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Periodontal Therapy
You would think that, having been married to an Englishman for 28 years, I would visited England more frequently in the springtime. When my kids were very young, we lived in England for about six months but left to return to our home in Georgia just as the daffodils were about to pop open. This year David and I decided to spend Easter in England, surrounded by our English relatives and friends. Despite the hectic traveling schedule, we managed to spend a couple of days in Edinburgh, Scotland, amid the elegance of beautifully maintained gardens and its huge castle, which dominates the city. Like typical tourists, we walked our feet off while immersing ourselves in the history of the Old Town. The weather in Edinburgh was unusually warm and sunny, and we stayed in a lovely hotel that faced the North Sea.
Upon inspecting the "loo" (the English word for a bathroom or toilet) in our hotel room, I discovered the usual toiletries like shampoo and body lotion, but I was immediately taken with a small box of breath freshener called "Snog Me Senseless." Only the the British, with their dry sense of humor, could have thought up that name! On the back of the box, the breath spray is described as "quickly giving the kiss of life to your love life." A warning is also included, stating that a nasty whiff of bad breath often results in your date running away and never meeting you again.
There's lots of miscellaneous stuff I'm always eager to talk about in my column, but I've decided to leave my discussion of dental hygiene in the UK until my next column ... so stay tuned! Instead, I'm going to focus on a subject that has been bugging me lately, and one that is often misunderstood. Am I going to talk about "bloody" mouth fresheners (bloody is another English expression) or something along those lines? No, what's been bugging me is a discussion that I read and responded to online in an Internet chat group. The topic was oral irrigation, and I was somewhat disappointed not to read any posts about the science that supports the recommendations. I felt an urgency to respond, because I...