Mid-Columbia Dental is leading the way in preventive care – and not just cavity prevention! We understand the link between the health of your mouth and your total health, and we have stepped up to improve the total health of our patients as a holistic dentist.

Gum disease is a major risk factor for heart attack and ischemic stroke. Gum disease causes inflammation throughout your entire body and damages the insides of your arteries. This is the first step toward a heart attack or stroke.

Next, a soft arterial plaque forms in the wall of your damaged artery. This plaque grows until it ruptures. The rupture is also triggered by inflammation and oral bacteria. A clot forms at the rupture site and blocks the flow of blood in that artery. If that artery is in your heart, the event is a heart attack. If that artery is in your brain, the event is a stroke.

At Mid-Columbia Dental, we are trained to screen our patients for risk factors such as inflammatory markers, vulnerable plaque, and pathogenic oral bacteria. We use diagnostic tools to check for these signs, and we educate our patients so they completely understand what’s going on inside their arteries.

Our Mid-Columbia Dental team has a passion for and a vested interested in the complete health of our patients. We work hard, we study hard, and we train to provide our patients with the highest standard of care.

We realize a lot of patients are unaware of their true risk for heart attack and stroke. Meanwhile, heart attack and stroke remain the leading causes of death and disability in our country. And it’s preventable!

For our patients who have increased risk, we offer to partner with their physicians for the betterment of their total health. If their physicians are resistant to a partnership, we offer to connect our patients with physicians in the community who are also practicing leading-edge healthcare. As you can imagine, our patients sincerely appreciate our dedication to their total health and wellness. We choose to educate our patients about these risks, and we choose to provide leading-edge screening for our patients who choose to be proactive in preventing diseases of all kinds.