothpaste but I'd love to know your thoughts so those would be ones that have primarily ingredient of like hydroxyapatate or have magnesium in the formula they might have some xylitol which is no known biofilm disruptor that's a natural sugar alcohol but I'm a big fan of those because in a moment I want to talk about the harms of over killing in the mouth because we need good bacteria right and Whitney if you guys listening can hear me I lost Whitney for a second here I'm going to wait to see if she pops back on so while we're waiting I'll just talk about the mineral toothpaste I like several brands there are the hydroxyapatate based brands one is rise there we go Whitney you're back on I was just filling the space I think you froze for a second you froze I was like she has the beautiful face that she froze on sorry no no worries we're here and so I'll just reiterate in case you guys missed us we're talking about types of toothpaste and what's your thoughts on that on kinds of okay yes I heard the last thing I heard yes was like hydroxyapatate and using xylitol okay okay awesome so yes I'm so I do follow the ADA guidelines the American dental association guidelines and with fluoride in my toothpaste fluoride has been proven to be effective in preventing cavities especially in low-income areas that cannot afford the more expensive natural toothpaste nano hydroxyapatate xylitol tend to be extremely more expensive than a normal fluoride toothpaste so I use fluoride toothpaste however for anyone who doesn't want to use it I am all about making sure it has nano hyza nano hydroxyapatate in it that is such a mouthful of a word they sometimes call like half or AJP how they call it but I am all about making sure it at least has that in there because the hydroxyapatate toothpaste do have research that are associated with them regarding remineralizing enamel whereas xylitol does not so although xylitol is very good at inhibiting plaque and disrupting the plaque making your teeth clean it's not as good at preventing cavities I've had so many patients personally that have switched to a natural toothpaste which is fine all about it but they come in and now they have my best friend she never had a cavity in her life she switched she came in and she had three cavities so I was like no so it didn't have hydroxyapatate in it it was only xylitol so I just if you are cavity prone and you do not want to use fluoride I can't stress enough to make sure it has nano hydroxyapatate in it because that will actually strengthen and remineralize your enamel at least the research that we have shows it it's not approved yet by the american dental association due to a limited amount of research but it's promising it shows really good stuff so once it's once it's approved I'd be very excited to talk about it even more but yeah that's what I always tell my patients yeah and I do want to give a caveat about fluoride because we see Alzheimer's patients that have fluoride deposits in their plaques and so I have a concern about the swallowing and the absorption I think in those cases like you say there's clear evidence that it does bind the enamel so in the really secret cases all people like tap on there rinse their mouth and make sure they're not swallowing any so I agree with you in that sense and yes it's hard to publicly say this but I also want my listeners to know I have great concerns about fluoride now if you have that teeth you're going to have to talk to your dentist and decide but as a functional doctor use a deposit for Alzheimer's um I would caveat that that's uh you have to really decide what's worth it I'll take the perfect example it's a totally different thing I had breast cancer at 25 years old and so now I'm in a puzzle and I want to use hormones now there's now some safety data that says after breast cancer we use hormones but if I did have to decide between my brain and my breast it's one of those decisions hormones better for the brain maybe not so much for the breast and it's one of those things you call fluoride I think it's this in some cases fluoride can be harmful especially if you're absorbing it or swallowing it systemically but we know for the teeth it's good so I kind of want to say I agree with you but because we're public and I have listeners that have heard me say be cautious about fluoride I want to be real clear about that too I love being able to have a what do you say academic conversation like it's so cool to talk with you about this because a lot of times online I don't love I do social media about dental health I don't love when people just throw claims out and like scream things about either way Florence good Florence bad Florence good everyone just yelling at each other so I love being able to have an honest conversation about it and that is so important talking to your individual dental provider healthcare provider regarding your needs it's such an individual decision it's your mouth it's your body I'm all about you do what you need to do or what you feel is best based on your the professionals you've talked to opinions statements facts I think that is a really really good point there's always so many so many facts about everything right so I'm really an ammo point point is there's no there's no question this strengthens enamel that's why I kind of understand and then all the studies with the American Dental Association they are showing that if you if you're using it as intended right if you but I am aware that some people maybe can't use toothpaste as intended they accidentally swallow a lot of it or they you know maybe you know different special needs populations are different populations that cannot spit out properly I think that's definitely a conversation to have as well with your dentist or your dental hygienist there's so many there's so many little nuances as to every decision you make and I yeah that's what I advocate for on my dental health channel is on YouTube is always talk with your individual dental provider it's great to hear the generalized information kind of like the what we just did the make sure you brush make sure you click between your teeth make sure your tongue scrape there's other things you might need to do right like that too yes and there's other things sometimes I recommend you do in addition if you have something else going on right if you have sensitivity if you have if you have a bad breath if you if you're struggling with a certain specific situation then you might have more things added to your routine or less you never know so I just always like to throw that out there yeah love it thank you so much for your expertise and then yours as well yeah the other I want to mention that either of you didn't mention and I've just been diving into the research on nitric oxide this isn't necessarily specific to dental health but it's a huge component of getting oxygen to the cells and vasodilating and as we age we produce less and what we know is that fruit foods fruits like sorry vegetables and foods that contain high nitrates like beets and root vegetables and celery and spinach and all these things what happens is we actually eat these nitrate rich foods and the bacteria in our mouth converts it to nitrates which then in our gut get converted to nitric oxide so this really backstory is this nitric oxide really really crucial so what that means is if you use a really severely antiseptic mouthwash for long term you're destroying the bacteria that's creating nitric oxide which is absolutely linked to long-term health and what I noticed you didn't say mouthwash now you and I know there's certain conditions where there's an infection or there's a post-surgery and I would absolutely not but I want to know your opinion I want to put aside mine but knowing that data on nitric oxide and that seven days of chlorhexidine 80 percent decrease in nitric oxide production so I was like wow I was using mouthwash guess what last week I stopped because of the data so what's your opinion on night on mouthwash when would you use it and had you heard those concerns about yes I love it all I'm so I'm like oh my goodness I have like a hundred million not a hundred million but I feel like I have a hundred million I don't know why I said that number I have a bazillion videos on mouthwash because there's so many interesting facts about mouthwash and you're like what not only the nitric oxide stuff some mouthwash is stain your teeth so I could go on and on do some are too some are acidic so they give you cavities like so I have a bunch of videos on that on my website my website and my youtube channel but interesting one more thing I want to say I will dive into that about the nitric oxide is also relating it to dental health is breathing through your mouth versus breathing through your nose right and you probably know way more about this than me but from my basic knowledge of it is mouth breathing negatively impacts not only your dental health because you're more likely to have dry mouth dry mouth causes cavities but also your nitric oxide is reduced when you're breathing through your mouth you're supposed to breathe through your nose so that's a whole nother thing that's really cool in some specialty areas of dentistry that's really newer research for in the dental world at least but it's very exciting so anyway back to the mouthwash so yes if you breathe through your mouth try not to I always tell my patients like it might just be a habit however if you cannot breathe through your nose I was one of them I had to have so I had no I had no airflow I had no airway my airway was messed up so I had a deviated septum I literally couldn't breathe through my nose and I was always trying to my nose okay breathe no I always say don't force yourself if you can't go see an ENT go see someone to make sure you have right ability to breathe through your nose right okay but mouthwash yes so okay where do we start I would say my biggest thing with mouthwash is never think you need to use it just because a lot of people are like what mouthwash should I use do you need to use what like I think we all have this like thought in our mind that that's part of the dental health yeah regimen and it's like that's what we're supposed to do but you might most of the time you don't need to however like you were saying if you just had a procedure there's some benefit risk ratios that maybe you should be kind of using it for a shortened amount of time as needed right it's usually like 10 to 14 days after a procedure they'll give you those prescription strength mouth washes and there's a reason for that you know to make sure things don't happen with your surgical spot in your mouth all that stuff it's kind of like having more wound on your body after surgery with your neosporine or something it's like we don't use neosporine over our body because our skin would be depleted of the microbiome but once in a while I completely agree with you there's appropriate use of yes appropriate use and yeah and I go into all about it's very it's unfortunate it makes me sad that so many companies don't disclose that their mouth washes are acidic like because we all I mean in the dental world acidity gives you cavities and enamel erosion right acidity is in our our sodas and our soda pop I don't I always call it the wrong thing depending on which region I'm in they're like don't call it soda don't call it pop soft drinks I know but um any type of you know what everything we eat is basically acidic and that's why it's bad for our teeth so I'm like why would mouthwash be acidic so some of them are I always say try to find one that's a non antiseptic and alcohol free is key as well so all that stuff you're talking about is even enhanced when there's alcohol in it we don't like alcohol mouthwash that's the one I don't know if that ever really needs to be in existence a lot of people like to feel the burn I guess I get that you like it but you don't need to feel the burn try alcohol free alcohol just dries out the mouth so um there was something else I want to see about that it was so oh yeah so when you're saying over the appropriate level of swishing that goes to buy this is something that's been trending on tiktok and everyone's asking me about it swishing with peroxide straight from the bottle okay I have a lot of opinions on that speaking of mouthwash some people use it as a mouthwash and sometimes it's fine but we've been seeing how the trends are happening on tiktok they're doing it to whiten their teeth which is fine because we do use peroxide in whitening products to whiten however like you just said we put meosporin on the wound we when we whiten our teeth we put it on our teeth we don't swish it around our entire mouth so we have been seeing more and more people come into the office with something called black hairy tongue that's what it's called that's like the medical term I know you know it yeah and it's yeah when you're microbiome the bacteria your mouth went wild because you are killing off all the good and bad bacteria every day they're switching they're switching for 30 minutes a day right now that's like the trend I don't agree with this if anyone's tuning in I do not think you should be swishing with hydrogen peroxide for 30 minutes every day you are you are literally and then we've also had patients come in where they burn their cheeks like they have sores in their mouth and I'm like what have you been doing the tiktok trend and I'm like oh no so anyway yes everything in moderation is key I think in life and then also you don't need to be swishing with peroxide to whiten your teeth it's so much easier just put a white strip on yeah so I love that you said that love that because that was my big thing on this this especially because nitric oxide if you're listening and you are a man or woman over the age of 40 you have 50 percent production of nitric oxide that you had in your 20s if you're over the age of 60 you have 15 percent production and guess what if you have good sexual health if that doesn't get your attention you must have nitric oxide for normal sexual response in men and women even despite the viagra and the medicines out there they will not work if you don't produce nitric oxide and I say that maybe as this little sensational because everybody cares about that part of our health and it literally matters your mouthwash if you if you're destroying that microbiome you cannot produce nitric oxide so this is a really big deal outside of your mouth and I love that you're saying that now one caveat interesting like you said after surgery or whatever else years ago I did some dental DNA testing and I had perforated develops which you well know is a big player for gingivitis right so at that time I did a very specific protocol with a heavy-duty mouthwash to destroy that I no longer have that elevated level but that was an example of a protocol where you actually maybe test with your dental hygienist or your doctor you see a pathogen just like I would check in the gut for pathogens and I'm going to typically treat and I might even prescribe the prescription mouthwash for 14 days or for 30 days for that kind of thing but like you say and if you um microbiome whether it's gut or mouth is always competing and trying to stay in balance and you want diversity so if you just willy-nilly go throwing antimicrobials like heavy-duty mouthwash or hydrogen peroxide you're going to kill off like you said the good guys that protect you like lactobacillus streptococcus and then all of a sudden the overgrowth of candida or other types of bacteria like perfuria and growth so I actually love that we're talking about this this is so relevant and even me as well weeks ago I had a kind of over the counter healthy mouthwash but I don't use that anymore and I don't think I ever will so that's it yeah that's my thing with mouth yeah I love everything you said that is so interesting I didn't know the statistics about over age all the ages and everything that is really really interesting I feel that so many people yeah just it's just it's not something you need to do if you want to use mouthwash there are times and places like you said but it's not something you need to do amazing what a great conversation what would be like the one takeaway maybe the thing you hear the most that's a myth or the one bit of advice that you would want to leave listeners with I think I would have to say white teeth do not equal healthy teeth just because your teeth are white doesn't mean they're healthy and vice versa just because your teeth are stained or yellowish intent doesn't mean they're unhealthy I just think we've come to such a point in society where everything has to look good and then a parent like we know with social media I could go so many different ways with this but just because something looks good doesn't mean it's good that's just because something looks bad doesn't mean it's actually fine so that's my biggest thing don't think that dental health is all about looks it's all about what's really going on in there love it and what a great way to end brings up one more question I didn't anticipate asking but I want to ask because no aren't whitening what are the harms or risk if you over whitener over proxide is it does it actually thin the enamel or what kinds of risk might people want to be aware of or not it's yeah no it's there's definitely risks for over whitening I would say over whitening most the rule of them is to not whiten more than four times a year so you're not supposed to you know the way whether you're doing like a week long whitening or if you're doing whitening at your dental office a one-day thing getting the achieving the results you need is considered one time even if it's multiple days so you're not supposed to do that more than four times a year if you're doing it more than that it's hard to save it things your enamel because everyone has different thicknesses of enamel as it is so the way it's penetrating into your tubules and things like that it's more it's the biggest I would say negative effect to over whitening is sensitivity so whether there's so many different reasons that can get you there but regardless of the reason you more likely than not will have sensitive teeth a lot of people don't realize that with whitening comes sensitive teeth if you're over whitening you could really over do that sensitivity if you're whitening responsibly using especially ADA approved products that have been tested for safety and efficacy and you're using them as instructed you should be okay as well that's another thing I always tell my patients don't if it says to leave the strips on for 30 minutes don't say I'm going to do an hour I want it to work better no you just get so sensitive your teeth are gonna be so sensitive it's going to be unpleasant to live life so just always follow the directions and you will be fine my other thing about that though however I will sorry I have to say right about that because I gotta say it something that's been on trend and it's it's it's not good it's charcoal whitening so I'm all about the strips the gels the trays as long as there's peroxide in them you're good it's even better even better news if it's ADA approved but for charcoal whitening no good the thing about charcoal is like yes it works but over time it is damaging you're an animal charcoal yeah so abrasive right the charcoal there's different layers to your tooth enamel being the outermost layer and then the next layer in is dentin enamel tends to be white dentin tends to be yellow so although you're erasing the abrasiveness is scrubbing it away scrubbing away all these layers of the white enamel they might look really nice wow wow nice clean clean but then when you get to that dentin layer you literally brushed your teeth yellow now you have a layer of yellow and the white is never coming back you probably need to get crowns or veneers I've seen this and only a few times I've seen it this extremely but it's an extreme sad thing they're like no I'll just wait till the enamel grows back I'm like enamel does not grow back so don't yeah so you don't want to be scrubbing your teeth yellow I would be very cautious anything that has the word charcoal on it having said that some toothpaste will say they are charcoal and they're not they're just stained black because companies know that it's trendy so they're just selling it like calling it charcoal and it's just stained black that's fine but um so but if it actually has abrasivity of charcoal then stay away oh I'm glad you said that because like in my realm we use charcoal orally not not um on the teeth um investable because it's in inertial toxins but um so for maybe patients listening who've heard you know that just could be a good binder I would agree with you I want to be really clear do not use charcoal on your teeth please so I just love that you said that because again because I talk about binders in other scenarios not on the teeth um they might you know so lots of good clear points and I love love love the perspective you bring that the wisdom thank you again today for taking your time and for coming on the show thank you I love your perspective it was so nice talking with you thank you for having me with me and thanks for all the good work you do in the world the social media bring you now and where can people find you speaking of of course yes so they can find me on teathtalkgirl.com that's my website as well as my youtube channel youtube.com slash teatalk and one more thing I might as well mention I've talked I feel like so much about habit forming which is so important the home care that you do I have so many patients that tell me that they're really good at keeping up with their habits after seeing the dentist for like two or three weeks and then they fall off they stop flossing they stop water flossing right I get it that happens to us so I actually have an oral health coaching program coming this fall it's called Better Mouth so stay tuned I'm so excited it you hopefully it will help more and more people to get a better routine leading to better dental health and better overall health like we all know it all relates soon that we will make sure that's linked here if you're listening and thanks again Whitney for your time thank you so much for having me you're welcome