A theory, in practice

Kim Kutsch, DDS, faced a heartbreaking request from the mother of one of his patients: After suffering 42 cavities in five years, she wanted the seemingly ceaseless drilling in her daughter’s mouth to stop. She suggested the 16-year-old’s teeth be pulled instead.

Kutsch, who practices in Albany, OR, about an hour’s drive south of Portland, made another proposition: a regimen of oral antimicrobial agents.

“I told the patient: ‘I know what’s causing this; it’s a bacterial infection. I can’t go home with you and make you comply [with applying the agents], but if you don’t, you’re going to the senior prom with a set of dentures,” Kutsch says, adding that the patient’s diet and lifestyle had contributed to the ravages in her mouth.