Root Cause vs. Symptoms: The Core of Biological Dentistry

Why a dental problem can keep coming back after treatment, and how biological dentistry looks for what is driving it.

Bleeding gums, recurring decay, chronic inflammation, jaw discomfort, and persistent bad breath are symptoms, and sometimes they are a sign to look deeper. In biological dentistry we treat the immediate problem, and we also ask why it developed in the first place. Because the mouth is part of the whole body, that can mean looking beyond the tooth itself. We may consider your oral microbiome, gum health, airway and breathing, bite and function, previous dental treatment, dental materials, nutrition, lifestyle, and medical history. Sometimes one factor stands out, and other times several factors may be working together. Understanding what contributes to a problem lets us plan care that is more personalized to you.

Learn more about our biological dentistry approach at our Red Bank, NJ office.

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Root Cause vs. Symptoms: The Core of Biological Dentistry Transcript

Why does a dental problem keep coming back even after it's been treated? In biological dentistry, that question matters. Of course, we need to treat the immediate problem, but we also want to understand why it developed in the first place.

Bleeding gums, recurring decay, chronic inflammation, jaw discomfort, or persistent bad breath are symptoms. Treating those symptoms is important, but sometimes they're telling us to look deeper. That's where a biological approach is different.

We recognize that the mouth is part of the entire body, not an isolated system. So, we may consider your oral microbiome, gum health, airway and breathing, bite and function, previous dental treatment, dental materials, nutrition, lifestyle, and overall medical history. Instead of simply asking how do we stop these gums from bleeding, we also ask why does the inflammation keep returning?

Instead of only restoring another cavity, we ask what factors may be contributing to repeated decay. Sometimes there's one important factor. Other times several factors may be working together.

Biological dentistry doesn't mean ignoring the symptom. We treat what needs to be treated, but we also ask why. Because when we better understand the contributing factors, we can develop care that's more personalized to you.

At the Center for Holistic Dental Medicine, our goal isn't simply to look at a tooth. It's to understand the person attached to it.