This episode is bought to you by Quell — to help support rebuilding healthy skin from the outside-in + inside-out!
Take 10% off your next order! Use promo code QUELL10 at check out — Get started HERE!
– – –
Did you know that the inflammation that drives your eczema, psoriasis, rosacea, etc., could be triggered by your oral microbiome?
That's right…
Inflammation that shows up on your skin is often triggered elsewhere! And one often overlooked spot in the body is your mouth.
Like your gut microbiome (which I've talked a lot about on the show), your oral microbiome is also incredibly diverse and can, due to a variety of factors, become dysbiotic or imbalanced.
The resulting immune response from your body can trigger cytokines that then end up elsewhere, increasing inflammation.
My guest today — Dr. Victoria Sampson — is a brilliant dentist who joined me to blow your mind about all of the intricate relationships between inflammation, cytokines, oral microbiome, testing and best dental practices to keep your teeth and gums healthy.
She's a functional dentist and researcher based in central London. She obtained her Bachelor's in Dental Surgery from Barts and the London School of Medicine and Dentistry and is now known for her work in developing salivary diagnostics, microbiome testing and incorporating artificial intelligence into everyday care. Her work has been acknowledged worldwide resulting in her becoming a scientific advisor, board member and clinical lead of multiple dental companies globally. Victoria has published numerous papers in the UK and internationally and was the first dentist in the world to link gum disease with worse COVID complications. Victoria is also the first dentist to be shortlisted for Forbes 30 under 30 in Healthcare and Science in Europe and has now founded her own multidisciplinary health center in London aimed at putting the mouth back in the body and connecting the oral microbiome with general health.
Because of my own journey overcoming gingivitis (which I firmly believe was due to both poor habits and a dysbiotic oral microbiome), I'm fascinated by this information. So if you've also struggled with dental issues or are looking for clues to what's driving the inflammation under the surface, this is an excellent conversation!
What's been your experience with gingivitis and dental issues? Have you ever considered that there could be an oral microbiome imbalance partly to blame? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Or, listen on your favorite app: iTunes (Apple Podcasts) | Spotify | Stitcher | TuneIn | Subscribe on Android
In this episode:
- Connection of oral microbiome + severity of Covid-19 (research)
- Different stages of gingivitis + periodontal gum disease
- Oral microbiome bacteria + “leaky gum” disease
- Pathogens lurking in your mouth (that drive massive inflammation)
- Nutrient deficiency signs in your mouth (typically these show up first)
- Strategies to support + clean up your oral microbiome (one will shock you!)
Quotes
“You're nine times more likely to be in the ICU and to be intubated [with COVID] if you have severe periodontal disease.” [05:55]
“You can get a lot of nutritional deficiencies in the mouth. It presents in the mouth first before you might see symptoms elsewhere, and the reason for that is because the oral mucosa, so the skin lining the inside of your mouth, it regenerates at a much faster rate than most other parts of your body.” [20:07]
Links
Find Dr. Sampson online | Instagram
Could there be a link between oral hygiene and the severity of SARS-CoV-2 infections? {RESEARCH}
Healthy Skin Show ep. 303: How To Reverse Gingivitis + Bleeding Gums
Healthy Skin Show ep. 260: Oral Microbiome-Skin Rash Connection w/ Dr. Mark Burhenne
Try Risewell for some great toothpaste and oral care products (no fluoride). Use HEALTHYSKINSHOW for 10% OFF!
318: Oral Microbiome: A Trigger of MASSIVE Inflammation w/ Dr. Victoria Sampson {FULL TRANSCRIPT}
Jennifer Fugo (00:09.282)
Dr. Sampson, I am so excited to have you here. I talked about you so much on Instagram. I'm sure people think that we talk on a regular basis. I wish we probably did talk more often, because I met you in London this year, like a month ago. And we hit it off. And I found your presentation at the Health Optimization Summit to be one of the most informative, eye-opening, and I will just say shocking, in a very educational way. But I really appreciated it and I'm so glad that you're here. So thank you for joining us today.
Victoria Sampson (00:45.858)
Thank you for having me, it's the same here. It was so great to meet you last month and I definitely would love to speak to you more. So hopefully this is not the last time.
Jennifer Fugo (00:55.457)
We'll have to sort it out. So the thing that I think would be great to kick this off at is, first of all, you are a dentist, you work in London with patients, but you also do a ton of research. And I really appreciated your presentation because you connected what's going on in the oral microbiome to other systemic issues. So I'm thinking to myself, maybe we should kick this off with a conversation about, I mean, I don't wanna make this all about COVID because it's not all about COVID, but I think it helps to explain this delicate balance between the immune system and when things go awry. So… COVID was happening, you're locked at home, you're bored, and you don't like to sit still. And talk about what happened with this idea that popped into your head that has really drastically shifted your approach to dentistry.
Victoria Sampson (01:59.654)
So yeah, it was COVID. I was very, very bored. I was on a run. And I think I was just kind of thinking like, how is COVID going to impact my job? And how is my job going to impact COVID? And then I was reading into it a lot and the risk factors to do with COVID complications. And what I found strange was that all of the risk factors for… COVID complications were also pretty much the same as those for periodontal disease So things like diabetes even having you know, high BMI, High blood pressure being a man like all of these types of things. Okay, this is a bit strange.
Then I looked into the mechanisms behind the cytokine storm for COVID complications and kind of what changes a patient from being pretty okay and having moderate COVID to all of a sudden being in ICU and being intubated. And it started a journey for me and I wrote a paper, which was kind of hypothesizing that… having gum disease and having an imbalanced oral microbiome might be contributing to COVID-19 and actually increasing the risk of having complications. And then that led me on to actually researching it with a couple of universities in the UK and we went into hospitals and well we tried to get into hospitals but we weren't allowed to because obviously it was COVID and you can't just walk into ICUs with extremely contagious patients.
The only way that we were able to have a snapshot of those patients' oral microbiome health was through their saliva. So we were collecting their oral microbiome, so like saliva swabs, and also their nose as well, so we were doing nasal swabs. And we were doing severe and moderate and also very mild COVID patients, and we were looking at how imbalanced their oral microbiome would be and whether or not having a more imbalanced oral microbiome might be a predictor for those patients who are going to have more complications and lo and behold, it was. And so that's kind of what led me into, well, we then kind of published that research and it opened the doors for a lot more research into the idea that oral microbiome dysbiosis increases your risk of COVID complications. And I think that what you were saying about kind of the oral systemic link, in this particular case, the main reason for it is because COVID is a viral infection. But actually, if you looked at how the cause of death of many COVID sufferers, it wasn't actually from COVID itself. It was from a bacterial super infection. It was from pneumonia. That was the biggest cause of death was pneumonia, which is a bacterial infection.
And so we saw the same thing with the influenza epidemic a hundred years ago and actually again the main cause of death was bacterial super infections as opposed to the virus itself and so what happens is that your body is under so much pressure and stress from the virus and some people's bodies might be kind of impacted a bit more than others and then you add on top of that you know this hot pot of bacteria inside your mouth and when you have very low immune status, then that bacteria has a much higher chance of being able to cause an infection. It can travel so you can swallow it, you can breathe it, it can travel in your blood and it can cause super infections elsewhere in the body.
Jennifer Fugo (05:36.054)
And so with some of the research that you did, and I was actually shocked by the stats, could you share, like if you have, wasn't it the more dysbiotic or imbalanced your oral microbiome is, there was a greater risk for complications with COVID, correct?
Victoria Sampson (05:55.786)
Yeah, so you're nine times more likely to be in ICU and to be intubated if you have severe periodontal disease.
Jennifer Fugo (06:03.038)
And what would severe period, like what's, what is that scale, I guess, or that the dental status? So we start with healthy gums and then we go to gingivitis. Like where, what is that continuum for people who might not be fully aware of this?
Victoria Sampson (06:19.47)
So it's kind of, it's a spectrum, so you're right. So you've got on the healthy green side, you've just got good healthy gums. They shouldn't be bleeding. They shouldn't be painful or sore. And in terms of how they look, they should usually be quite pink and stippled. So it kind of should look a bit like an orange peel. And then as you go into slight inflammation, that's what we call gingivitis. And that's where maybe you're getting a bit of bleeding gums. Maybe they're a bit red and sore, but you know, it's not so bad that it's actually causing any irreversible damage. So when you're at that stage you could have good hygiene and you could get really good with your oral health and you reverse it and you can get back to being healthy. But then when you get further down the spectrum and you get into more severe gum disease which is what we call periodontal disease, that's where you have the gum inflammation, so same as gingivitis, but also you have it's paired with some bone loss and something called pocketing. And so what that is, is that it's kind of holding onto your tooth and it should be very tight so it should be like a turtleneck around the tooth and if you have more and more inflammation then that turtleneck becomes quite flappy and loose and so it creates a pocket and the deeper the pocket the more severe that gum disease is and the more bone loss that you get and you cannot go back from being a periodontal disease patient to a completely healthy patient because once you've lost that bone, you've lost it and that's it you can't regrow it back.
Jennifer Fugo (07:48.682)
So that is a crucial point, it sounds like. You don't want to transition beyond gingivitis because you can't come back from that.
Victoria Sampson (07:57.458)
No, so you can only ever stabilize it. So you won't be able to regrow the bone. You'll just have to live with the bone loss and you can kind of have active or kind of remission periodontal disease. And then when we get to the very end of the spectrum, that's tooth loss. That's where you're getting wobbly teeth, teeth are falling out, you're getting abscesses and infections, bad breath. So that's your big spectrum of gum disease.
Jennifer Fugo (08:23.23)
And I didn't hear you mention anything about the microbiome and all of this. And I often find I have to ask because of all the work that you're doing. So the only thing my dentist and I mind you I've only seen conventional dentists but I know in like the US there are more holistic and integrative dentists out there and obviously I've had some on the show that are again US based, but the only thing they generally talk about is like oh we need to like use Listerine and these other alcohol-based antiseptics to just kill all the bacteria. That's all we want to do is just kill the bacteria, but nobody ever talks about what's actually going on. So is there any connections between this spectrum of, we'll say, like, I guess gum and dental disease, as well as with that oral microbiome?
Victoria Sampson (09:17.866)
Yeah, 100%. So the cause of periodontal disease or gum disease is it's a combination of a few factors. And I would say one of the biggest ones is your oral microbiome. So it's the bacteria that you have in your mouth. And most people's microbiome has about 700 different species of oral bacteria. And some are good, some are terrible, and some are commensal and they're just there. And so there are certain bacteria, there's four or five in particular, which are extremely pathogenic. And so that means that they're the most destructive. And if you have elevated levels of those in your oral microbiome, it's been shown that those bacteria will actually cause gum disease and there's a causative side of that. Now that's also paired with your kind of immune response and you as a person. So what that means is that you could have lots and lots of terrible bacteria in your mouth, but it's how your body responds to that bacteria that really can cause or not cause that gum disease. So I always compare it so you could have two patients, one super healthy, really, really clean, brushes five, six times a day, never smoked a cigarette in her life, but maybe she's got other problems like she's got you know arthritis and she's always had some sort of inflammatory diseases and etc and then you have another patient who smokes 28 cigarettes a day and doesn't really eat very well, hasn't brushed their teeth in a very long time and hasn't seen a dentist and that person who doesn't brush their teeth may not have gum disease at all and that's because their immune response is actually very strong and good. And so even though they have a bucket load of terrible bacteria in their mouth, their body is not responding in a destructive way. And then you can have the other patient who is super, super clean and healthy and perfect, but she has quite a pro-inflammatory body. And so even the smallest amounts of bacteria in her mouth will just blow up and it can cause terrible problems and she can have much worse gum disease than the other patient.
Jennifer Fugo (11:26.558)
And what, is there a genetic component to this?
Victoria Sampson (11:29.783)
Yeah. Yeah, so there's, so what I do in my clinic is we do a couple of different tests. So one is the oral microbiome test. We look at the bacteria in the mouth and particularly those very pathogenic bacteria, but then also we look at, for some patients, not all of them, we can do genetic testing. So we can look at base pair mutations, which would actually increase their risk of inflammation. So those patients would, are kind of more pro-inflammatory and they're the ones who might have very little bacteria, but their body responds in an extremely aggressive and destructive way. And those patients are the ones that you need to be pretty kind of stringent and intense with. And they should be coming in very regularly because if they slip up ever so slightly, they're down that spectrum into the gum disease kind of side of things. And then we also look at other inflammatory markers and enzymes as well in the saliva.
Jennifer Fugo (12:28.926)
And so with these organisms that are inflammatory, I know, isn't P. gingivalis one of those, I think?
Victoria Sampson (12:49.855)
Yeah.
Jennifer Fugo (12:53.926)
So if you have that in your mouth, or you have several of these, which I know is possible, everybody likes it to be just one thing. It's never just one thing. There's always a combo of some sort going on. These can trigger cytokines, correct? So inflammatory mediators. And… Does it just stay in the mouth?
Victoria Sampson (13:01.366)
No. There's a couple of things that happen. So you've got your high levels of your bad bacteria in your mouth. The first thing that happens is that some of that bad bacteria travels elsewhere to other parts of the body, to other sites, and it can cause bacterial superinfections. So it can go and travel to your heart and cause infective endocarditis. It can travel to your foot and cause something. So that's number one. Number two is actually that bacteria can just release inflammatory cytokines. So you've got your interleukins and a lot of other ones and that bacteria literally just releases them and they can travel through the bloodstream to distal sites of the body so elsewhere and that's where you start to kind of that's what we call low-grade inflammation so chronic low-grade inflammation and that's where for example you have a patient who might have a very inflammatory condition like rheumatoid arthritis…
Jennifer Fugo (14:02.242)
Psoriasis or some of these other skin issues, okay…
Victoria Sampson (14:03.584)
Exactly, for sure. And it adds petrol to the fire. So it's just another source of inflammation that can travel elsewhere and just kind of, kind of just bother things a little bit more. Yeah, so it can try and it can also obviously stay in the mouth and cause your localized inflammation. But what I'm mainly concerned about in most of my patients is that low grade chronic inflammation and how it could be impacting the rest of the body and what we can do to help actually systemic diseases. If we work together with, you know, nutritionists or doctors or et cetera, to reduce that inflammation.
Jennifer Fugo (14:42.286)
Okay, and I think this is important. I heard, I think I'm hearing you say this, but it's not just that you're swallowing the bacteria, right? Because that's usually, in my head, that's what I'm thinking of from a digestive or nutrition perspective. Is it possible too that bacteria, if you do have these pockets, does that gain access to the body? Like, is that a way through like, maybe you describe it as leaky gut, we have leaky gut, so maybe this is leaky gums?
Victoria Sampson (15:11.719)
Yeah, literally, leaky gum syndrome. So yeah, it's exactly the same thing. It can travel literally through those pockets. You can, yes, swallow it. And actually a lot of bacteria are acid resistant. So for example, porphyromonas gingivalis is acid-resistant. So it can actually travel and sit in your stomach and cause problems elsewhere. And then also you can breathe it. So those are the three main ways of traveling.
Jennifer Fugo (15:38.19)
And what are some of the other like troubling or problematic organisms that you may see more frequently on some of your clients or patients who have more severe gum disease?
Victoria Sampson (15:52.754)
So you've got your top four for gum disease. They're called your red complex pathogens and so they have been known to be the worst to cause gum disease but what you were saying earlier is completely right that it's about the combination of those bacteria, and it frustrates me because I get a lot of people who message me and like dentists or whatnot and they're like Oh, could you just like help me like this patient? Like could you just tell me what their results mean and I'm like, it's about the combination. It's not I can't give you like this bacteria means this, this bacteria means that because it's about seeing and feeling and like okay but these four if you have extremely high levels of them there's something going on definitely with your gums. So you've got Tannerella forsythia, Treponema denticola, Porphyromonas gingivalis, and then you've got… I'm never gonna… I still cannot pronounce this even though I say it every single day. I call it AA but it's Aggregatibacter actinomycetemcomitans. So yeah just call it AA; it's the other one that I didn't say
Jennifer Fugo (17:04.358)
See, this is why I love you it's like you're like it's a tricky name we'll just call it AA for short there's so many times on stool tests we were like what is that and I'm like well just call it this it's easier.
Victoria Sampson (17:17.566)
Yeah, just call it AA.
Jennifer Fugo (17:19.085)
It's okay. They're complicated names. It is what it is. And we can't always make everything, you know, at a level that everybody can easily understand. And sometimes we mispronounce things and that or we learn it pronounced a different way. So it is what it is. But I think it's great to know that these are options. And so that being said, how do you even find out if you have one or more of these problem kids, as I'll call them, hanging out in your oral microbiome.
Victoria Sampson (17:35.359)
Yeah.
Victoria Sampson (17:54.67)
So you do a microbiome test. So it's literally we collect your saliva and then we screen your saliva for all of those bacteria. I personally always, I strongly recommend to everyone that they pair that with a clinical examination. So, and I'm sure Jennifer, you'd agree with me, like from maybe a gut perspective and whatnot, like you can't just look at someone's results and not know anything about them or their problems or what everything looks like. So it's the same with oral. You should be pairing your oral microbiome test with a dental checkup and checking the gums. And then it's about combining those together. Because like I said, there's that element of your host immune response and how your body's responding to that. So sometimes, you know, everyone's microbiome is different and for one person having slightly elevated levels of one bacteria might be okay, actually. And we don't need to rock the boat too much. And we want to still keep everything else in balance. But yeah, so saliva microbiome test is your, is your go-to.
Jennifer Fugo (18:56.594)
And do certain skin conditions, or what are described as skin conditions, like lichen planus and psoriasis, do you tend to see those potentially more associated with dysbiosis of the oral microbiome?
Victoria Sampson (19:13.55)
Unfortunately not, I wish I did kind of, because I think with lichen planus it's quite difficult sometimes to diagnose it and it can be one of those kind of slow and growing things and it would be fantastic if we could just screen your saliva and see it, but unfortunately I'm yet to see any correlation between those.
Jennifer Fugo (19:37.638)
And in terms of vitamin deficiencies, because I think a lot of people don't realize that certain symptoms in your mouth could actually be a clue that you have a nutrient deficiency. Could you just speak briefly to that? And what are some signs that, you know, of who knows, like a folate deficiency or any of these types of deficiencies that if you see this, potentially talk to your dentist?
Victoria Sampson (20:06.478)
So you're totally right, you can get a lot of nutritional deficiencies in the mouth. Well, it presents in the mouth first before you might see symptoms elsewhere. And the reason for that is because the oral mucosa, so the skin lining the inside of your mouth, it regenerates at a much faster rate than most other parts of your body. So that means that we see things much quicker here than you might see elsewhere. So the biggest one is iron deficiency.
What you would see with that is like a slight pallor to the gums. Like everything's a little bit pale. Patients who might get quite often recurrent ulceration, which is just… unexplained. Sometimes you can also get sore gums as well. That's your iron. Then you've got your B12 deficiency and what you get with that is like a raw, red beefy tongue. So you get a very basically sore tongue, particularly sensitive to things like spice, to sometimes alcohol. It's really tingly. So that's your B12 and then similar with folate as well. And then vitamin C, and I'm yet to ever have met someone who has a vitamin C deficiency, but you get really bad bleeding gums because vitamin C is one of your co-factors for the clotting cascade. So if you don't have that, then you get really bad, bleeding gums. I think those are the deficiencies. Those are the biggest ones. But basically, if you get lots of ulcers, if you have a very, very sore tongue, then you might want to start thinking about getting some full blood tests and just making sure you don't have any deficiencies.
Jennifer Fugo (21:49.566)
And something like celiac disease, can there be red flags in the mouth for that as well?
Victoria Sampson (21:54.942)
Yeah, so actually I've actually diagnosed patients quite often before they've found out or known from anyone else. And again, it's because it presents first in the mouth a couple of months before patients often get symptoms in their gut. And so with your irritable bowel disorders, you can get cobblestone mucosa. So what that means is that the insides of your cheeks become kind of like cobblestones. They look like they're really like rocky and a bit strange looking; ulcerations as well, very bad bleeding gums. And then for Crohn's, or yeah, with Crohn's, you can get basically like a really swollen tongue and lip. So oral facial granulomatosis for anyone who's interested in knowing the term. Yeah, those are the main ones.
Jennifer Fugo (22:44.49)
And canker sores as well can also be kind of a red flag for things.
Victoria Sampson (22:47.082)
Yeah, yeah, sorry. Yeah. Yeah, I think all sores are always a bit of… you should be wondering why you're getting ulcers very regularly. It's usually something else in your body screaming through your mouth.
Jennifer Fugo (23:01.598)
See, this is why I love you, because you just break things down. So that being said, what are some basics, which I could say, brush your teeth twice a day. But again, I'm not a dentist. So realistically, what is the, I'm not going to say bare minimum, but what is a reasonable, first of all, should people care more about their oral microbiome and the cleanliness of their mouth than they probably do at this very moment and what are some basics that they should be doing? Like you should at least be doing this every single day.
Victoria Sampson (23:37.038)
Okay, so in terms of, yes, everyone should be brushing their teeth and taking much better care of their oral health. I think it's been, it's always been something that people haven't combined with the rest of their body. It's like a separate entity to everything else. And I think slowly it's starting to get back into the body and people are understanding the connections or maybe I'm just surrounding myself with people who understand it better. I'm like, yay! But it's slowly… People are understanding that and I think that, you know, even something as simple as like you going and getting your clean with your hygienist, it's not just someone sitting there getting rid of some staining, like they're actually reducing your inflammatory load, they're reducing the amount of bacteria in your mouth and so you really need to be prioritizing your oral health and another thing is that it's so easy. You know, I tell all my patients, I'm like, you know, if you've got all of these chronic inflammatory diseases and you've got all of these problems and people are making you, you know, change your lifestyle habits and take all these medications and do all of this stuff, like all I'm asking you to do is brush your teeth twice a day, like use this mouthwash, and come and see the hygienist. And that could actually significantly improve your other side effects from other diseases. So I guess that takes me to the basics, the things that everyone should be doing.
Brush your teeth twice a day. Spit don't rinse; so don't rinse with water after you brush. You should be brushing two minutes spit out the residue and leave the rest in your mouth. What else… floss so floss and interdental brushes are very important because 30% of the bacteria is actually in between your teeth so if you're not flossing you're only ever doing 70% of the job. What else? Mouthwash. So mouthwash is a bit of a controversial topic. I personally do use a lot of mouthwashes with my patients, but only once I know what their microbiome is like. So I recommend the mouthwash based on what bacteria they have elevated levels of. So if you don't have a microbiome test and you don't really know why you're using mouthwash, bin it, you don't need it, keep it simple. And if you do know why, then use it a separate time to brushing. So it should be maybe at lunchtime, for example. You shouldn't do it together because actually brushing and using your mouthwash counter act each other.
Jennifer Fugo (26:03.574)
They do?
Victoria Sampson (26:04.924)
Yeah.
Jennifer Fugo (26:07.306)
Wait, wait, wait. Hold on a second. So if I brush my teeth at night, because this is what I'm doing, I gotta ask, so I shh.
Jennifer Fugo (26:19.992)
Okay, so why should I not use the mouthwash after I brush?
Victoria Sampson (26:26.166)
Because if you're brushing your teeth two minutes and you're putting all that lovely goodness from the toothpaste on your teeth, then you want to leave it on the teeth. And you using your mouthwash is actually going to rinse out all of that toothpaste out of your mouth. But also there's been a lot of research to show that the ingredients that are in mouthwash and the ingredients in toothpaste often will actually counteract each other. So you end up kind of being at a zero. It's not going to be a negative consequence, but you're not going to be helping in any way. So the really best way is mouthwash at a separate time so that you have three attacks during the day of good oral health.
Jennifer Fugo (27:07.562)
Okay, so mouthwash should be separate from brushing. Okay. Just learned something new.
Victoria Sampson (27:11.446)
Yes. Yeah. So. Everyone does it though, everyone, the number of people who do it, but I always compare it to sun cream. So if you spend two minutes putting all this sun cream on your skin before you go out to the sun, imagine if you went and had a shower right before you went into the sun. It wouldn't work, right? You're just getting rid of all of that goodness. So it's exactly the same with that toothpaste. The point of it is that it has the right ingredients to help strengthen your teeth and your gums. So you need to leave it on there.
Jennifer Fugo (27:42.574)
Yeah, wow. Oh my goodness, so much information. I want to make sure, no, don't apologize. This is wonderful. I have now learned something. I love when I learn things. So I want to make sure that people can connect with you. You practice in London. So I'm so sorry, US listeners, unless you want to, if you're in London, you can go see Victoria. But.
Victoria Sampson (28:06.518)
Yeah, come and take a holiday. Come and say hi.
Jennifer Fugo (28:09.914)
Exactly, get your teeth cleaned, do all the things. But everybody can find you at thehealthsociety.co.uk and we'll certainly put that URL, that link in the show notes. So you are available for new patients, correct?
Victoria Sampson (28:27.338)
Yeah, yeah, we're open to new patients at the moment. Yeah.
Jennifer Fugo (28:30.002)
And just because you are a little different than other dentists, what type of services do you offer in your practice?
Victoria Sampson (28:37.442)
So we do… Obviously oral microbiome testing, we also do point of care. We do vitamin D testing, HbA1c. So we look at your blood glucose levels. And then we also do a lot of therapies, which are guided towards the microbiome. So our hygiene, we use like an antibacterial spray, which goes down into the pockets and also cleans the gums in a much more efficient way. So that's our best kind of seller, if that makes sense, it's called guided biofilm therapy.
And we also have a kinesiologist, we have um what else do we have massage therapy, we have an infrared sauna, we have yeah bio resonance therapy, we do lymphatic drainage, so the point is that you could come and see me and have nothing to do with those services, but most patients will often combine a few of those services. And the infrared sauna has had incredible results with when used in combination with dental treatments, because we're trying to detoxify and reduce the inflammation. So it works really, really well, actually, altogether.
Jennifer Fugo (29:49.983)
Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. I will make sure that we have all of your links in the show notes. And I hope that you will come back sometime and we can dive more into the oral microbiome and all of the really cool research that you're continuing to work on.
Victoria Sampson (29:52.888)
My pleasure. Perfect. Thank you so much for having me. And yeah, I hope to see you again soon.
