The Root of the Matter

Oral Health Revolution: Uncovering the Hidden Link to Systemic Disease with Tosha Kozloski

• Dr. Rachaele Carver, D.M.D. Board-Certified, Biologic, Naturopathic Dentist • Season 3 • Episode 14

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What if the key to preventing heart disease, dementia, and cancer was hiding in your mouth? In this eye-opening episode, we're joined by dental hygienist and consultant Tosha Kozloski RDH, who's revolutionizing periodontal care through advanced diagnostic techniques that reveal what traditional exams miss.

"All infections start subclinically," Tosha explains, sharing how microscopy has transformed her approach to gum disease. While conventional dentistry often relies on visible symptoms like bleeding or inflammation, Tasha shows how harmful bacteria can thrive beneath the surface in seemingly healthy mouths. The microscope becomes a powerful educational tool as patients witness spirochetes and amoebas actively swimming in samples from their own mouths – bacteria that shouldn't be present in health.

We explore the three-tier approach that's helping patients regrow bone without surgery: professional interventions with ozone and laser therapy, enhanced home care protocols, and addressing immune system factors. Tasha explains why water flossing with antimicrobial solutions penetrates protective bacterial biofilms that brushing alone cannot reach, using vivid analogies that compare traditional cleanings to a "car wash" when some patients need the "full detail."

The conversation challenges conventional wisdom about periodontitis, antibiotics, and the oral-systemic connection. From patients whose eye infections resolved after periodontal treatment to the presence of oral bacteria in brain tissue and heart attack clots, the evidence is clear: your mouth is connected to everything.

Whether you're a healthcare professional or someone concerned about your overall wellbeing, this episode offers practical insights into preventing disease at its source. Listen now to discover why paying attention to your oral health might be the most important preventative measure you're overlooking.

Ready to connect with Tosha: 

https://www.instagram.com/tosh.care/

https://www.tosh.care/

To contact Dr. Carver directly, email her at drcarver@carverfamilydentistry.com

Want to talk with someone at Dr. Carver's office?  
Call her practice: 413-663-7372

Reverse Gum Disease In 6 Weeks! With Dr. Rachaele Carver Online Course!

Learn more about here: https://reversegumdiseaseinsixweeks.info/optinpage



Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only. Information discussed is not intended for diagnosis, curing, or prevention of any disease and is not intended to replace advice given by a licensed healthcare practitioner. Before using any products mentioned or attempting methods discussed, please speak with a licensed healthcare provider. This podcast disclaims responsibility from any possible adverse reactions associated with products or methods discussed. Opinions from guests are their own, and this podcast does not condone or endorse opinions made by guests. We do not provide guarantees about the guests' qualifications or credibility. This podcast and its guests may have direct or indirect financial interests associated with products mentioned.

Dr. Carver:

Hello everybody, welcome back to another episode of the Root of the Matter. I am your host, dr Rachel Carver, and today we have the pleasure of speaking with Tasha Kodolowski, who is a registered dental hygienist and a consultant. I met her at a biologic dental conference and we had a great conversation. She was showing the microscope and all and she did. My sample showed me it was pretty good. But she helps practices transform their approach to periodontal care. So gum disease and it's really good at teaching these newer modalities that we love, such as the microscope and salivary diagnostics.

Dr. Carver:

We've had the owner, one of the owners of Bristle Health, on to talk to us a little bit about what we can do with saliva. That field is exploding because we're using saliva now for cancer diagnosis, like all sorts of great. It's wonderful because it's not expensive, it's non-invasive, so that's super exciting, right, and her like me. You know we resonated really well because our primary goal is prevention and we know it's so much easier to prevent disease than it is to treat disease. And since maybe a lot of people say 80% of disease comes from the mouth, we know that oral bacteria is a cause of heart disease, right, kidney, liver, colon cancer, dementia, anywhere that blood flows anytime we're chewing and swallowing, that bacteria is getting to the rest of our bodies. So we're here to.

Dr. Carver:

The whole point of this podcast is showing that oral connection to disease, and the coolest thing about our profession is we have a very accessible area to work on right. It's a lot easier to treat gum disease in the mouth than it is to treat, say, colon cancer or any other kind of intestinal inflammation. Thank you, tasha, for coming on. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your story, why you got interested in dental hygiene and how it transformed into this consultant job?

Tosha Kozloski:

Yeah, like all of us, I guess it's an evolution, right, dr Carver? I don't think I ever set off in hygiene school to want to do all the things that I'm doing today, but, as it goes, one thing leads to the next, leads to the next, and probably from sixth grade though, I was always a nerd and wanted to be a dental hygienist. My mom was a dental assistant, always loved going to our local dentist, lived in a tiny little town in rural North Dakota one dentist for all the rural community and I was no stranger and lots of cavities. Growing up, both of my parents had significant gum like problems, so my dad had severe periodontal disease, my mom had a lot of restorative decay issues, and just the not because they were lack of caring or they didn't take care of their teeth, it was just there was something more going on that they didn't know about, and so therefore, with us being the children, we had a lot of those same issues, and so when I got to hygiene school, I just thought man perio is where I'm going to be able to make a difference. Working in GP practice is just going to be healthy, pro fees all day long. I'll probably get so bored with that Little did. I know we all face perio. No, it doesn't matter where your practice is, even if it's a pedo practice.

Tosha Kozloski:

And so once I got, once I graduated, I really wanted to work for a periodontist, got lucky enough to land a job working for a periodontist simultaneously worked for a GP practice. Three doctors, 10 hygienists lots of contrast there, right. But what they had in common were that most of my patients bled all day long and what I did at the perio office was preparation for flap surgeries and different things like that. If somebody was referred for periodontal disease, we're talking stage three. These were not easily restored mouths. These were patients that had lost teeth due to gum disease, collapsed bites, all on X wasn't a thing 20 years ago. But even if it was, I think back to it now and I'm not really sure how easy some of those patients could have been restored with that anyway, because everything shifts right. They don't. Periodontal patients don't lose teeth like all at once. It's like little by little all kinds of things are happening, and so I just got really curious about man. There's got to be a way. It can't be normal for all of my patients to bleed like this. And so within a year I just thought that everyone bled, it was normal. And then I finally had a patient that and I wanted to treat with scaling and root planing all those traditional diagnostics. But I finally had a patient that looked at me one day and she said Tasha, what do I do? I don't want to lose my teeth. And I was like I literally had no idea she had gone through scaling and root planing. She was one of these patients that spent 20 minutes easily twice a day immaculate home care. She was diabetic. Even recommending scaling and root planing felt wrong because I was like what am I going to do in there? There's like nothing to clean off, so fast forward.

Tosha Kozloski:

I moved to Tennessee, found a doctor that was as passionate as I was about perio and found out about saliva testing, so started doing saliva testing in 2008. That was like a game changer. I immediately thought of course this makes sense. All of a sudden that really made sense and I really did see patients getting better bone regrowing without LENAP, without laser, without any advanced technology, truly, except for just a better understanding and going after the bacterial infection, understanding the host immune system and that whole piece. Then a microscope was introduced to us and that was just that was a bigger game changer than salivary diagnostics, simply because so many patients looked good. And then you would look at their slide and it was. It was that connection. It was that all infections start subclinically, just like if you get strep throat, you don't all of a sudden have strep like you have to come in contact with it, your immune system doesn't fight it off, and so that was the aha moment for me and for my patients.

Dr. Carver:

Claude's for a second there, because everything you say is amazing and this is what I think is such the game changer, because so often we look at our patients they're like they're fine, they're not, their guns aren't, they're just, they're fine, but they're not Like you said. I talk to patients and my kids all the time about the bucket, right, you don't really develop a symptom until that bucket is full. You've been adding in those toxins, you've been adding in all this stuff and then all of us, it feels sometimes all of a sudden I have a simple like my eczema, which brought me on this journey, like it was building for years and years.

Dr. Carver:

I didn't all of a sudden it felt like it. All of a sudden I had all these rashes all over hands, but it was years and years of all sorts of things right, building up, and then the perfect storm. Right, because it's never just one thing right, it's just the combination, the immune system breaking down. Right, because our bodies are amazingly adaptable. We can heal from almost anything. So when we're prevention, we want to look at what are those root causes? Right? And so, even for myself, when we first started doing the silha testing, I was like whoa, why am I showing protein and white blood cells in my saliva? I'm like I have perfect gum. They never bleed, I don't have any cavities, like, everything is good.

Dr. Carver:

But that was really the key to me. Wow, there's something and, as most of us, we're always dealing with trying to heal our guts, keep them as clean as possible. So I was like I am always working on that gut. So that to me, when I do that silha, which is a screening test, I'm looking for evidence of inflammation, and I see that I'm always looking okay with that Because in my opinion which maybe you share this with the gung disease, that is a systemic problem. I believe it's autoimmune.

Tosha Kozloski:

It doesn't. We're not just like hanging out here and going oh, I'm just going to swim here. We have 60,000 miles of blood vessels. I tell every hygienist, if you see any bleeding not bleeding on probing any bleeding in there why? Why is the gum tissue essentially getting a paper cut? And if it does, then anything that's in the mouth is going to be circulating the rest of the body. We, anything that's in the mouth is going to be circulating the rest of the body. We found porphyromodous gingivalis in the brain. We found these types of bacteria in the cloths of patients that have had heart attacks and strokes. How did they get there?

Dr. Carver:

Exactly and why we have ignored this connection for so long is baffling. It's easier right For everybody to stay in their own little box. And we super specialized in medicine and dentistry and everybody just stays in their box. Where we need the doctors of old, where where we say, hey, the whole body is connected, how do we get back to nature and all stuff? Yeah, so when you first talked about, when you moved to Tennessee and you were starting doing what were, what were you looking for in these salivary saliva tests? I assume maybe it was like the oral ID kind of thing. What was that showing?

Tosha Kozloski:

So with the saliva test that I used initially, like the first one was, eventually it was sold and now it's oral DNA. But it was the precursor to that. It was Hein Diagnostics that came from Germany, brought here and the lab was in Germany, and then you shipped everything to them, brought here and the lab was in Germany, and then you shipped everything to them. And but when we first just did saliva testing, it was we saw positive signs and symptoms of periodontal disease. So I was still very much limited to my traditional diagnostic parameters, not quite realizing that I was being very reactive. But when I was being reactive I was seeing such great results when I did take that patient through therapy and didn't just try to remove the debris that really had nothing to do with the infection in the first place. But to pass your clinical boards you need to be able to get rid of all that gunk on the patient's mouth and teeth and mouth. And it was really more when I got the microscope and we started taking slides on everyone and looking at their biofilm that all of a sudden it was a game changer, simply because I saw patients that looked great. They didn't have any bleeding points, they didn't have redness and inflammation. But they did have spirochetes, amoeba, white blood cells, all these things that they shouldn't have if they're healthy. And those were also the patients that I would do my full mouth probe chart and I would say everything looks great. Dr Carver, We'll get you shined up and we'll get you out of here. And then I would see all this bleeding and I thought, oh my gosh, what do I do? Oh, sorry, Dr Carver, I was wrong. What do I do now? Oh, by the way, I'm halfway through my appointment. I don't have time to convert this into a difficult prophy.

Tosha Kozloski:

Back then we didn't even have a gingivitis code, which still is very misunderstood, but we didn't really know what to do anyway. And for me, I thought well, this patient already does a great job with their home care. What more can we do? Anyway, I didn't know, I just didn't know. And so once I started to see that bacteria and I could show the patient, wow, these bacteria are actually living inside your gum tissue, not just on top of it, You're not. You came in contact with these somewhere Parents, partners, pets, contaminated food and drinking water. We don't know. What we do know is that your immune system is not fighting them off because we're seeing them here, and so now this is what we need to do. So I was able to create a lot more proactive plans than always just chasing these infections that have a lot of times been there for decades.

Dr. Carver:

Yeah, and interestingly what? In my research? What I found is that's what we used to think you got it from this person. Or people say, well, my parents had it and so therefore I have it. What I believe that is really you inherit kind of your ability to detox well or not, right? So it's not that you necessarily and yes, with parents and everything we swap saliva we swap ideally in a healthy person you should have to think that we never have that. Or rent complex bacteria is a fallacy. All of us have this bad, even in health. It's when it gets out of balance, yeah.

Dr. Carver:

So the way that we think about again, especially if you're thinking this is an autoimmune kind of issue, in my opinion, a lot of times it's when that gut, because we live in such a toxic world, now right. And if we're not detoxing those toxins, well. Or, my opinion, a lot of times it's when that gut, because we live in such a toxic world, now right. And if we're not detoxing those toxins, well, or we're eating a diet, that's not right for us, right, and it's creating inflammation. That inflammation, the gut, is one same lining, right? So we could be having a gut infection which then changes the environment in the mouth too. Absolutely, we shift Now the whole whole environment. This is right. We talk about like that terrain theory, right? So the germ theory is which is what conventional dash straight built on? It's a germ, we kill the germ and everything's happy. But we know that not to be true.

Dr. Carver:

And with the beginning of salivary diagnostics we would be like you know why I turned away from it originally is because didn't matter what the results were, that the recommendation was always antibiotics. And I'm like always I was like I don't, yes, that kills the stuff, but I'm like why did it become imbalanced in the first place? So we're going to nuke everything, but then also, what are we doing to all the gut bacteria with those antibiotics? There's a lot of negative consequences for just blasting everything and you're not really addressing why the imbalance happened in the first place. So it goes deeper.

Dr. Carver:

And this is why going to the dentist every six months or more is so vital to your overall health, because we need to follow your oral and we see this, like you just said, all the time. People have impeccable home care. So why does the disease persist? Because it's deeper. Right and again, is it diet, is it deficiency, stress? Yes, everybody's got stress, so you got all those issues and when we have a lot of stress and when we have a lot of toxicity, that creates deficiencies, so everything gets out of whack right. So let's say you have the patient come in and again their oral care looks great. You're not concerned necessarily with anything and you do this, the microscope right. So you swab super easy to do you just swab around the teeth in a couple of places, put it on a slide. So what are you looking for when you are looking on the microscope?

Tosha Kozloski:

Yeah. So I'm strictly looking for shapes and I don't know, based on the shape, what that bacteria is, for example. But what I do know is certain shapes are part of your healthy, good, good, healthy guys that help your body stay healthy. And then there's others like spirochetes, amoeba, trichinomas. We shouldn't find those in health, we shouldn't find those in high volume, high motility. So we're really looking for the difference. Is this a low volume, low motility? There's not a whole lot going on. We've got short rods, we've got cocci, all the things that we learned in biology. That's part of that initial biofilm. But as the biofilm matures it starts to transition into those gram negative rods and all that kind of stuff. And so when we see those changes, we know that there's already a significant imbalance. And in periodontal disease, we know that some of those more harmful toxin-releasing bacteria because, like you mentioned earlier, we can have some of these bad bacteria without being sick but it's whether or not they're releasing a couple different types of toxins that drive the inflammatory response. So there's definitely more to the story than what the microscope is. But we're looking for high volume, high motility, lots of frantic, frantic looking slide, because that tells me, hey, there's a huge imbalance here, but it really makes that conversation so much easier with the patient when they see all kinds of stuff and they're like, oh my gosh, that's in my mouth. It's a much easier conversation than trying to explain to them the entire oral microbiome and the oral systemic connection.

Tosha Kozloski:

For me, my belief is keep it super simple. Keep it so simple for the patient that they know exactly what they need to do in steps, and don't throw the kitchen sink at them at once, because then it turns into a new year's resolution that by February and most people have already quit. And so that's where I start with. Okay, let's look at what this patient is doing now. Let's make some tweaks and modifications.

Tosha Kozloski:

If they have an extremely high risk slide, they have positive signs and symptoms, then we do need to take them through some medicated therapy. We need to get in those nooks and crannies, disrupt and disorganize the biofilm, help give their immune system a jumpstart. Then figure out what are you all doing at home. Let's take a look at your diet and putting the rest of the pieces together and I'll send them home with a water pick or something like that that can better disrupt and disorganize, because if the patient has periodontal disease many of those bacteria have.

Tosha Kozloski:

They're similar to MRSA in that they have that protective matrix material around themselves for protection. So if our patient is only brushing and flossing and they do have these bacteria that are releasing these toxins that are driving inflammation, that protective jacket isn't going to be brushed and flossed away. Their immune system is not going to be able to get rid of it as easy, especially if they're already eating the standard American diet, microwaving their food in plastic, all the different things, so many things it's hard to count. If they're wearing a CPAP, they're not cleaning it properly. There's so many different offenders to all of our bodies and everyone's immune system is different. I've had patients with home care. That is not very good. Their gum health is fine, what's?

Dr. Carver:

happening systematically, right, it's so important that person, maybe they are eating the right diet, right, they're doing all their sleeping well, they're not mouth breathing. There are just so many factors. I love what you say because I know sometimes in our practice when we do just the Silhan I'm trying to explain that gut connection people can glaze over right, and if you have an hour, hour and a half tops in a pair, how do you get all that? And for me, I'm like I'm usually popping in while I'm treating other patients, so that's where I console in silha and a lot of the doctors. This is the biggest thing. Like, how do you have that conversation?

Dr. Carver:

So the advantage of the microscope is boom, okay, they see it right there, because the psilocybe is great too. Actually, see, when you're seeing your own saliva on that, that's even a bigger picture there. Okay, whoa, look at. So that still has. We're seeing white blood cells. All right, we're gonna swab. Let's look at this, the slide here, my goodness, yeah. And so let's say you have that person, okay, and if they are brushing and flossing, very well, maybe even they're using mouth rinse, which I'm not a huge fan of, but you're seeing, like the spirochetes and stuff like that. So walk me through what is your first conversation with them, if they feel like you mentioned the biofilm. So you said you're going to give them a water pick. Do you recommend that they use? Tell us a little bit about the water pick, what you might put in it and why that's important.

Tosha Kozloski:

Yeah. So with patients I don't explain to them like I would explain to my clinicians and the doctors that I work with. I keep it extraordinarily simple, and so my verbal scripts. If this was you and I did my full mouth periodontal charting and I saw some signs and symptoms of inflammation, I would say, wow, dr Carver, I'm seeing some inflammation, redness and even bleeding in your gum tissue. I'm going to take a plaque sample to see if there's something going on. Now we look at the microscope. Let's say there's frantic, all kinds of creepy crawlers all over there. Then most of the time the patient looks at them and goes that's in my mouth. And then I say, yes, this definitely explains the inflammation I was seeing in your mouth today. So I want to connect back. Like what you're seeing here is what I was seeing.

Tosha Kozloski:

Because for the most part, these infections are subclinical and some of our patients believe they've had bleeding their entire lives. So we have to disrupt their initial thought and also disrupt the autopilot of these hygiene visits too, because just like patients come in and they think they're going to get their teeth cleaned, they're just expecting that when they see one of us hygienists. It's not their fault. We've trained them that way. So we have to say, oh, I'm seeing a change, or oh, wow, this is what it is today. And then I see that frantic slide. Then I keep it to some analogies that anyone can understand. I say think of these bacteria like termites in the foundation of a house. They live deep inside your gum tissue, not just on top of it, which is why coming in here regularly doing a really great job with your home care isn't able to fight it off. Like, basically, these bad bugs or bad bacteria, however that practice wants to call it. I leave that up to them. Like, so they can for their patient base. Like, how do they want to say that? But for these bad bacteria, they've overpowered your good bacteria, so your immune system is really struggling taking care of them.

Tosha Kozloski:

So what we need to do is not that traditional cleaning Think of the cleanings we've been doing like a routine car wash. What you now need is the full detail, really spending time getting the nooks and crannies places we just can't reach with the traditional cleaning. There's going to be some homework on top of it and several visits with me, so then I'm like engaging them into oh, I found, she found something different, he found something different. Now we need to do something different. So that's my initial conversation. Most of the time the patients okay, yeah, get those out, what do we need to do? But then it's.

Tosha Kozloski:

I learned this from another biological dentist. The way that she explains it to her patient is we take a three-tier approach. First is what are we going to do for you in the practice. Second is what are you going to do for yourself at home? And the third is your immune response. So that's when we can link back to their medical history. So first, what we're going to do for you in the practice, we'll explain that. I'll explain to the patient like that full detail includes, depending on what the practice has, ozone, laser, whatever it is that practice is going to use to help get that patient healthy. That's what it's going to be for the home care piece. That's going to be the water flosser, and then the medicaments that the practice likes.

Tosha Kozloski:

So I work with a myriad of practices and so I of course have the products that I prefer. Normally they'll say, okay, give me the research and I'll say, here you go, and then they'll be like, oh, okay. And then the third tier is really that immune response. So, depending on what their medical history looks like. Are they diabetic, are they immunosuppressed, do they have rheumatoid arthritis and they're also taking immunosuppressant drug, then we've got a whole host of things. That is also going to be part of that equation and I know this is not going to be a couple appointments in this patient's fixed. This is going to be perhaps a year of getting the patient to health, and every single time I'm going to take a slide so I can know if I'm decreasing volume, decreasing motility.

Tosha Kozloski:

So with the Waterpik, I don't have any relationship with Waterpik, I just love the Waterpik. I've tried a gazillion different generic types and you get what you pay for, and so I like that pickpocket tip I have. Like PerioBright Cleanse is one that a lot of practices use. There's no alcohol, it's essential oils, it tastes really good, so compliance is excellent. It comes with a pump so the patient could just do one pump to 300 milliliters of water, and it's made to be used in the Waterpik.

Tosha Kozloski:

In a perfect world, everyone would go home with ozone water, of water, and it's made to be used in the water pick. In a perfect world, everyone would go home with ozone water. But that's not a perfect world yet I think we're going to get there, but we're not there yet, and so then they just run around and I show them like shape of a letter, m on the top, w on the bottom. Running around, she goes until the tank is empty, and so that's like my number one thing, with the patient's going to start to penetrate the biofilm wall, because if they don't start penetrating the biofilm wall, it's not going to be as good. The second thing is toothbrush technique. Don't just brush your teeth and gums like brush all of it. Scrape your tongue.

Dr. Carver:

You know what we do for that ozone water. We make ozone ice cubes. We send the patients home with ice cubes so that'll last them a little while, so they can only take. They take one out at a time, because if we just give ozone water, we know over time that it diminishes.

Tosha Kozloski:

Yeah, yeah, Within a couple hours it's water.

Dr. Carver:

So we bought these big silicone molds and we send them home with the ice cubes, so that's a really nice way to. Yeah, maybe we're just going to have an ozone machine, which they're becoming. The podcast I just did was with Promo Life. They have that Tumblr. Yeah, at home, like they're making them very affordable and if you have one modality at home, spend your money at one thing bozone yes, what that can do is amazing, so I also like their new my new favorite powder.

Dr. Carver:

They have one that has ozone. It tastes really good. Some of them with those on it's. It can taste very chlorine.

Tosha Kozloski:

Yeah. The oils, yeah, can be a little too much for a lot of pigeons.

Dr. Carver:

I'm a fan. It cuts right through that biofilm. So that's really exciting. So, again, really important. What that water pick is doing Again that regular brushing and flossing can't do is break the biofilm, Just like you said. Like how you described that, Like a jacket on there, like the waterproof jacket. Nothing is getting through that. And I also love your analogy of regular car wash versus now. You need to be detailed, I think that's. That image is awesome and that's so important. Right, Same thing with the termites.

Dr. Carver:

Like we can't, we got to get deeper down in there where the brushing and the flossing cannot reach so some of the other modalities. Tell me how you use the lasers and ozone when you're doing periode treatment and why those are beneficial.

Tosha Kozloski:

Yeah, so depending on what the practice has. So a lot of my practices have at least ozone water. A good number of them also have ozone gas and then laser. Protocols, depending on the state, are going to vary. So if a practice has, let's say they have all the things, so if they have a laser and they can use it as initiated tip, then what we're going to kick off the appointment with is they're going to swish with ozone water as their pretreatment swish and then they'll run around with their LBR, their uninitiated tip, because that laser can penetrate into the gum tissue up to five millimeters and stimulate those fiber blasts and start that healing process and really help to supercharge the good, the immune system. And then from there they'll use their if they have ultrasonics I try to whether it's a Cavitron or a Piezo or however they do if they can use ozone water. In that it's like killing two birds with one stone versus one more step. And so for the most part they'll use their Piezo or their Cavitron or GBT, whichever they have, and they'll full mouth irrigate, disrupting any biofilm, breaking up any calculus, any debris cleaning as well, like old fashioned scaling and root planning, but really focused on the biofilm and then they'll go in with their and then they'll do whatever fine scaling they need and then they'll add the ozone gas if they have that as well to that entire appointment. So they would do that and then, if they also can initiate their laser tip, they'll finalize with that, because that initiated laser tip is like wiping away all the necrotic tissue at the end to then help again, and that heat also helps with the healing process and of course the gas is going to be able to penetrate into the tissue too. So it can.

Tosha Kozloski:

A little bit crazy when people have all the different technologies. I would say most don't have every single thing, so it's just going to depend on what they have. When I first started seeing bone regrowing, I didn't have all these wonderful things and I still was able to see bone regrowing on implants, vertical defects, patients getting so much healthier saying I don't know what it is, I just feel better. Or just other spontaneous recoveries eye infections that they're going to have surgery from an ophthalmologist go away as soon as they got their oral health under control, because sometimes that's just enough to make them reflect and go. Why do I have an infection in my mouth? Why do I?

Dr. Carver:

have this imbalance and when we're doing these kinds of things, we're diminishing that bucket. Right, we're reducing that bucket, yeah. So now, once we take the burden, the immune system, take the burden out of the mouth, the immune system can get that high infection and can get the other infections throughout the body. So, again, that's why I think what we do is exciting, because it's accessible and the patient can do things from home, too that really make it. But it has to go beyond that. Brushing and flossing, yes, too, that really make it. But it has to go beyond that. Brushing and flossing, yes, and that's exciting. And what we're traditionally taught is, once the bone's gone, it's gone forever. That's too bad, but we now know the body knows how to regenerate itself. Right, we just got to remove that infection.

Dr. Carver:

And the laser is so amazing. The red lights, that photobiomodulation, all that is so amazing for healing and stimulating. And we don't realize how much the body communicates by light. But this is why sunlight is so important. Yeah, Because internal and we think it's probably pretty dark in there, but no photons. When we're absorbing photons, they are communicating in the cells. So now they have a lot of little devices that look like mouse guards. Right that photons, they are communicating in the cells. So now they have a lot of little devices that look like mouse guards, right, that have red and blue light on them, which I think is another thing that somebody can have to do at home. Because I was telling to the dentist, the hygienist, for once every I don't know, maybe initially every six weeks or something, or if you're regular every six months. What are you doing?

Dr. Carver:

in that interim so there are other things that we can do, especially somebody who has any perio issues. What are the other things in biohacking? We call them stack, stack, and so when you have the ozone plus the red light, plus the laser, right, we're stacking all these things, which makes the healing and the recovery and all that so much quicker. So these things that you can add in without being such, sometimes when you're adding so many different habits, like people aren't gonna do them. But that's why one benefit of having that microscope when somebody actually sees all those weird things wiggling out, that might be a little bit more.

Tosha Kozloski:

They're motivated, they're super motivated. I compare I so much compare the microscope to intraoral photography. We wouldn't dream of so many practices have a different. Like scanners. There's different scanners. There's extra-oral photography, inter-oral photography. That's not just for us, that's also to show the patient what exactly is going on. It's so much easier and when our brain can visualize the problem, they automatically can visualize the solution. So if they see a bunch of stuff running around in their mouth and they go like what they want, is it not to be so? Bridging the gap is easier. So it's like, oh, you need me to do this at home.

Dr. Carver:

Okay, fine, and it's so important because most oral disease is asymptomatic, right, we don't realize we have gum disease, we don't know we have an abscess, right, and sometimes, even if it's a huge abscess, you bite down and it feels a little weird, but not necessarily painful, right, that's why we have to do radiographs, because there are so many things we don't see yet. They are a huge burden to our immune system. Just a list of pretty much every chronic disease. You can find a correlation to oral bacteria, right, because, again, like you talked about some of those, one of the major toxins is LPS, like a lipopolysaccharide we know. That directly damages endothelial cells, which are the cells that line blood vessels. You get damage. Then all of a sudden, your cholesterol is going to go higher, because that's the signal for the liver to send some LDL to patch up all the damage. But we know it's I get concerned.

Dr. Carver:

Patients have infections in their maxilla. The roots of an upper tooth are very close to the sinus, which is one thin membrane away from the brain. So is it any surprise that we have oral bacteria connected to dementia? Right, we know, we all talk about the microglial cells, which are the immune cells in the brain and those kind of create these. We're always so worried about the plaques, right, the amyloid plaques in the brain. Drugs were targeted to get rid of these plaques, when in fact, the plaques are actually a result of bacteria causing damage and activating the microglia. So, just like LDL cholesterol, the bad cholesterol helps bandage up blood vessels in the periphery of our body. Those amyloid plaques are protecting the infections in the brain, so we need to remove the infections. And then the plaques are creating issues. So you can think of that anywhere in the body and oral bacteria and other kind of microbes in general are some of the major problems.

Dr. Carver:

Right, and I say all the time on this podcast toxins and infections. Toxins and infection that's what's causing disease. So let's stop blaming all these other things and let's try to but and that's why we need some of the these better testing, right, so we have to garner the days when we're just the hygienist and be like, if you don't have bleeding, you're all healthy. Yeah, because we know we have these other tools now and we know the more we can prevent, the healthier these patients can be. So when you have somebody who is set up a regimen for them, how often do you want to see these. Obviously, it depends on the person, but generally when you're finding something, how often do you think they should be seen so that you can check on the progress? Or how often do you think they need the ozone treatment or the laser?

Tosha Kozloski:

Yeah, it's always going to be based on how they look every single time that they come in. If somebody is, they have radiographic bone loss, they have that pocketing. So they, let's say they qualify for the CDT for full mouth scaling and root planing. So we're going to code it that way, because scaling and root planing is inclusive of removal of toxins and microorganisms. The patient does not have to have calculus, they simply have to have roots to scale, to code it that way. But calculus is just if it's there, great, get rid of it. If not, don't worry about it. But they're going to come in for a full mouth treatment. So I train teams like you may be focused on the debris, let's say on the right side, but you're still going to run around the entire mouth with the laser, with the ozone, with everything. And then you're going to tell the patient I'm going to bring you back next cleaning. But we're going to get in the nooks and crannies on the left side, but we're still going to treat the entire mouth. We're going to get you back six weeks later. We're going to look at the microscope again. Based on how you look good, bad or otherwise we're going to determine what we need to do next. If a patient still doesn't look good, then maybe they need to come back in another four to six weeks to then treat their entire mouth again. And then that's really where you can really tell so fast with just looking, not just at their tissue, because obviously some infections are so subclinical, but if their microscope slide is already showing a significant decreased volume, decreased motility, you know that the infection is headed in the right direction. The immune system is taking back over. But let's say that patient's doing everything they're supposed to do. You've done everything you're supposed to do and that microscope still looks awful. Now we need to investigate further that third tier of what do we do professionally. What is the patient doing at home? Let's look at their medical history.

Tosha Kozloski:

For me I don't want to say like I drag this out, but sometimes if we give the patient too much information, they get decision fatigue and they're like I'm just not ready. So I just share with them. Hey, let's start with this. We're going to see how you're at in six weeks and then at six weeks, depending on how everything looks, we're going to determine if we need to add anything, if you're on the right track. And I don't overwhelm them with that, because I know I want you to be a lifelong patient and I'm going to work with you over time at six weeks.

Tosha Kozloski:

If they're a hot mess, then maybe we need to take a deeper dive into the gut health. If the practice doesn't want to take a deep dive into the gut health, then we're always looking at who can you refer to or are you willing to do some direct-to-consumer products? Viome has tests. There's a bunch of different ones online, but there's all kinds of different things we can do. If we're not ready to do it in our practice, we need to at least know where we can send that patient to get that whole health coverage.

Dr. Carver:

That's so important. And again, thinking back to all my still hot conversations about patients that's what Dr Sadie meant I don't know how to have that conversation and I don't want to overwhelm them. I don't know what to say. So the way you're doing is so important in that three tier that makes so much sense here. Let's just start with the basics. If that's six weeks, I love that, so that's a good interval. At six weeks we reevaluate. Okay, we're trending upward. It's good, let's go two months now, right? Yeah, as long as you keep trending, Our goal always is to get them back to once or twice a year cleaning. We've got to see that they're making progress and maintaining that right. So it's frustrating when you're in the confines of conventional medicine and the insurance system. The fact that insurances only allow you to do one side of the mouth at a time makes no sense. That you have to have the patient come back two weeks later, just like what you said. You can't ignore the other side, right? If you clean one side, what is there?

Tosha Kozloski:

suddenly some wait, mom swept the floor over there. Don't touch that side.

Dr. Carver:

It just logically makes so sense. So that's what I told my hygienist to do. You still have to do all the ozone treatment and a little bit of laser on both sides. Yes, you can focus on one side and getting the calculus out for that side, but the whole because you're going to easily just reinsert to the other side. It's crazy and that's why, unfortunately, so many patients are so many bylaws like, are moving away from insurance because it's handcuffing up to be able to do what we need to do. And, yes, it's frustrating, it gets expensive.

Dr. Carver:

And I had a conversation with a patient today was like listen, he asked me if we could just do the cavities and not the gum disease. And he has severe radiographic evidence. And I said one, if your gums are bleeding I can't do a filling, it's not going to stick. And number two, I said I am way more concerned about your gum health than I am about the few cavities that you have, because every time you chew and every time you swallow you are pumping all of those toxins directly into your circulation. Right?

Dr. Carver:

So I said, if money isn't, we will work with you. I don't want money to be a barrier to your overall health. So let's think about this, of investing in your overall health, because again, all of this bacteria causes systemic issues. So by investing in this oral health we're going to prevent a lot of money and time. It's more future health problems. But it's hard to have that conversation because again, money always gets stuff sticky and insurance doesn't cover this and that what we are always trying to do is prevention.

Dr. Carver:

But it's hard, especially when somebody doesn't hurt. That asymptomatic part is the trickiest part and that's why the photographs and the microscope like these are important tools to have to be able to show the value of kind of what they've been, especially when they come back and they can see oh my gosh, you're making progress, you're getting a good report card that helps further motivate people to continue. But yeah, that's always the challenge If something is not hurting and impeding their everyday life and it costs a thousand plus dollars, then that can sometimes be a hard pill to swallow. So that's what our goal is always education. This is why I'm doing my podcast. I just create that awareness and helping people to understand that they have the power to have good health. We all have the power to be our own best doctor. I would love to never have to pick up a drill ever again, because everybody will have solved all of their health problems and I will feel like I've done my job on this earth and I can go on to the next, whatever else is next.

Tosha Kozloski:

Right.

Dr. Carver:

So yes, absolutely so. I think that's that's what I'm always trying to teach. And having people like hey, we have these great tools now and there's so much that patients can do at home. Now, too, red light has become so easy. You can go on Amazon and buy a red light for $50 now, so that's really exciting for people to use that when they if they do have pain or swelling or anything like that. It's exciting that they know that these tools are out there.

Tosha Kozloski:

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Patients, when they and I've told so many people you don't have to do all the things at once, sometimes it just takes a little bit of helping the body and it takes care of itself Absolutely. It's just those little nudges, just little tweaks and modifications, and it's incredible what the body can do.

Dr. Carver:

What do you think about so? Typically we had in conventional medicine it was like, okay, you can do your scalp cleaning and then we're going to put antibiotics directly in the pocket, say like Crested. How do you feel about those kind of antibiotics directly in pockets?

Tosha Kozloski:

Oh gosh. So I am not a huge fan of arrestin Like. For me, I feel like, if I would say, the majority of the biological dentists I work with do some systemic antibiotics when the patient's just not getting better. And it's that weed feed seed model, like we've tried everything, you're not. This patient just not getting better and it's that weed feed seed model, like we've tried everything, you're not. This patient isn't getting better.

Tosha Kozloski:

And they're typically those very high risk patients that have diabetes, that they have multiple things, they have history of heart attacks, history of stroke. They're these patients that their body's been waving the white flag for a long time and so it's fighting fire with fire, like chemotherapy if you will. And so when it comes to localized, this is like putting them in the pockets. For me, I share with the practice. If they're already using that before they would onboard somebody like me, I don't recommend to start there because it's not a localized infection. This isn't a localized problem, it's a full body issue. But if the patient has a vertical defect, that's very difficult for them to hit with a water flosser and it is just an area that's continually collecting biofilm that's maturing Good At six weeks. Put some in there, let's see how it goes as an adjunctive, but I wouldn't start there.

Dr. Carver:

So I think that's important and that's how I treat my feet. But I have noticed some of these things where we're treating with the ozone, which I love, but I'm like in some areas like one single pocket right Can't get, and I have noticed that when I use a rest and plus the ozone because ozone actually enhances the effect of antibiotics I can get resolution of these little like period pockets. But again, it is never my first course of treatment but, like you said, you have these recalcitrant areas that they're just not getting any better and that combination I've seen it a few times with patients. They will resolve things, yeah, and I've had to come to I don't know what the right word is but the use of antibiotics. For so many years I've been like I'm just so against it, right. But even then I had a patient come to me. She had a really major absence with swelling, so she received some antibiotics and she said that really resolved all my gut issues too. And I went, huh, I was like maybe I need to rethink this a little bit. Just like you said, the weed seed, all right, sometimes maybe we do so.

Dr. Carver:

My daughter two years ago she had pneumonia Wasn't so bad yet, but she's had this horrible breath I'm sure she would love me telling this story and her teeth, everything looked fine in her mouth. And so like there's something in her gut, like her stomach is festering something, this is so bad. And so when she got the, they tested her when she was sick and so I brought her to the doctor because that's the only way I could get her excused from school for being sick. So I said run all the tests. I love testing, I love to see what's going on.

Dr. Carver:

And I wanted to know, like why, what is happening in her gut that's creating this issue. And so it came back that she had a specific bacteria that was related to pneumonia. She never developed any symptoms, but that's what came back in the culture. And so I said you know what? I'm going to give her the antivax. I'm just I'm going to do it. And let me tell you, it's been a year now like that breath is gone. Been a year now like that breath is gone. So then I'm like, yep, sometimes maybe you just need to nuke it and start over right.

Tosha Kozloski:

Get her on the better diet it's so tricky, yeah.

Dr. Carver:

But I'm like, wow, okay, but I had to have that patient say it to me first for me to like okay. So sometimes we get narrow minded, whether you're conventional or biologic or whatever it is. So now I'm always trying to think okay and yes, obviously sometimes we need medication and thank God we have conventional medicine and it's going to save us in an emergency and stuff like that and we don't need to always poo it.

Tosha Kozloski:

But again, have having an open mind that use it when it's responsible antibiotics responsible, not overdoing it, because in dentistry we are super guilty of over antibiotic gene and over all kinds of different things and we don't always need a sledgehammer. And I know a dentist that she specializes in fertility and she, like people come from all over the united states to help to get pregnant. We know that when it comes to infertility, it's's not. We hear all about these preterm birth and all this kind of stuff but it's not. Getting pregnant in the first place is a huge part of it, and that's the man and the woman. And so if they have a serious dysbiosis in their mouth and they have specific bacteria, we know that if they're releasing toxins and that whole cascade of events. And she said for two years she was like I just don't want to do antibiotics anymore. And she said she just couldn't get rid of the fusobacterium, she couldn't get rid of some of the porphyrmonia gingivalis, and so she went back to it and just said I just sometimes.

Tosha Kozloski:

And so what I share with practices is you got to use a decision tree. Are you dealing with a 25 year old or an 85 year old that has a medical history that's so long. It takes you 15 minutes just to skim it. Are we dealing with somebody that's on immunosuppressant drugs? Or is this like a 45-year-old that was probably just burning the candle at both ends not getting enough sleep, too much stress, like all the different things and now their body is out of whack? Like you can always do an antibiotic later if you're not getting resolved and you've used your decision tree of age and health and all the different things. That's six weeks when they come back, put the pieces to put the whole thing together and then do it later If you absolutely have to. You can always wait.

Dr. Carver:

And that's so important when I'm always trying to teach and train people who work for me. You cannot. We are not here to treat teeth, we are treating people. So we have to certain and we've always thought, okay, let's make a protocol, but we're like it never works because everybody is unique. So you have these generalized ideas, but everything has to be tailored to the person. So now you hear all these things about personalized medicine. Yes, it's really. And why do all these pharmaceutical drugs have so many side effects? Because you're throwing one drug at all these different people who are completely unique beings. So of course, you're going to have side effects, right? So we need to look at I love what you're saying right.

Dr. Carver:

Think about the person that you're treating and that is going to have their decision tree, right? Or their protocol is going to look a little bit differently. So I love how you have the generalizations right. Like the person who has so many systems, maybe they need that antibiotic, right, because they're so far down the systemic inflammation trail that regular natural modalities aren't going to be powerful enough, because the toxic vote is so high that we need to nuke it a little bit. Versus, like you said, the 25-year-old, our best example, right, is that 45-year-old? I love how you said burning at both ends, right? I know nothing about that Me either. Those of us who are like, yeah, we're just really deficient, right, we're not sleeping enough, we're not eating as well as we could, we're just deficient in a lot of minerals and all these kinds of things. So that person is, yeah, you're going to support them a little better nutritionally.

Tosha Kozloski:

Okay, we need to be getting our sleep better, I think that's If you do the antibiotic like no, like you are killing good guys too. So you must have a protocol afterwards. You can't just be like good luck yeah.

Dr. Carver:

Especially today. Right, you're just not going to? The food is so deficient today that you can. Maybe a generation ago it would build itself back up but our food is just so toxic Glyphosate's everywhere.

Dr. Carver:

I don't think there's anything that's organic anymore, because it's in the soil, it's in the air. Maybe it has fewer toxins and fewer pesticides. Everything's got stuff in it right. So I love everything you're saying. This has been awesome.

Dr. Carver:

I think you've been giving us some really good tools. I can't wait to have you come in my office and help. We have all the stuff, so just working again, and really we don't have the microscope, though, and I've been on that sense for so many years. How are we going to add one more thing? But then, when I met you and you're a consultant and you train everybody how to do it all together, because nobody wants to have a three-hour hygiene appointment.

Dr. Carver:

That's not practical, so I think so I'm excited for you to come up to the office and meet all the girls, and we have a new hygienist starting and she's super into all the biologic, and so I I'm like I'm starting her off right from the top line. We're not going to teach, we're going to erase all the bad habits she learned, get out the ground running. So really excited about this. But I think you've given us all some good tips and hopefully helping people understand why they, why they might need to come more frequently and how, again, we are here not to make more money off you by seeing you more often, but to prevent the future issues that we know are all connected to oral bacteria and their toxins, so I really appreciate you coming on today. Is there anything else we didn't mention that you want to tell our audience?

Tosha Kozloski:

Gosh, I don't know. I feel like we hit a lot. So if they want to nerd out with me on Instagram, I'm at Tosh T-O-S-H. Dot C-A-R-E. I have at Toshcare. I have all kinds of good nerdy stuff there, so come check it out if you need a nerd boost.

Dr. Carver:

And let's say there are other doctors listening and maybe they want to have you consult their hygiene department. How do they reach you?

Tosha Kozloski:

Yeah, so they can schedule a call with me if they go to my website, which is all. It was just Tosh T-O-S-H dot care. So Tosh dot care. There's a scheduling link there and you can just schedule a call and we can chit, chat and I can learn more about their practice and we can see if we're a match.

Dr. Carver:

Yeah, I think it would be great if we could have universal treatments for everybody, and they're all a little bit for everybody. We have to individualize them. If we know all these great tools to use and see how valuable they are, I think that will go a long way to help curve all this chronic disease that we have in the world today. All right, everybody, I hope you enjoyed, got some good information from today's episode and, if you liked it, please share it with others. Help us create that awareness for everyone and I hope you have a wonderful day. We'll see you on the next episode.

Dr. Carver:

Hello, I'm Dr Rachel Carver, a board-certified naturopathic biologic dentist and a certified health coach. Did you know that over 80% of the US population has some form of gum disease? Many of us don't even know that we have this source of chronic infection and inflammation in our mouth that's been linked to serious consequences like heart disease, diabetes, stroke, dementia, colon cancer, kidney disease, even pregnancy complications. Would you like to learn how to reverse and prevent these chronic debilitating conditions without spending a lot of time and money at the dentist? Join me for my six-week course where I will teach you the root cause of disease. You'll learn how to be your own best doctor. Are you ready to get started? Let's go.