House Rules
By DR. JOHN F. MILLER DDS - SMILE MONTANA
Hello Hello everybody. It's summertime in Northwest Montana which is quite spectacular as you all know. There is a palpable energy shift that one feels when summer arrives. Mostly for the better with the exception of the traffic in Whitefish. I don't even try to turn left out of the Smile Montana lot. Right, left, left, left, & another right is what the locals call a "Whitefish left" in the summer.
I will never complain however. I have spent time in the Flathead for the last 34 summers with the last 15 as a resident (I would never make the mistake of calling myself a local... again), and I love it more and more every summer. And Fall, and Winter, and Spring for that matter. I especially cherish watching my four children grow up here with all this place has to offer people of every age.
As I sit down and type out these words my ears are still ringing from our Independence Day celebration and I would just like to publicly inform the reader that I really love this country. Like a lot!! I hope to always recognize how lucky I was to be born when and where I was. So, God Bless the USA and God Bless Montana because they sure have blessed me and mine in my 44 years.
In one of my favorite movies of all time, The Matrix, Morpheus explains to Neo that the matrix coding has rules. He then adds that some of these rules can be bent, while some of them can be broken. In our house, rules that get bent, tweaked, invented, or broken are referred to as House Rules.
We play a lot of games as a family and we come up with a lot of house rules. For example, when we play monopoly (a game everyone knows) we do not use $1's and $5's but instead round everything to the tens. We also randomly deal out three properties to every player prior to starting based on their roll of a dice. The railroads and utilities are not included in this. This not only makes things a little fairer, but it greatly speeds up the game and allows for trading to begin immediately.
All of us, whether we know it or not, are living our lives under the general umbrella of society's rules and norms, but our individual spice is our personal "house rules" we've tweaked as we play this game called life. The little quirks and routines that are unique to us. And in this information age with social media and influencers we are bombarded with everyone else's house rules except they are called "hacks," or "style," or "routines." For better or for worse.
It would make sense that some of these make their way into the art and practice of dentistry. Or more accurately, the oral hygiene practices of humans. Then they show up in my day-to-day practice as an oral health care provider. Examples would include brushing with charcoal, oil pulling with coconut oil, the ongoing debate over fluoride, holistic dentistry and the use of non-metal implants, etc.
When presented with these questions or concerns I always start with the foundational principles of oral hygiene which is brushing and flossing. Sorry, brushing and flossing effectively. If you are brushing and flossing like your dentist wants you to, you can combat a lot of bad nutritional habits. Want to oil pull? Go right ahead, but it is not a replacement for brushing and flossing.
I have the opportunity to do 8 to 12 dental check-ups every day in my dental practice. Occasionally I get to check on a mouth that has never had a cavity. I know this because they don't have any dental restorations, aka fillings and crowns. They have healthy naturally white teeth due to their meticulous habits and diet. I love wrapping up my exam and telling them, "You have amazing teeth. I wish I had your teeth. Whatever you are doing, keep it up because it's working." In other words, whatever oral hygiene "house rules" they have, if any, are working and can you tell me what they are?
Spending time explaining the foundational rules of oral hygiene to one of these "unicorn" patients is akin to giving Michael Jordan tips on dribbling a basketball or Michael Phelps (are Michaels the best at everything?) advice on his freestyle from. I'm not there to go over the rules of oral hygiene with them. They obviously know the rules.
What am I really trying to say here? I think it is for you to do you. You know what you like and if it's a net benefit, lean into it and don't worry about society. This world is full of contrasting personalities. Morning People and Night Owls. Introverts and Extroverts. Country and Rock & Roll. Am I talking about my marriage?
I guess I'll end by quoting the great Sheryl Crow, "If it makes you happy, it can't be that bad." Unless it gives you cavities. Get out there and enjoy summer it is the best place to enjoy it. With a SMILE of course.
Read House Rules and other Smile Montana articles by Dr. John F. Miller, DDS, in 406 Woman magazines.