 Hello everybody, good afternoon. So this week, what has been some very common online consultation questions? So what have I been talking about and what are people asking me? So if you didn't know, have a look down below where you can book an online consult with me if you have dental questions, concerns, basically any dental problems you have and or you want a second opinion, I can help with that. So one of the more common ones, and I'm just checking my notes here, I would say this is actually always a common one per week, is I get people emailing me saying I just went to the dentist, I have gingivitis, I have periodontal disease, I have moderate or advanced or maybe they haven't gone to the dentist yet, but they've been watching some of my other videos and they go, oh my god, I think I have gum disease. I just watched this video of yours, I'm really concerned. What do I do? How much is it going to cost me to go to the dentist? So these have been some very common questions and I've been answering them for you guys. So basically, depending on what your dental consult issue is. So as an example, if you're curious about your advanced periodontal condition and you want to know, well, is there any hope for me? Can I maintain this at home? What do I do? So I do ask you to send me photos of your mouth. You don't have to, but if you don't send me photos of your mouth specifically, then I kind of go over a general overview of what periodontal disease is, the early, moderate or severe signs, and then kind of signs and symptoms that you might be having, and then I kind of base your consult on that. I do find a lot of people don't want to send me photos of their mouth, which is completely fine. You don't have to, but you're going to get a better consult if I can see you in your mouth specifically, right? But in these cases, when people have asked about periodontal disease or gum disease, they have all sent me photos, which was fantastic. And the best part is, what everybody seems to say is they go, Andrea, thank you. I just wanted somebody to explain this to me. I went to the dentist. I was overwhelmed. I was in shock basically, where I didn't know what questions to ask. But then when I got home, there were so many things going through my head. I'm like, oh my god, so what do I do? Where do I get started? In a lot of cases, you're going to be shocked at the dentist, especially if you've never heard you have gum disease before, or periodontal disease, or maybe you haven't been to the dental office in 10 years. Well, what dental offices tend to do, and I used to work in an office too. I currently have my own mobile dental hygiene practice, so it's a bit different. But I used to work in an office too, and we basically overwhelm our poor patients with, okay, it's going to cost you this much. It's going to take eight different appointments. We're going to clean certain areas of your mouth. In some cases, we might suggest a local anesthetic to actually numb your mouth, because your gum disease is so bad. It's going to hurt unless we use the needle, but not necessarily. So really, depending on your condition, I like to be able to help you guys with that. So if you have questions about gum disease, periodontal disease, how to manage it at home, I might tell you you can't. You have to go to the dentist, or I might tell you from what you're telling me, or from those photos you're sending me, and you actually can. Let me tell you what toothpaste to buy, mouthwash, how to brush, what toothbrush to buy. So I can help you guys with that, okay? Another common thing lately is people are sending me their x-rays and then asking me to kind of assist them in what the dentist had said. So quite often, I get x-ray I'm not a dentist, so I don't diagnose your x-rays, but I help to kind of show you things such as, well, this is a dark area here. If your dentist says you have a cavity here, this is what I'm seeing, so you are correct. In some cases, I might be saying, are you sure the dentist told you you have a cavity in this tooth because I don't see any dark area? So maybe go back to the dentist and ask them again. So just to kind of show you guys, in case you're curious, I had my teeth cleaning the other day. Do you want to see my x-rays? So when people send me their x-rays, so this is a bite wing x-ray. Here is a panoramic x-ray. So they did take several bite wings, and then they did also take a panoramic. So there's actually more bite wings, which I don't see, so I'm going to have to check that. But anyways, you guys, so on the bite wings, we look at in between the teeth here, if we see any black dark areas. Now, you have to be a dental professional to be able to look at x-rays, because when I say dark areas, you're probably thinking, oh my goodness, there's dark areas in the middle of all of these teeth. Well, those are actually your nerves, so we're not concerned with those. See this white area here? I had a composite filling, so I had a filling done. I had a cavity, so you have to fix the cavity using a filling. But for the average person, if you see this white, you might think it's normal because there's white everywhere. So I can kind of help to guide you at what the dentist might be looking at. And then a panoramic x-ray is a big x-ray of the whole mouth. You may or may not have this, but we look at all the different areas. Check out my sinuses, you guys. So we look at the sinuses. They're quite low. In fact, the roots of my teeth are into the sinuses a little bit too. So if I was getting a lot of sinus infections, and my teeth are so sore, they hurt, I would say, well, your sinuses are quite low. So you might think you're having tooth pain, but it's actually due to your sinus infection. But when in doubt, if you're not sure, go to the dentist. But if you want to save some money and kind of get an idea first, this is the way to do it. And if you guys see I have a white area here, a whiter area here, here, those are when I had cavities and they were fixed. So just in case you were curious. So let me know, you guys, if you have any questions, online consultations are for everybody. If you just simply want a second opinion, if you just had a Ruchnell appointment and you're like, I have so many questions, what happened, like what's going on, and you might not want to ask your dentist per se, talk to me. I am very happy to help. So have fun, you guys. Good afternoon. And let me know if you need anything. Thank you guys so much. And I will talk to everybody soon.