| Bramalea Dentistry, on Dec. 7, 2004,
became the 1st dental office in Brampton, Ontario to obtain
and use HealOzone.
What is it?
HealOzone is a method of delivering ozone (a form of oxygen)
to the tooth or to the oral soft tissues to kill bacteria
and viruses without harming healthy tissue. It is painless.
(Note: Ozone has been in used in bottled water
for years to kill the germs to make it safe to drink.)
How Does it Help?
After ozone treatment the carious tooth will then remineralize
and harden, healing itself. This allows the dentist to do
less drilling and with HealOzone not all the tooth decay needs
to be removed. This reduces the necessity for local anaesthetic
injections (sometimes no needles!).
With HealOzone the treated tooth becomes less sensitive. This
feature makes HealOzone useful on healthy, but sensitive,
root surfaces to reduce or eliminate sensitivity. Similarly
it can be used after the shaping of a tooth for a crown, to
reduce or eliminate subsequent sensitivity, before placing
the temporary or final crown.
HealOzone can reduce or eliminate symptoms and speed the healing
of soft tissue ulcerations. Cold sores on the lip respond
quickly.
Too good to be true?
There are two concerns:
- Ozone can irritate the lungs. Therefore, HealOzone is
designed to NOT deliver any ozone unless
a seal is obtained around the tooth or soft tissue lesion.
Once a seal is confirmed, ozone flows to the site and is
sucked back into the machine where it is converted back
to oxygen for release. No ozone is released into the mouth
or "working" environment.
- Achieving the perfect seal is sometimes challenging.
Disposable silicone rubber cups of varying sizes are available.
The dentist selects the appropriate size. In addition, barriers
must be improvised by the dentist to achieve a seal if the
silicone cup alone isn’t adequate. If a seal can not
be achieved, traditional dentistry will then be used, instead
of HealOzone.
Is It Covered By Dental Insurance?
Sometimes yes and sometimes no. The current Ontario
Dental Association Suggested Fee Guide makes no mention
of HealOzone. No code has yet been established to specifically
identify this new treatment. However, it can legitimately
be classified under several existing codes, depending on the
intent of its use:
- # 20111 - Caries control & temporary
restoration
- # 41302 - Desensitization
- # 13602 - Antimicrobial agent on hard tissue
- # 41212 - Management of oral disease (soft
tissue)
- # 41232 - Management of oral manifestation
of systemic disease or complications of medical therapy
More Information
For more information, see www.scican.com
(Canadian section) for a video and clinical studies. SciCan
is the Canadian distributor of HealOzone, which is made by
KaVo (see www.kavo.com/En).
Another very informative website is a British site (see www.the-o-zone.cc).
For more recent information about dental OZONE therapy please read the "Community Comments" section immediately below the original newspaper article right here to see a lively, good quality discussion that includes Dr. Julian Holmes. Note that Dr. Perlmutter visited Dr. Chris Kammer and Dr. Julian Holmes in Wisconsin in September, 2007 to learn from them and contribute my comments, as a user of HealOzone since 2004.
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