Latest / Cut the BS, Your Health, Your Choice / Season 3, Ep. 9: Why Your Mouth is the Start of your Whole Health
Transcript
- Marcia Lee: Hello, welcome to today's episode of Cut the BS, Your Health, Your Choice. I am Marcia Lee, your host. So today I have the honor of having Jaquet Sade on, who's a dental hygienist for over 17 years. And she's also a certified nutrition coach who believes taking care of your whole self changes what's possible for your life. And she's a founder of Curiosity and Courage. Is growth and wellness brand built around five pillars inner, physical, financial, community, and purpose, designed to help people ask better questions about about their health, their nutrition, taking meaningful action, and building more healthy and sustainable lives. And she's also the founder of Malabala Travel Centers. It's not like you going on a travel trip. Let me get that clear. It's a new kind of truck stop being built with wellness at its foundation. And the work is voted in the belief that when we take better care of ourselves, we create the capacity not only to flourish in our own lives, but to positively impact our families, communities, and the world around us. So welcome today, Jaquet. Also, she does Tooth Talk Tuesday on Instagram. So I'ma have all her information in the show notes. You can follow her and get them good gems. Yes, teeth, gems. Yes. So Jaquette, take it away. What made you want to become a dental hygienist? Jaquette Chardae: Well, thank you, Marcia, for having me today. wow, that was many, many years ago. whenever I was in high school, I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do. And I remember going to get my teeth cleaned, and I was like, Okay, I'm not outside, it's not hot, the environment looks pretty nice. Let me look into becoming find out who this is, because the only thing I knew was a dentist or an assistant. And I was wondering who this person was that was cleaning my teeth. Found out that was a dental hygienist and then took the steps to get into the program and now I've been doing it for seventeen plus years now. Marcia Lee: So once you finished, did you have a population you wanted to serve in particular or you just wanted to serve everybody? Jaquette Chardae: So and it's funny that you mentioned that because I went to school. I'm from South Carolina and the school I went to was in Greenville, South Carolina, and when we graduated it was say, let's say twenty European Americans and that was only two African Americans in the program. But since I moved to the DMB area, I am seeing there are so many more African American women who are dental hygienists. But fifteen, seventeen years ago there was really few and far between, but it's growing. Marcia Lee: that's good. And what made you want to come to the Washington D C area, Jaquette Chardae: I really didn't know much about it. Like when I was in the ninth grade, I came to the on a school trip and we checked out the monuments and everything. But I wanted a place that had more movement things going on. So I was making phone calls, talking to people, and they told me about this area. And around 2015, I came, me, my sister, and my mom, we checked out the area, and I found an apartment. And I've been here since 2015. So Marcia Lee: Yeah. Jaquette Chardae: it is just so much going on. I wanted a place that was not super big, like a New York or like a LA. But still had movement going on and they people who I were asking, they were like, Yeah, D C nice, you'll like it, you'll like it. I didn't know I was gonna love it and I actually love it here. Marcia Lee: but what I've been talking about for many years too, Jaquet, is that f all health and physical health are absolutely tied. So you wanna go into that a little bit? Jaquette Chardae: Sure. most people when they think of medical or health, they don't even consider dental or your oral health, but when you think about it, the oral health is the the start of things, like if you are sick. You're gonna most likely like, yeah, you can take things intravenously, you can take it from other routes, but you're gonna wanna eat something. You're gonna take a medication, you're gonna eat food, you're gonna get fluids. It really starts in the mouth. So for me, I'm being in hygiene and knowing nutrition and overall wellness. It starts with your mouth. And people, since it's not really talked about, they don't really think about it so much. And most people, here's my my little ten toes down that I stand on. Flossing. People are brushing, they're brushing once Marcia Lee: Yeah. Jaquette Chardae: a day, which is okay. But most people don't floss, and that's why people are losing their teeth, having to get root canals, getting crowns, getting teeth extracted, which is removed, and those things can cause bigger problems down the line. But if they start taking just make like small steps, honestly, if a person brushes once a day and flosses once a day, that's better than someone trying to brush twice a day, three Or four times a day and not flossing at all. So my thing is, is the flossing. That's where people miss the mark when they don't floss. Marcia Lee: I go to the dentist every six months and I and I get my teeth cleaned out every three months because I'm fortunate to have dental insurance but you wanna talk about the number of patients patients you see that don't have dental insurance you find that people only come to the dentist when their mouth hurt? Jaquette Chardae: Yeah, so it depends I'm I wanna say two things. It kind of depends on their education level and then their social economic level. Because people at who are in lower socioeconomic levels, they only come when they're in pain. But people who are have more money and things like that, they already got it programmed in their mind that they're gonna go every three, four, or six months to get their teeth clean. So yes, We definitely want people to come on a regular basis. But if people don't have insurance, I don't want them to think I can't go to the dentist because I don't have insurance. If you're in a I'm not gonna even say a huge city, but if you can look around and see if there's any hygiene schools or dental schools, maybe you can go there and get some treatment. Or in certain cities, they have like community. programs where you might not be able to make a appointment every six months but if you can go there once a year, get things taken care of and and this is a capital A and D, you do your stuff at home, which is flossing and brushing. Maybe then you won't have to keep getting your teeth extracted or getting that pain. And let me say this too, it also matters how much sugar. If you're eating a lot of sweeten type things, you're gonna most likely have bigger problems when you go to the dentist. So it's not only you taking care of yourself with the brushing and the flossing, it's also about what you're putting in your mouth and then how often you're eating sweets throughout the day. Marcia Lee: I almost want to disagree with you on the pause about the socioeconomic baby. I have I have friends and family who have excellent insurance. I used to work at a job, I was in the union, and we had 100% dental coverage. And people not going to the dentist. when you really talk to like different different different age groups, it's multi-generational how people feel about dentists, because I know my mom is 95 and she she didn't really have a good experience with dentist so she stopped going to the dentist. So but then she made sure that we went to the dentist, I have friends and family who've gone to the dentist, like the older generation and they didn't really have a good experience. So they just stopped going to the dentist. So then yeah, so again yes. Jaquette Chardae: That's a good point. The their experience, your experience like if someone even if they have money, if they had a bad experience, so that's why all that matters. If they had a bad experience, maybe it stopped them. But the great thing about your mom, and she's ninety five. Go ahead, mom. First off, let's say that. She's ninety five. She still took care of her kids to make sure they were aware of taking care of their teeth. But yeah, like you did say, the experience can make a difference. Marcia Lee: you and and I think people have that priority shifted and I I think they still don't realize that their mouth is important then it's hard to chew, hard to eat, then you have to get those replaced and then they're hard to fit. You wanna go into that a little bit? Jaquette Chardae: so with the people who are just not coming on the regular and they end up losing their teeth and say they need bridges, they need crowns, they need to get all their teeth extracted and replaced with implants, that can be very costly. So if they are complaining about their deductibles, It so to be honest, if they don't really have too much going on that they've been maintaining, they're deductible. The prices shouldn't be like they're just getting different type of cleaning. Like, say if they haven't been in a while, they might not just get a quote unquote regular cleaning, they may need a deeper cleaning, they may need a two-part cleaning or whatever it could be. But it's it's probably not gonna be the same as getting your teeth removed and getting implants. So let's put it back on the person. You gotta take you gotta take accountability, responsibility for yourself and do your part. And then if you do end up needing a crown and you're surprised that your deductible is fifteen hundred dollars out of pocket, once you pay that, start doing things differently so you don't need to pay fifteen hundred dollars for all your molars in the back. So you it's a good thing to have insurance, but you also wanna make sure you're doing your part to help prevent those things from happening. And it dental can be very Expensive and like you said, people will spend money on their iPhones, which is important. People can make money from their phones, but your teeth can kind of interfere with your confidence, it can it can interfere with the way you speak. So if they just understand, like their mouths are important, not just for getting veneers and looking all white and straight, it's about pronunciation or enunciation of words and different things. Marcia Lee: So you wanna go briefly into beyond cleaning, what is a bridge, what is a cram, what is deep cleanings, so people could kinda understand what you know what you don't do if you don't do that routine maintenance. Jaquette Chardae: So let me give you a scenario. For me, if someone hasn't come to the dentist, say they were going for every every six months and COVID hit. A lot of people, I'm still getting people who have not come back since COVID, and that's been six years ago. So some people, they fell off. And if they fallen off, they're not brushing regularly, they're not flossing at all. Now they come see us, we take we do our assessment, we take the x-rays, we period chart. I do want to say if you go somewhere and they're not going around calling out numbers, I don't know how much I would trust because they're not doing a thorough assessment. So we do our assessment, we find out what's going on. If you have not had your teeth cleaned in two or more years, why would you automatically think your cleaning is gonna be done in 30 went 30 minutes, 60 minutes. You will want them to thoroughly clean your teeth so they can get all that stuff that you've been leaving on there for the last two plus years off. So if you have not been taking care of your teeth, you're gonna need a different type of cleaning, and you will probab possibly have to pay out of pocket because we're going deeper, they're doing more things, so that's a different type of cleaning. A bridge is say you have a tooth and you're missing this tooth. And you got another tooth. A bridge is gonna put something over this right here. You no longer have this tooth. So now you have a bridge. A crown is gonna go over that tooth. Put a fake crown here, and then you're gonna have this crown here. So a bridge is that you no longer have a tooth there, you're gonna have to get up under there and clean and maintain that. An implant is say you don't want to get a bridge, you just want to replace that tooth that's missing. Now they're they're putting a little screw up under your bone. It sounds net like hard or nasty or like too much. But and I really that's the second best thing to your natural teeth is an implant. So the implant is there's a screw, they put it in there, give it time to heal, and then you'll just get a crown on your tooth. And that's what we see whenever people see when they look in your mouth is the crown. Marcia Lee: I'm glad you brought up the COVID, the COVID because a lot of people weren't going to the doctors and they weren't going, And I know when my dentist at the time he came on, he told everybody, he said, I'm gonna see the people that need to work first. But like routine, can y'all wait a minute, you know, because I want to get the people who haven't been. And that's that's totally that's totally fair. I met some dental hygienists. the other week and they were talking about how bad the children's dental health is. You wanna elaborate on that a little bit? Jaquette Chardae: I actually did a post today with my nephew. He just went to the dentist and he's three years old for his first visit. And sometimes there's so many kids and it depends on the area, they can't get all the kids in. They're they're so backed up. So when far as the kids go, my only thing is we still need to make sure we're helping brush their teeth. I know People, especially kids, when they start turning around two, three, they become super independent, they don't really want your help. But what I do see is if the parents aren't really helping them get in the back and clean their teeth, they're most likely ending up with cavities. So that's the biggest thing I see with kids is there is a higher currency of decay on their teeth, and it is because they're eating a lot of sweets, they're drinking a whole lot of sugary drinks, and then if they're of a certain age. They're not really getting help clean those teeth. Like a kid, they really like the toothpaste. They just want to put the toothpaste in and suck it on the toothbrush and then nothing. They're not brushing their teeth. That's why we want the parents, the caregiver, the grandparents, the aunts, uncles, whoever, taking that time and brushing those kids' teeth. If kids are so busy you can't do it in the morning, please make sure you're doing it in the evening. Marcia Lee: And what ages should parents, parents or guardians should start taking their children to the dentist? Jaquette Chardae: Would say if it just depends if they are like type A, like if your kid, your baby get those first two teeth, you just want to just bring them in so they can get an intro to the dental office, you can do that around six-seven months. Make an appointment, come in there. We're not really gonna do nothing. We'll just like look around, they'll see what it is, and they'll get a feel for the dental office. But I would say at least by one or two. Let that be their first appointment. And by one or two, they're gonna have more teeth. We can brush, they can get a little bit more things done. But I'll say this the youngest, I would say at least six months. Marcia Lee: okay. And then do they come every six months or they come once a year while they're young? So how d how's how's their cycle work? Jaquette Chardae: Yeah. Still six months. Even even with a little baby. say a one year old, they'll come when they turn one, come every six months thereafter. And since we're talking about the frequency, sometimes whenever someone is a little bit older, say they've had issues with their oral health. And now instead of coming every six months, we may recommend that they come every three months or every four months to get their teeth clean. So it just depends on where you are as far as your oral health. So six months is usually the standard. Three or four months is if for one some people do it even if they don't really have any problems, but say their insurance covers three cleanings a year. They might come three clean three times a year, even if they're not like a perio patient. But one thing I would say with the military, they only usually come once a year to the dentist. Marcia Lee: really? Why why is that? Jaquette Chardae: Yeah. I don't know. I worked on a military base. I don't know if something changed, but there are some people who can try to go every six months, but their standard for them to get checked off, they do have to go at least once a year. It's not a every six month thing with the military. I don't know Marcia Lee: okay. I know for me personally because my family my family has a history of gum disease and that's why when I was able to afford it I started going three times a year to get to get my teeth clean. I've had crowns and all that stuff too, but you know what, and I do take care Jaquette Chardae: Yeah. Marcia Lee: of my teeth because I know that's very that's very important, it's very expensive and I'm always in people's faces and I have to be fabulous at all times. But but I just wanna segue into another subject though and I think a lot of times and you did mention it earlier that something you can go to like some community centers and dental schools but we are lucky in D C that we can actually tap into places like that immediately. So and I'm wanna talk about how some a lot of dentists don't take Medicaid. Jaquette Chardae: Mm-hmm. Yeah. Marcia Lee: And is is it is it because of the reimbursement that they get from the govern okay. Yep, because I know, in Prince George's County, Maryland, This little boy, I think he was like six and become he was in Prince George's County, Maryland. And he passed away because he had to get dental work, but they didn't take Medicaid and it messed with his physical health and he died. now this is why Merlin takes Medicaid now for children. Yes, because of him. They had a Yes. Yes. True story. Yes. So Jaquette Chardae: There's there's there's a lot of programs to help with kids. Like with adults it might be a little harder, but even in the small town in South Carolina that I started practicing and things like that, there were things for kids. Adults, it might be a little harder, but for kids, there's usually some place that will be able to take care of a child and get them seen. I'm not gonna say with or without, but most kids it just depends. They do have either insurance or Medicaid. But I that's a sad story. Yeah, I just yeah. Man. Marcia Lee: But I wanna segue into what tech what technological changes have you seen since you've been practicing? Jaquette Chardae: for one, of course, AI, there's a lot of things being implemented with AI technology, with x-rays. Some things for one, we can only see clinically. That's what we are seeing with our naked eye. We can see some things, but if there's AI or some different technology that can show us like well we didn't see that cavity so now the AI is like here is is lighting things up to show like there's a cavity there or there's some calculus build up there. So one of the biggest things of course is AI another is with X rays Back in the day, I'm not sure how old your audience is, but we did film. We did like different films to take x-rays. So now we no longer do films. Marcia Lee: Mm-hmm. Jaquette Chardae: We're doing sensors. And when I started out, we were in that little transition where we were still doing film and we were doing sensors or digital. And so those two are AI and digital x-rays, but there are so many things happening in dentistry that is W yeah, it's a lot. It's happening all over but there's a lot of different changes happening. Marcia Lee: 'Cause I've been, you know, for me I I've been when they put everything. So now then now they go through the three sixty even when you get fitted for crowns they got the machine that actually does it and, you know, to your point. Because I've been going to a dental school and and they Jaquette Chardae: Yeah, taking impressions. Marcia Lee: been Yep, and they've been actually, the digital impression, so I've seen changes, you know, myself. And you talked about counting teeth. You wanna talk about that? Like they they count each cook count each tooth? 'Cause I've had that done numerous times. They count every last teeth to see how they doing. Jaquette Chardae: So, so okay, there's two different things with counting teeth. Like as a ch as a as with kids, we'll count their teeth for excitement so they'll know how many teeth they have. So we'll do one, two, three, four, five. Marcia Lee: Mm-hmm. Jaquette Chardae: We'll do that. But what I'm talking about far as adults go, we're perio charty. So let me give a quick little demonstration of what that is. All of our teeth sit in bone, right? So when we start having periodontal disease, that bone goes down. And if that bone goes away, never if you've never had a fill-in, a cavity or anything on this tooth, if you're losing the bone, you're at risk of losing the whole tooth. So when I say counting numbers, I'm talking about people going around and measuring that bone. Marcia Lee: Yeah. Jaquette Chardae: around the tooth to make sure that bone is still solid because if we go around we're getting sevens we're getting eights you are not able to take care of that on your own so now we can either if it's of a certain number we can take care of it at the general dentist but if not we might have to refer you to a specialist which is a periodonist to treat that he might need to do some laser treatment whatever he might need to do something to get you to a state where you can maintain it so So those are two numbers. So one is for the kids and one is to measure your bone to make sure it's where we need it to be. So you can maintain it at home. Marcia Lee: and you really gave us a great overview I just wanted people really to understand the importance of what happens when you don't take care of your own it does melt down to your physical and then people say what's going on because they don't equate the two Jaquette Chardae: I do want to make sure they know like how related it is. So for example, if someone is and this is changing a little bit, but say if someone was to get like a hip or knee replacement, they used to have to do antibiotics because we don't want that bacteria from your mouth to get in your system and cause an issue say with your hip or your knee and then another thing to think about with a lot of people especially in of African American descent they have high blood pressure they have diabetes those things can play a role with how your mouth heals and how things look in your mouth so something like a chronic disease high blood pressure if someone's taking a blood thinner when they're getting their teeth clean, their gums might bleed a little bit more. So there's a lot of things. Our body is connected. There's like you can have this is totally off subject far as dental go, but you can have back problems, but it's probably starting from your shoulders and your hips. So we're all connected and the mouth is a part of that. Marcia Lee: Well, you know what, that was so educational, and I think sometime my motto is less is more. We had a lot of good information today. And De Quet was ready, so all her information is gonna be in my show notes. You can follow her on all the platforms. I'm gonna put all her platforms on. Feel free to follow her, feel free to book her, feel free to come to see her. Check out our Instagram, get those Tuesday gems. Yes, those two gems, jazz. I'd like to thank Jaquet for coming on today. I look forward to reaching out to everybody, follow us both. But this has been another edition of Cut the BS, Your Health, Your Choice. I'm so glad you tuned in. Take care, everybody. Have a fabulous day. Thank you. Jaquette Chardae: See y'all, thank y'all.