Periodontal disease is not being treated in most offices. Yes, we do root planning and prophylaxis. Even this we usually give to our hygienist if we have one or we give the patient five minutes of our time running the ultra-sound tip around and between the teeth. Then we have our register dental assistant finish up with the polishing and removing anything we might have missed. This is usually the extent of the periodontal treatment in the office.
The patient continues to suffer with periodontal disease and you are losing twenty percent of your potential production. Yes, we will treat the occasional acute periodontitis, but many of us misdiagnosis this and open and drain the tooth claiming the tooth had irreversible pulpitis. We came to this conclusion because the patient was in extreme pain. We ignored the inflamed gingival tissues around the suspect tooth.
We are getting ahead of ourselves. Where did irreversible pulpitis come in? Let me give you the situation.
A patient came into the office....