Dr. Lewis Ehrlich – Dental (Oral) Health Week - Unstress with Dr Ron Ehrlich

This week is Australian Dental Health Week and I am joined by my partner in the surgery, Dr. Lewis Ehrlich. Lewis and I bring the dentist to you, we discuss what we are looking for during a general checkup and why it is important for your health.

Selected Links from the Episode

Dr. Lewis Ehrlich website
Sydney Holistic Dental Centre website
Unstress episode with Dr. Lewis Ehrlich on oral health
Unstress episode with Dr. Steven Lin on the Dental Diet

Download the PDF transcription
Dr. Ron Ehrlich: Hello and welcome to “Unstress”. I'm Dr. Ron Ehrlich. Now, this week is Australian Dental Health Week and I am joined by my partner in the surgery Dr. Lewis Ehrlich. Welcome to the show Lew.

Dr. Lewis Ehrlich: Thanks for having me on again Ron.

Dr. Ron Ehrlich: Lew, it's dental health week in Australia and actually we were just talking about this before we started and that was that… the actual fact that it's called dental health week I have a little bit of a problem with.

Dr. Lewis Ehrlich: Why is that Ron?

Dr. Ron Ehrlich: Funny, you should ask. Funny you should ask. But there's so much more. I think it should be called oral health week at the very least. I mean there's more to what's going on in people's mouths than the dental tooth aspect and interesting that the Australian Dental Association has called it dental health week. I'd like to call for a change oral health week. So, for our listeners’ point of view, it's oral health week.

Dr. Lewis Ehrlich: Couldn't agree more. There's so much more to it than just the teeth. But it could be a bit of marketing at play there. Perhaps dental is a little bit more marketable than perhaps oral health.

Dr. Ron Ehrlich: How long has it been since people have been to the dentist? I don't know but this was an opportunity I thought for us to come to you, our listener for a check-up. So, we thought we'd run through what we consider to be a standard check-up and so go through a few things that might alert people to “Hey, maybe there is more going on there in the mouth” because I think one of the things we've reflected on before is that when you think about oral health you're thinking about, “Well, okay, tooth decay, gum disease, oral cancer and mouth ulcers, a whole range of things. 95 percent of what we see in the surgery and in the practice, has no pain associated with it at all.” And that often surprises me even after all these years.

Dr. Lewis Ehrlich: Yeah. And a lot of people just think that that's good enough but there's it's more to improve and it's all about achieving people's potential for greater health. So, an absence of pain isn't a great indicator.

Dr. Ron Ehrlich: No. Well, I often use the analogy that if you go to see the cardiologist and the cardiologist said to you, “Hi, Lew, how are you? Were you in any pain?” And you went “No, I'm not”. And he went “Great, we'll come back when you're in pain.” You kind of think hang on this isn't cardiology as I think it should be practiced.

Dr. Lewis Ehrlich: No, it wouldn't be a good idea.

Dr. Ron Ehrlich: And the same is true, dental. So, there are a lot of reasons why people could come to the dentist. We've got a list of them within the practice. Do you want to share that with our listener?

Dr. Lewis Ehrlich: Yeah. Headaches, neck aches or jaw pain.

Dr. Ron Ehrlich: Yeah, a lot of people don't associate that with oral health issues, but they certainly can, and we'll touch on that.

Dr. Lewis Ehrlich: Such a sensitive part of the body the mouth and can have an impact on you on your ability to avoid headaches, neck aches, and jaw pain. So, a lot of people don't know about that. Snoring, sleep apnoea, poor sleep. So, sleeping is not just letting your head hit the pillow it's about breathing well while you're asleep and we want to know if you're not sleeping well.

Dr. Ron Ehrlich: Yeah, we'll go into that. We took a lot about sleep hygiene.