I write this on Sunday. See the dentist again 9 AM Monday. Here’s what happened during Friday’s visit, when I just planned to tell him what I was doing re: a new protocol for dental care, and have him not clean my teeth, but just check them to see how I’m doing.

As I said in my last post, I hadn’t been to my dear dentist for about two years, instead, going to a dental practice which was in-the-system. So when I did go, I noticed immediately, the very different feeling of the little office, compared to those two years.

People who go to this dentist have gone to him for a long time. His receptionist wife is equally caring — but I sense, chronically frustrated, since she has to deal with all the godawful insurance stuff. The dentist himself, is both kind, deeply serious, and sweet-natured.

When the “patient” before me finally left (I waited an unusually long time for this office, probably 20 minutes), she ushered me into an examining room and into its chair, telling me that she had looked “briefly” at the Dr. Ellie info and that he did too. Which made me feel good.

But then, when he walked in the room, totally masked, and sat behind me, taking notes while I talked with him about what had been going on with me during the last two years, the situation felt utterly weird. What notes was he taking, I wondered? He started taking them even before I said anything. At one point he did get up, still masked (though mask below his nostrils), which drove me crazy internally, reminding me of the covid con years when masking made it impossible to see the other person’s face and therefore expression!

Then it was time for the check-up. He agreed with me that my gums looked good, not at all red or swollen. Also, that none of my teeth were loose (despite serious gum recession, ongoing for decades, and due, I wonder now, mostly to  daily pre-breakfast (acidic) lemon juice, to help my digestion . . .)

But then, right away, he found his “aha!” for that is what it felt like. “You do have some plaque.”

Crestfallen, of course, I asked what that meant. And he wants to know too; says tooth decay (which Dr. Ellie’s protocol definitely defies) and plaque formation are opposite conditions. That the first is too acidic, and the other too alkaline?

But then I just asked ai: tartar is hardened plaque. So I guess he meant tartar formation, not plaque. (And maybe he actually said that; by this time, my attention had been blurred by his “bad news.”)

I asked, “Plaque (tartar) is caused by too acidic an environment?  Which means that if you treat for one, you end up with the other?” I asked, puzzled. “And so the problem seems to be that there needs to be some kind of balancing act?”

At this point, he did begin to remove his mask down, below his mouth even, and looked both as puzzled and perturbed as I felt.

Then he too said so; and his “defeated-looking” body language proved the point: he’d been trying to figure out how to understand and work with this balancing act for years; that it’s what he’s been focused on, but to no avail.

Dr. Ellie uses the term “biofilm” for plaque, and says it’s important to leave it on there, because its soft stickiness protects the enamel of the teeth . . . so don’t have the dentist clean your teeth!

But then if plaque hardens, and mineralizes, into tartar, then do have dentist remove it, she says.

Which I’m going to do.

Looking back, I can see that I’m still confused. But that I now know my way forward. Go to this appointment; have him remove hardened plaque (tartar); tell him not to floss; and not to clean off the (plaque) biofilm otherwise! I’ve already made another appointment for four months from now, but will likely change that, push it way back while I continue, and refine, Dr. Ellie’s protocol.

BTW: at first I felt defeated; then I didn’t. But it took many hours of coming to terms with the situation, feeling for both myself and my dear original dentist!