June 13, 2008
What Your Dentist Should Do, #5 (Continued): Stay On Top Of CRP Research
Scientists continue to study C-reactive proteins. As a result, data from their research is released regularly, providing those of us in direct patient care with more and more information on just what this blood marker can tell us about our patients and the inflammatory load they may be dealing with throughout their entire system. That, as part of our diagnostic approach, helps us design continually improved treatments. This is particularly crucial for people who have co-occurring diabetes and gum disease.
Your health care team should be monitoring your CRP levels regularly. It’s especially important to keep close tabs on your CRP level after a periodontal treatment. Why? Because if your levels don’t drop after treatment it may not be linked exclusively to your diabetes symptoms – you may have other problems that need the attention of your primary care physician Certain cancers, including prostate, colon and pancreatic cancer, have all been found to be linked to elevated CRP levels. Now this sounds scary, but one of the scariest things about any of these cancers is when they go undetected until they are discovered at a point where they are almost untreatable.
Because you monitor your health more closely than people who don’t have diabetes, the routine testing you have done has the potential to find serious problems earlier, when they may be more treatable.
Did you know that there is a closed loop between your dental health and your ability to successfully manage your blood sugar? For more diabetes information, get your free five-lesson mini-course on diabetes and your teeth at DentistryForDiabetics.com.
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