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Dr. Allan Coopersmith practices cosmetic and general dentistry in Montreal Quebec Canada and together with his wife, Nathalie Fiset who is a hygienist invented the PerioTwist interdental cleaner and delivery device. Dr. Coopersmith Graduated with the Gold Medal From McGill Dental School and went on to complete a general Practice residency program at Albert Einstein Medical Centre in Philadelphia before returning home to set up his dental practice in 1976. He is a fellow of the Academy of General Dentistry; Academy of Dentistry International; International College of Dentists; Canadian Academy of Restorative Dentistry and Prosthedontics; American College of Dentists; International Academy of Dento-Facial Esthetics.
Our motto is to Educate- Motivate and Facilitate. We are passionate about educating people to take care of their oral health which significantly contributes to their overall total health. Because Gum Disease starts between the teeth, we want to motivate them to “Clean Between”. The problem is that current products such as floss, picks, wire brushes have many drawbacks and limitations creating non compliance. We want to Facilitate oral hygiene and provide patients with a cleaning tool that is easy to use, efficient, economical and environmental and that’s why we spent the past 12 years developing a tool that will be the simple solution to the complex problem.
www.PerioTwist.com
Howard Farran: It is just a huge honor for me today to be podcasting, interviewing Dr. Allan Coopersmith and Nathalie Fiset, all the way from Montreal, Canada. Montreal, Quebec, Canada. I want to tell my listeners something. There's no commercials on this program. I contacted these two people. They did not contact me. They're not paying me for anything. I am just trying to bring you the best quality information I can. But I'm going to read to you, off their website. This might take a minute or two, but I think it's worth reading.
Dr. Allan Coopersmith practices cosmetic and general dentistry in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and together with his wife, Nathalie Fiset-who's a hygienist-invented the PerioTwist Interdental Cleaner and delivery device. Dr. Coopersmith graduated with the gold medal from McGill Dental School, and went on to complete a general practice residency program at Albert Einstein Medical Center in Philadelphia before returning home to set up his dental practice in 1976. He is a Fellow of the Academy of General Dentistry, Academy of Dentistry Internationale, International College of Dentists, Canadian Academy of Restorative Dentistry, and Prosthodontics American College of Dentists, International Academy of Dental Facial Aesthetics. His motto is to educate, motivate, and facilitate. He and his wife are passionate about educating people to take care of their oral health, which significantly contributes to their overall total health.
Because gum disease starts within the teeth, they want to motivate their patients to clean between the teeth. The problem is that current products, such as floss, piks, wire brushes, have many drawbacks and limitations creating non-compliance. They want to facilitate oral hygiene and provide patients with a cleaning tool that is easy to use, efficient, economical, environmental, and that's why they spent the last 12 years developing a tool that will be the simple solution to this very complex problem.
High-tech design is 12 years of research and development, invested in developing a tool that is simple to use, convenient, affordable, senior-friendly, multi-purpose, effective, comfortable, and reusable, and leaves you with a fresh mint taste and smell. Why is the interdental space so important? Gum disease starts between the teeth, where your toothbrush or mouthwash cannot reach to clean. Interdental carries are the most difficult and expensive to restore. The most common areas for recurrent decay and failure. This is where bacterial invasion, inflammation, enters your bloodstream and spreads all over your body, increasing your risk for heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, Alzheimer's, premature births, cancers, and erectile dysfunction, Ryan.
Why should you care about the anatomy of the interdental space? It's keratinized, vulnerable to infection. You say col is nonkeratinized. What do you mean, col?
Dr. Coopersmith: Col refers to the interdental tissue between the contact points of adjacent teeth. The main point about that is that it's nonkeratinized, as opposed to the facial and lingual gingiva. That's what makes it so vulnerable. What happens is that bacteria accumulating in between the teeth end up penetrating through that col, and invading the bloodstream and causing inflammation, infection, and starting the breakdown. Gum disease, essentially, starts between the teeth, more than anywhere else in the body, and because it has such restricted access where your toothbrush and your mouthwash can't get there to clean, the only thing that we've had for the past 200 years is dental floss, to use to clean between the teeth.
Lately, there's other products, which are actually very good-the wire brushes, and the dental piks, as alternate for people who refuse to floss. But the thing is there's a lot of drawbacks associated with both of them. That's what motivated us to come up with the PerioTwist. We were increasingly more and more and more frustrated trying to teach people how to clean between, and because of all the drawbacks, people weren't doing it.
Howard Farran: Well, I never heard of the word col before, C-O-L, so I Googled it now, and I found out why. It's Latin, I mean it's French, col, meaning neck. The lowest point of a ridge or saddle between two peaks, typically affording a pass from one side of a mountain range to another. Meteorology, a region of slightly ... Basically, that's a French term you just threw at me.
Dr. Coopersmith: It's actually a dental anatomy term.
Howard Farran: I've never heard of it, but it's Mother's Day, and I send her presents, even though-I just sent her flowers and money and chocolates for Mother's Day, even though I'm sure she did drop me, when I was a little kid. That's probably why I can't remember col. I've probably heard of it before, but after. But anyway, explain the col again.
Dr. Coopersmith: If you unscrew the healing cap of an implant, per se, and you take a look at the colar of tissue all around, because that's a perfect example of what you're going to see. You're going to see a nonkeratinized inner layer. When it's not an implant, and just two adjacent teeth, then the gingiva that approximates the interproximals of the adjacent teeth, you have that little ridge, and that's called the col. The importance, and the significance of it, is that it isn't keratinized, and it forms the entry point of a lot of bacteria. That's why a lot of the gum disease, actually, starts in between the teeth rather than on the facial and lingual surfaces.
Howard Farran: But it's sad times for floss and all that, because all these Americans have been reading these newspaper articles for the last six months, in very prestigious newspapers, like New York Times, that there's zero evidence that floss does anything. I've heard this feedback from patients, friends, family. They say this is all just a little something that's in your head. There's no research to prove that floss does anything.
Nathalie Fiset: Nobody ever paid for such a research. I think it's more the lack of people paying for good research, because we all know of course, it works.
Dr. Coopersmith: Anecdotally, Howard, you've been doing this for a long time, as have I. Even though the research has been flawed, in the past, because most of the research was done by the supporting companies that sell floss, that it actually does work, and it works very effectively when used properly. The problem with floss, as we see it, is that number one, most people hate to floss. How many times have you been in front of your patient, and you're trying to convince them or motivate them to floss, and you come up with the same standard answers, which everybody says, "You don't have to floss every tooth. Only floss the ones you want to keep." Everybody laughs and chuckles, and you show them or the hygienist shows them how to floss, and you wrap around fingers and then you place it in between the teeth and then you wrap it around. It takes four or five minutes to explain to somebody how to floss properly, and you can see, after the first 20 seconds or so, we've lost them.
We've lost them because it's so impractical. Of those people who do floss, very few do it properly. Obviously, due to that frustration, over many, many years of trying to teach and motivate our patients to floss, we finally have to accept the fact that because it's so impractical and so inconvenient, you need two clean hands. You need somebody with manual dexterity. Seniors certainly can't do it. Kids can't do it properly. There's some dentists who've gone on to YouTube to try and explain to their patients how easy it is to floss. He gets up and he says how easy it is, and then he takes another five or 10 minutes to explain to people how to do it. There has to be a better way.
Howard Farran: You know why I asked you that question?
Dr. Coopersmith: Why's that?
Howard Farran: All my homies listen to this. Most of them, probably 85% of them, have an hour commute to work. Podcast kills radio. They just don't want to listen to all the Trump, Hillary, all this politics. They hate it. They're listening to this stuff. What I do is-I don't want them taking notes while they're driving. I always retweet my guest's tweet. On Twitter, you're at Dr. Allan Cooper, D-R, Allan, D-R-A-L-L-A-N Cooper. I retweet it. But your pin tweet is Dr. Allan Coopersmith, "I just published a dentist's insights on the latest flossing debate," so if you're driving to work, and you're wondering how do I get in contact with this guy, just go to my Twitter, at Howard Farran, it's my last tweet, at D-R Allan Cooper. Even when you do see someone that says, "I floss every day," they just snap it in between the contacts. They're just flossing the contacts. I always say, "If the floss ain't bendin', you're just pretendin'." They never bend the floss each way. They never do it right.
I know your gorgeous wife, Nathalie Fiset, is a hygienist, but I've always had one complaint with the hygienists. That is when I was a little kid, the worst part of my childhood was for one year, my mom made me take piano lessons every Wednesday after school for a year, and the teacher said I couldn't carry a tune in a lunch pail and had zero talent. When you go to piano lessons, they make you play the piano while they sit there and yell at you and tell you how stupid you are and all that stuff. When you take a little kid to the hygienist, she does the whole cleaning. I always thought that was so wrong. I always thought it should be a lesson because that kid, a lot of these kids that have had their teeth cleaned every six months from age one or two to 10 years old, they've still never floss their teeth one time in their life, and I always thought it would be better if you sat down with the kid and made sure he put on the right amount of toothpaste ...
You showed him that the toothbrush had to have bristles that were straight, and only a little pea sized amount, and that you start on the upper right ... Then, have him floss. It should just be a flossing lesson. If the hygienist was a personal trainer, you would just go there with a lawn chair and a beer and sit there in the gym and watch her work out. Anyway, I don't want to get on that. What made you spend 12 years, and I bet you spent a lot of coin on this-I bet you could have taken a lot of trips to Paris, London, and Tokyo instead of making a flossing device. What's wrong with you? Why didn't you just go on a bunch of cruises?
Dr. Coopersmith: We did both.
Howard Farran: You did both.
Dr. Coopersmith: We're all in. We're all in to this one. We did spend a lot of money, and a lot of time, and a lot of heart, and a lot of soul, because we're passionate about it. We're passionate about it because we really wanted to present a tool, an alternate to people, that they could use as easy as they could with the toothpick. It took us those 12 years to come up with this really simple device that solves a very complex problem. All those 12 years were dedicated to making it simpler and simpler and simpler and multifunctional at the same time.
Howard Farran: My homies need to go to your website is PerioTwist, P-E-R-I-O, Perio, and then twist, T-W-I-S-T. PerioTwist.com. If you go there, you can join their free newsletter. What are my homies going to find at PerioTwist.com?
Dr. Coopersmith: Well, they're going to find a couple of things. There's a separate part for dentists and hygienists, and there's a separate part for the patient. For the patient, what we're trying to do is we're trying to educate the patients to clean between their teeth, because it's so important. We're trying to educate them, because it's so important, and identify all the problems associated with no cleaning between your teeth. Not only from the point of view of decreasing the carries and periodontal disease and bad breath, because that's where all that bacteria ends up accumulating and festering. I don't know. The last time people tried just a regular toothpick, and they put the toothpick underneath their nostrils, it's a pretty foul odor. That's all over their mouth.
We're trying to teach people the importance of cleaning between. At the same time, we're trying to motivate people to clean between, and then we're trying to facilitate by providing that tool to do it. Now, it's got a lot of really neat features for the dentists to use and the hygienists to use in their office as well. One of the things that it does, other than any other interdental cleaner out there, is it will not only clean between the teeth, but it will also medicate, between the teeth, and it will apply that medication, between the teeth, and will leave that medication there. It won't withdraw the medication as the device is withdrawn, as opposed to wire brushes or it were anything else.
That has a lot of relevance, in the dental office, because we use it almost routinely for anybody who has very sensitive gums prior to any kind of scaling and root planning. We just dip it into some topical anesthetic, place it in between the teeth-that's where that nonkeratinized col comes in too, because because it's in between the teeth, as opposed to the keratinized facial and lingual gingiva, that topical anesthetic penetrates right in. Gives a very profound topical anesthesia. People really enjoy that.
Howard Farran: What is the medication?
Dr. Coopersmith: It's any topical that they use, before an injection. You can use the same thing. It's usually a benzocaine. Whatever. It could be liquid. It could be a gel. Both will adhere to the PerioTwist by a process of capillarity, because of the way that the spiral is designed. You can then apply that between the teeth, and it will stay there.
Howard Farran: Do you have a YouTube video that shows this being used?
Dr. Coopersmith: Not yet. It's on the way. Howard, I think we're very proud to tell you that we are using your podcast as the introductory. This is our launch to the dental profession. We just had a tremendously successful Kickstarter campaign a few months ago where over 2,800 people have purchased over $118,000 worth of PerioTwists. We're just launching it now to the dentists and to the hygienists.
Howard Farran: How much did the Kickstarter campaign sell?
Dr. Coopersmith: $118,000.
Howard Farran: Did you get all your money back?
Dr. Coopersmith: Oh no.
Howard Farran: What was the total coin invested in this dream?
Dr. Coopersmith: It's about $350,000 so far.
Howard Farran: All right. You're over a third of the way there.
Dr. Coopersmith: Yeah, I'm all in. We're all in on this one.
Howard Farran: What is a Kickstarter campaign?
Dr. Coopersmith: A Kickstarter is a crowdfunding website which all or a lot of the latest and greatest of gadgets are introduced. What they do is they pre-sell the products. We have a video, and it tells you all about it. For people who want to fund or support you, they can make contributions, and in return, in our case, they got PerioTwist. Different quantities.
Howard Farran: You didn't give them equity or share. You gave them product.
Dr. Coopersmith: Exactly. We give them product.
Howard Farran: How long's that video?
Dr. Coopersmith: The video is about four minutes. We have two other videos which is on our website right now. One of which is one minute basically video, and we have a more detailed five minute video, which we're going to be putting up, as well.
Howard Farran: Why don't you email those videos to Howard at dentaltown dot com, and are you Ryan at dentaltown dot com? You are? Why don't you email them to Howard at dentaltown dot com, and Ryan at dentaltown dot com, and we'll attach these videos at the end of the podcast, so if they're on iTunes, they can listen to them. If they're on Facebook or YouTube, or whatever, they can watch them.
Dr. Coopersmith: That would be great. Thank you.
Howard Farran: That would be awesome. Another thing about the mind of the patient, how many times have you walked out of the gym, and you watch this beautiful lady who's on the StairMaster for an hour, and then she walks out to the car, and lights up a cigarette. Many people diet and exercise to look sexy, not for health and longevity. I've connected with more boys ... Especially in the high school range, I'll say, "You don't floss, do you?" They go, "No." I say, "Well, let me tell you something. In high school, you walk up to Sally Sue, and you say, 'Hi, Sally,' and she smells that breath.
I can smell your breath through my mask. She's going to smell it one time, and she's never going to think of you again. If you ever want to be a date, I don't know. Maybe you want to grow up and be a Catholic priest. I don't know. But if you ever want to date a girl and get married, you'd better change your breath. The only way you're going to change your breath is brushing and flossing, so don't brush and floss for me, so that you don't come in here and need cavities [inaudible 00:19:00]. Brush or floss so that someday, you can have a girlfriend."
I swear their eyes are the size of silver dollars. I think that resonates more with ... A lot of people, they come in, and you tell them they have gum disease and six cavities. They say, "I'm interested in bleaching my teeth." You're like, "Oh, my God." They say, "Well, can I just get them bleached?" Then, I say, "No, I can't bleach your teeth with a bunch of open cavities and gum disease, so I need to clean your teeth. Plus, I can't even get the bleach on your teeth, because they're covered with plaque and tartar and calculus. In fact, the best thing we could do to whiten your teeth is first clean them, get all the plaque and tartar off, fix all the cavities, and then we'll bleach the bejesus out of them." But what motivate them to fix their cavities and gum disease was because they wanted whiter teeth because they got a job interview ... Something coming up, down the line.
Dr. Coopersmith: I couldn't agree with you more.
Howard Farran: I would assume there's a lot of stained teeth in Quebec, because I've lectured in Montreal several times, and it seems like there's a lot of red wine going on in Quebec.
Dr. Coopersmith: There is a lot of red wine going on in Quebec-and then some.
Howard Farran: Do you personally drink white wines to have those whiter, brighter teeth?
Dr. Coopersmith: We drink all wine. We're non discriminating. But interesting. To your point about fresh breath, one of the things that we were doing, over those 12 years, is coming up with a type of a solution for that as well, other than just cleaning the bacteria between your teeth. What we did was we had a proprietary, 100% natural anti-bacterial, which is actually an essential oil with a mint taste and a mint flavor. This accomplishes two things. The first thing it accomplishes is that the PerioTwist actually self-cleanses, between uses. This essential oil leeches out of the plastic, as it's being used over the lifetime of the product. The other thing it does is leave you with a nice, clean, minty taste in your mouth and smell, as well. That's an additional benefit of the PerioTwist.
Howard Farran: What is the lifetime length of a PerioTwist? How long does it last?
Dr. Coopersmith: It depends on the usage, but under normal usage, one PerioTwist should last approximately a week, even up to two weeks. It's made out of two types of plastics-both which are, of course, FDA approved. They're medical grade plastics as opposed to food grade, and it's set up. We're actually manufacturing it close by in Quebec, so we can keep an eye on the manufacturing. It's done in a clean room with all the bells and whistles, because after all, it is something that's going in your mouth.
Howard Farran: You guys are Canadian, so why would you care if it's FDA approved?
Dr. Coopersmith: Because, interestingly enough, the Kickstarter campaign had 90% of our purchases from the uNited States. The FDA approved, we would like to bring this PerioTwist worldwide. It does have a worldwide patent pending, and it's actually all the instructions is both in French, English, and Spanish. We want to have a very broad scope, as far as being able to provide it to the rest of the world.
Nathalie Fiset: FDA has a meaning for Canadian also.
Howard Farran: It does?
Dr. Coopersmith: Yeah, FDA is recognized everywhere.
Howard Farran: No matter how good the PerioTwist is, you'll still never have the number one product that comes out of Quebec. Maple syrup. You guys make 90% of the world's maple syrup, and I swear to God, you guys make the best maple syrup in the world. Are you making this because you feel guilty that all these Americans have cavities from maple syrup oozing in between all of our teeth, and you tried to invent an anti-Quebec maple syrup device to clean it back out?
Nathalie Fiset: At least now we have a chance.
Howard Farran: May homies, if they go to PerioTwist dot com, they can order 100 of these for 139 bucks, so they're $1.39 each. I really was really excited. I want to continue reading your deal, because tone of the things I liked, where you were saying about, was the marketing aspect. Talk about the marketing aspect. Do you sell them attached to a dentist's business card? What is your marketing program? That's pretty cool. Instead of handing someone your business card, that'd be a very different behavior, if you handed them a business card with a PerioTwist on it, and they went home and were playing with this. That would start a conversation with family. "What are you doing?" "Well, I ran into this dentist at the mall." Do you do that?
Dr. Coopersmith: Right now, we're designing. It's almost finished. It's our intention for anybody who orders the clinic pack or the professional pack-it's $100 or $200-those are the bulk packs that we're going to be selling to the dentist for use within the office. After they use it in the office, they can just take the cap, place it and cover the PerioTwist, and then give it to the patient. But we figured it would be really neat because we're giving toothbrushes, and we're giving floss, and it would be really neat if the dentist had an incentive.
Some value-added benefit to be giving the patient this PerioTwist, and we devised this little wallet. It's a little paper wallet. It's basically a little fold. It's a place where they can put the PerioTwist, and the professional and his business card. Inside, it says, "Thank you for the referrals of your friends and family, or the confidence for your referrals of your friends and family." There's another part that says, "Just because we care about you," and they give them the PerioTwist, the dentist's card. It's a nice, subliminal way of asking the patients, number one for referrals, and if you like what I'm doing, spread it around.
Howard Farran: Do you have one in front of you?
Dr. Coopersmith: No, but I will send you the artwork for it, and so you'll see. Basically, it looks like a little-think of it as a little bit bigger than a business card, whereby you can just open it up. There's two sides. There's instructions. Inside, you can put the business card and the PerioTwist into it.
Howard Farran: You said if my homies ordered it, you're going to give them a discount if they enter promo code Dental Town 17. They get 10% off their order?
Dr. Coopersmith: Correct. But it's not Dental Town 17. It's just Dental Town.
Howard Farran: Oh, okay-just Dental Town.
Dr. Coopersmith: Just Dental Town. Whoever is listening to this podcast, and if they write in Dental Town, under the promo code, they'll get an immediate 10% reduction.
Howard Farran: I wouldn't have done a 10% discount. I would have given them a bottle of maple syrup. But that's just me. That's just me.
Dr. Coopersmith: Hopefully, there won't be enough maple syrup to give all the people who are going to be calling in.
Howard Farran: I like on your website, where you say ... That is amazing, Quebec. I have seen those factories. Back in the day, you'd just have a little pipe in the tree, and you'd hang a barrel on it, and you'd handmill cows. Now, there's tubes with suction tubes ... It is a mass production, high tech. That is crazy, to look at how they do that. I like on your website how you say, "Advice for young dentists and all students.
You are the future. It's time to start the recurring cycle of drill, fill, and bill. It is up to you to prioritize prevention, rather than treatment. Oral hygiene should be the most lucrative part of your dental practice, require the least amount of stress for both you and your patients, and everybody wins." You said you love my interview with Mickey McMahons with the RDH Hygienists of the Productive Academy Group, who said that, "The role of the dentist is to get the patient well, and then to transfer the patient back to the hygienist for a maintenance program designed just for them. The only time the dentist should see the patient is for an examination in the hygiene room."
But, I'm going to tell you the truth. Young dentists, when they read that, they're going to say, "What, have you, lost your mind? A root canal is where the money is. Not the hygiene department. The money is placing an implant, not the hygiene room." Why should a young dentist believe that there's money in the hygiene department, as opposed to root canals and crowns and implants?
Dr. Coopersmith: That's a great question. Ultimately, it's the big companies that are dictating to us, as professionals, where the emphasis should be. Right now, they're making a lot of money selling us cerec machines and selling us digital scanners and all sorts of stuff, putting everybody into [inaudible 00:28:39] to the wazoo. We're forgetting the very basics.
I've listened to quite a few of your podcasts, one of whom was with this terrific guy who does websites for dentists, and he's talking about search engine optimization and all the bells and whistles in order to try and get new patients when the best way to get a patient is to have a happy patient in your chair. There's nothing that's going to show the patient that they're more progressive, and more preventatively oriented, than people who deal with prevention, rather than treatment. All those happy people will end up referring their friends and family, because they will see that this dentist, this young dentist, really is progressive in his thought rather than the old guys who are just drilling and filling. They're frustrated. I believe patients are very frustrated today-especially the ones who have such poor oral hygiene. The cost of the problem is never really addressed properly.
Whenever they get the plaque accumulation, then they get the cavity, then they get a bigger, more plaque, then they get a bigger cavity. Then, they end up needing the endo. After the end, they end up needing the crown and the tooth fractures, and they end up needing an implant. The same problem, the initial bacterial infiltration that caused the mucocytous, and then the peri-implantitis, and then they're back to the beginning again. In a sense, there's so much out there already, they don't have to worry about not having any work to do. They're already treating the failures that we've had, all these years.
There's lots and lots of work. If they start the prevention right now, not only will they be making a name for themselves, in the community, but they will also have all that restorative work to redo that's already been done. Maybe in 30 years or 40 years, there may not be as much restorative dental work. When a person buys or sells a practice, the first thing that they look at is the oral health department. I would much rather go in, and check a patient-speak to a patient-and motivate them than to do MOD, MOD, MOD, MOD for an hour. If I can get two or three people going through the hygiene section, I'll be making a lot more money. I'll have a lot less stress, and I'll feel rewarded for it, because I'm really doing a good thing.
Nathalie Fiset: They could always crack their teeth. There's other ways to breaking teeth than by not prevention. There's other things that can happen.
Howard Farran: I think what you said is amazing, because I love the quote, "The purpose of the business is to create a customer who creates new customers." I'm kind of brutal, when I talk to my patients. For 30 years. When a human feels like a victim, they feel like it's someone else's fault. If you're mugged, you're a victim. You were walking to the store, and someone mugged you. You're a victim. When you tell them they need a root canal, they go into this victim mentality. "Someone else should pay for it. Obama should pay for it. The boss, the employer, someone, because I'm a victim."
Every time they ask me, they say, "Well, how much is a root canal?" I say, "I don't know. I've never had one. I brush and floss every morning. I brush and floss every night." Jan has been my only dental assistant. I graduated from dental school 30 years ago yesterday, on May 11. I said, "Jan and I only see the hygienist, and we do what the hygienist says. If you do what the hygienist says, you're never going to see me. The minute you stop doing what the hygienist says, you're going to see me." When your car falls apart, you just fix it. When your roof starts leaking, you fix it. But when something goes wrong with your teeth, you think the insurance should pay for it.
I said, "What id you didn't want to have kids anymore, and the insurance would only pay for a total castration, and you wanted a vasectomy. Are you going to get your balls cut off because you know you're a victim? If you know you don't want to have kids, pay your own money for a vasectomy, and if the hygienist says she wants to see you every three months, and the insurance says we'll only pay for it every six months, then lose all your teeth. I don't really care, because in the United States, at age 64, 10% have zero teeth, times two missing half, and at 74, 20% of Americans have zero teeth, times two missing half. Go to the hygienist, do what she says, pay for it out of your person wallet, or you'll be back."
Nathalie Fiset: Clean between your teeth.
Howard Farran: Clean between your teeth. I read that book, Beating the Heart Attack Chain. It was a very interesting book. There's multiple causes for heart disease. Smoking, diabetes, obesity. But one of the deals was about five gram negative anaerobic bacteria, and they're only found underneath your gums and your teeth. A lot of heart doctors-do you think it's good research that gum disease is increasing heart disease, or not so much? Do you think it's anecdotal, like flossing, or do you think there's actually good research?
Dr. Coopersmith: No, that's a great question. I think the evidence is overwhelming, as to the association between gum disease and heart disease and other problems too. That is without question. Now, what exactly the cause and effect is, I can't tell you. I don't think that's already been established definitively, but there's enough evidence to show that we, as gatekeepers to the total body health of a person-and I really believe we are those gatekeepers-if we can motivate people, and show them a way and provide them a device that can clean between their teeth where almost all the problems in the mouth end up originating, then I think that we can do people a great service. I think that there's no doubt that a lot of people that do have heart disease do have gum disease. Whether those are double-blind studies or not, or to what extent they are, I really can't tell you for sure. But I do know that there is enough evidence to show that.
Howard Farran: I know the goldmine for epidemiologists, the thing they love the most, is identical twins raised apart since birth. That's the rarest data on Earth. A lot of people who want these double-blind studies, how are you going to do a double-blind study on flossing? What are you going to get, two identical twins, they have the same diet, everything's the same, one floss, one doesn't. But I also think there's good evidence showing that people who floss every day live six and a half years longer. But then again, you've got to think to yourself, a person who flosses every day is probably more likely to exercise and eat right and go to yoga, where a person who's never flossed in their life is probably smoking right now, having a beer, drinking a bottle of maple syrup. The thing that motivates me the most about your product is the hygiene department, in general. The dentist is obsessed in this failed ideology of advertising. All they want is these new patients. They'll go into a town of 10,000, and they'll spend five percent of collection on advertising, winning new patients.
You go up to that guy, after he's practiced for 50 years, and say, "Hey, buddy, what do you need right now?" "I need new patients." "Dude, you've gone through everybody in the county, whereas big Fortune 500s are into loyalty programs." When you fly American Airlines, or go to Walmart or Costco, everybody's used them once, so they don't want new customers. They want loyal ones to stay with credit cards and discounts and all this. With humans, they're either in or out. Take bowling. They either haven't bowled for 10 years, or they're totally in, and own their own bowling ball. Boating. They haven't gone boating in 10 years, or they either own their boat and go boating regularly. Same thing with dentistry. Average dentist has got 5,000 charts. 4,000 never came back, because they weren't in. They weren't motivated.
Dr. Coopersmith: Exactly.
Howard Farran: If you get them into a hygiene department, you don't have a hygienist who's talking down and scolding them and making them feel bad, but being that coach, that Vince Lombardi, that motivator to make them want to go all-in to take care of their teeth, and they need toys, and they need electric toothbrush. That was another question I wanted to ask you. Are you a big fan of manual brush, or electric, because sometimes, I think when you motivate them to go by an $80 toothbrush, maybe that's their new bowling ball. Maybe that's their boat. Maybe that's the new gadget that makes them get back in. If they're in, they'll see you every six months and do everything you say. If they're out, they're only going to show up when they got a toothache, or if something broke. Answer the toothbrush question. What do you guys think about toothbrushes?
Dr. Coopersmith: Let me ask you a question. If you were to saw a two by four, and you use a handsaw, and you're going back and forth, and back and forth, or you take a power saw, and you just go right through it. Which one would you rather use?
Howard Farran: Well, I'm an expert in karate. I bought a black belt on ebay for nine dollars. I assume I could just karate chop it in half, since I bought that black belt. But, you're right. Kudos to you. I've been a dentist 30 years. I've never heard that analogy. I swear to God. Instantly, I know it. I love it, when I see it. From now on, when somebody says, "Electric toothbrush, or brush," I'll say, "Well, if you've got to saw a board in half, do you want to do it with a manual saw, or do you want a power"-what did you say, a chainsaw, electric saw?
Dr. Coopersmith: Just the power saw will do. But how-
Howard Farran: Great analogy. That was worth the whole podcast.
Dr. Coopersmith: Wow. Well, hang on, because we might be coming back with our next invention, but we can't get into that right now. Let me ask you a question. We are so firmly committed to oral hygiene, that we actually encourage our patients to get a power toothbrush. Even if it's a battery operated one, or an electric one, we see a remarkable improvement in oral hygiene. Most people tend to brush their teeth probably for about 25 seconds or so, if that. When we ask the patient who's sitting in the chair, we say, "Do you have an electric toothbrush?"
They say, "OH, yes, we have an electric toothbrush." We take a look in their mouth, and there's quite a bit of plaque. Then, the next question I say is, "Do you use it?" "Oh, no, the battery's broke," or this or that. We really encourage our patients to use the electric toothbrush, and to go out and buy one. We find that the oral hygiene is significantly improved, because it's just so much more efficient. They'll only brush for 25 seconds, anyway, but at least whether it's oscillating, or whether it's sonic, both cases, the bristles are just so much more efficient than cleaning.
Nathalie Fiset: There's no way a person could beat an electric toothbrush manually with the speed and the vibrations that there is to come here.
Howard Farran: You know what? I like the sonic electric toothbrush the best, because my favorite restaurant is Sonic Drive-In. Do they have those up in Canada?
Dr. Coopersmith: No.
Howard Farran: Lucky you. That's why you probably both aren't on insulin, right now. Allan, you've been 41 years in practice?
Dr. Coopersmith: Correct.
Howard Farran: How about your lovely wife? She's going to say only four, right?
Nathalie Fiset: 22.
Howard Farran: 22? You got 41 years and the hygienist has 22. These young kids are really throwing periodontists out the window, and they really believe, "This dude's got gum disease. It's got a furcation involvement ... It would be a lot better. We'll cure this once and for all. We're just going to extract and replace an implant." You talked earlier about it, the noise of the media, which I'm not a part of. That's why I call it Mind Dentistry Uncensored, because I call bullshit when I see it. But everybody's trying to see them CAD/CAMs, and all these digital impression, all this expensive stuff. I'm sitting there, and I'm telling them that implants have a four percent success rate, or a three point five percent success rate, or a two percent success rate. Dude, that is horseshit.
When you look at implants, and you're out in the field, 20% of them have peri-implantitis, big time, and this is affecting the rest of their organs, and grandpa comes in. He's got nine millimeter pockets on a bleeding implant, and he has no pain, and he can still eat a cheeseburger. He thinks he's good. Tell these young kids who believe-from what you've seen in 40 years-how much gum disease would you have to have around your molars before you yanked it and placed a dental implant, and how much peri-implantitis are you seeing, up in Quebec, around these implants that have been in the mouth 10 years?
Dr. Coopersmith: We are starting to see a lot of failures. A lot more failures than people are letting on. The reason is pretty clear and evident to us. The cause of the problem, the thing that caused the whole cycle leading up to the implant, has not been addressed. If you look at the morphology of the implants, as relating to the adjacent teeth, you have an eight millimeter implant, and then the restorative crown extends way out, so you have two huge embrasures on either side. Floss, even if you're using it properly, cannot break through the contact and go all the way deep underneath. You have to have another interdental kind of aid. Unless you get rid of that bacteria that's causing the breakdown, in the first place, it will lead to mucocytous, and then that will lead to peri-implantitis, and a lot of failures are showing up now that of all the people who've been placing in those implants by the truckload. Now, there's a lot of failures coming home to roost.
Howard Farran: Yeah, but Americans don't want to change their behavior. They just want to take a pill. Is there a pill for this peri-implantitis?
Dr. Coopersmith: There is. It's a toothpick. If you can use a toothpick ... As we get older, seniors have a big problem, because their gums recede. The triangular formation of the root, as the gums recede, create bigger and bigger spaces. Combine that with the fact that their mouths are dry because of a lot of medications that they're now taking, they keep getting food caught in between their teeth, and you hear them kind of going "suck suck suck suck" all the time. I can't imagine a lot of seniors using dental floss, but they can use toothpicks.
If they use the PerioTwist, the handle's actually specifically designed as an easy-grip device for seniors in mind. The seniors can use the toothpick. It's simple. That's what the 12 years was all about. We wanted to make it as simple and as multi-function as possible. I believe that we've succeeded in that. Any person in our office who gets an implant, or gets a bridge, or has a splint, they all get a PerioTwist. They get it for free, because I don't want my work to fail. I don't care how great the dentist is. Unless you get the bacteria away from the most beautiful dental work in the world, it's going to fail again, and it tends to fail interproximally before anywhere else.
Howard Farran: The doctors are part of this. They never change [inaudible 00:46:00]. What scares me the most about Clear Choice-do they have Clear Choice up in Montreal?
Dr. Coopersmith: No.
Howard Farran: Well, it's an implant center, and it's a national chain.
Dr. Coopersmith: They have implant centers-All on Four, and that kind of things.
Howard Farran: All on Four is invented in Portugal by Dr. Paulo Malo. Clear Choice started doing it. Typical American solution. You come in there, all this gum disease. They rip everything out, put everything back in, and you leave, at $25,000 an arch, with full set of beautiful teeth. They do a great job, and they're doing about 18,000 arches a year. What's the chance that person change their behavior? It's kind of like a bypass. I love this study I saw one time where identical twins, one had insurance and had the bypass. The other one didn't have insurance, but changed their behavior and quit smoking, lost weight, and started exercising. Guess who lived three and a half years longer?
The person with the $100,000 bypass, or the person who changed their behavior? We're still going from the medicine man, so we're a two million year old species where 100 billion of them have come and died, and for two million years, when you got sick, you went to the medicine man and they either cut something off or made a lotion or a potion. Here it is, 2017, and when every American gets sick, they want to go to the doctor. They want a surgery, or a lotion, or a potion, or a pharmaceutical pill. You have to kill the medicine man model, and you need go to the behavioral health model, which is the medicine man has never cured you for two million years.
You have to change your behavior. Again, with the hygiene department again, the average dentist, four out of five of their charts at any size of their practice, is currently not scheduled for a cleaning. That is a big, lucrative part of your practice. Loyalty program. These young doctors who come out of school and listen to all these magazines and take all these ads from all these implant companies, just, "Rip out the gum disease, and put in the implant," you didn't change your behavior. They do it the same with children. When a child has anxiety, they don't treat the anxiety.
They sit there and try to knock them out, put them to sleep, drag them to the hospital instead of going really slow, talking to a five year old, explaining the instruments, building trust, short visits, coming back. They're Americans. They don't want to do that. They want to come in, "Knock out my kid, drill out all his teeth," and then a year later, what's changed? Nothing. We need to change behavior. Agree, or disagree?
Nathalie Fiset: I agree.
Dr. Coopersmith: Wholeheartedly. That's why we got on this journey to begin with. The hardest thing is to change behavior. It was even harder to sell them to change their behavior if you had to teach them how to floss, or use the floss, which really is a pretty impractical thing. It was invented 200 years ago. It was time to do something new, and we figured all dentists are inventors, by nature. It's in our nature. We do that all day long. Every procedure we do, we invent something different. No two procedures are the same. Between the combination of Nathalie and my experience, we figured that if we didn't invent something great, who's going to?
It's by providing them with an easy to use tool, finally, that at least there's a chance to change their behavior. All they have to do is use it like a toothpick. It works both ways. You can twist it, it goes in and out. Any way you place it between the teeth, it's going to clean your teeth.
Howard Farran: Thomas Edison, one of the world's greatest inventors of all time, said, "The way to be a great inventor is you just need to have curiosity, and a pile of junk." The dentists who are most successful, they have that natural curiosity. I tagged that behavior with their hours of CE ... In my 30 years' experience, I've seen a lot of dentists come and go.
The ones who took 100 hours of CE a year, their whole career, they were naturally curious. They just couldn't be satiated. They were humble, because maybe the chairman of your department, who is 800 years old, maybe he'd said something wrong, and you got to hustle. Man, if you're naturally curious, humble, and hustle, you're going to crush it in dentistry. That's another reason I'm really proud of these podcasts, because they might be in a small town, and they only have a study club that has one meeting a month for an hour. Now, we're giving them an hour, on the way to work.
The only reason the show is great is because I'm able to get great guests on, like you. Those kids, if they just keep their curiosity going, and they stay humble, even though you're a doctor, you don't know anything, and you don't know anything, because I've got to ask you this. 100 years from now, what percent of everything we believe in dentistry you think is going to look silly? What percent, would you say?
Dr. Coopersmith: Percentage? I'd say probably 80%, because we're focuses on treatment, rather than prevention. There won't be a need for root canal work. There won't be a need for implants. There won't be a need for whatever, because it will be probably genetically controlled, to begin with, and the treatment will have some sort of genetic component to it. It will be as easy as taking a pill, or doing something-increasing a person's resistance. I don't think, in 10 years, dentists will be practicing dentistry the way we are today.
Howard Farran: Ryan, will you get me that GV Black book? I need to do that project. I'm reading that online. One of the greatest Christmas presents I ever bought for myself was the first three books written by GV Black. They were 1898, and I think 1898, 1901, and 1903. He was like, I know your lovely wife is French and the first dentist was Pierre Fauchard in France in the 1800s in Paris. America's first legend, like Pierre Fauchard, was GV Black. I got his three books. They cost $8,000. These are museum-quality books. They're even autographed and signed by him. I was so excited to read the smartest guy in dentistry from one century ago. I was just like, "Oh my God, this is crazy." They were trephinating into jaws to let evil spirits out. Then, when they showed you what the evil spirits look like, they all look like the king's court jesters. These little guys with hats on and elf shoes and bells, so I imagine it's going to be the same, 100 years from now. A lot of this stuff is going to look pretty crazy. It's going to be a lot more behavioral changes.
I always talk about orthodontics. America, you listen to the archeologists, and you look at these two million year old sapiens, as soon as you go back 300 years, there's almost zero malocclusions. Now, everyone has a malocclusion. For two million years, the forces on your face, stress equals force over area, when you're nursing for years, that's putting pressure on your maxillus, spreading your palette. You mom handed you a bone with cartilage on it, or some vegetable that wasn't cooked and boiled.
Now, as soon as the baby has any difficulty nursing, they switch to a sippy cup and a bottle. Then, they feed it applesauce bull crap out of a jar. This kid's never had any force on his face. Then, they all need orthodontics. I don't know of a single orthodontist in America who holds an evening class once a month for every woman that's pregnant to go over there that if you nurse your kid for a year or two, and you feed it stuff that's hard to eat, and he has to chew and use force and all this stuff, that will be the natural forces that spread his palette and develop his teeth, and we won't have to pull teeth and we won't have to do ortho.
I think these Millennials ... I was born in '62. When I was '72, mom bought me my set of encyclopedias that were printed in '52. Now, these kids on their smartphone got Wikipedia, with 52 million pages of updated information. I think these Millennials are going to be the first generation to walk away from the medicine man who wants to cut something off and give you a lotion potion prescription pill. They're going to be in the dental office, saying, "I don't want Dr. Drill, Fill, and Bill. I want to see the hygienist. How can I prevent decay? How can I prevent ortho?"
They're going to go, "But I don't like the term all natural." Because they say, "I want to do it natural." I'm like, "Dude, a hurricane is natural. A tornado is natural. A black hole sucking in the entire galaxy is natural." I don't like the word natural, but I think they're going to want to go from more surgical to prevention.
Nathalie Fiset: One thing is for sure. We want to all have good breath. That will never change.
Dr. Coopersmith: In Quebec, we kiss on both cheeks, so you get a whiff on both sides.
Nathalie Fiset: We French kiss.
Howard Farran: The French kiss. The only thing better than the French kiss, the French fry at McDonald's.
Nathalie Fiset: That's another story. They bleach their potatoes.
Howard Farran: Go ahead.
Dr. Coopersmith: You'll never see a little brown spot on a McDonald's french fry.
Howard Farran: Because they throw them away if they do?
Dr. Coopersmith: No, they treat it with some sort of-
Nathalie Fiset: Apparently, when they go in the field, they cannot go back in the field for five days after putting all the chemicals. Then, when they collect the potatoes, they store them for six weeks before someone could even think of eating them.
Dr. Coopersmith: I'm sure they figured out something there.
Nathalie Fiset: Because they're all the same, all over the world. If you go to Russia to McDonald's, you're going to get that same nice potatoes.
Howard Farran: I like the billionaire. The billionaire who did that was JR Simplot in Idaho. The Idaho potato? What he realized is that when they would do the potatoes, and they would ship them out to McDonald's and all these places all around, the shipping time, the changes to humidity, the packaging, the bruising, and then people would skin the potato, they'd make the French fry, they'd to it in the 350 oil. The majority were coming out soggy. Where McDonald's was started, in Southern California for the first 10 locations, they were nice and crispy and salty, and everybody loved them.
Then, these franchisees would go buy a franchise in some state like Kansas, with humidity, and say, "What's wrong? Mine are soggy." Then, they'd go out to Southern Cal, and they were all crunchy. They realized it was the humidity, the packing, the shipping, all this stuff. This guy, JR Simplot, he said, "This is what we're going to do. We're going to get the potato. We're going to skin it and cut it into French fries, but we're going to ... Start the frying for 10 seconds, and then we're going to flash freeze them." The frozen French fry. Then, you could ship that frozen French fry all around the world with a shelf time of a year, and they would come out crispy just like the original McDonald's in the desert, in San Bernardino.
My dad had nine Sonic drive-ins. That's how I cut my teeth in business. When I was little, my dad was opening up Sonic drive-ins. In my dad's world, Ray Kroc was just the man. He would be like our Pierre Fauchard. I even got to see that guy speak. He was an amazing man, he really was, as far as a businessman and a speaker. I know some of these guys like him and Jobs aren't so good on the family side, but God dang, he was an amazing entrepreneur.
He was that natural curiosity. When he had soggy French fries, he didn't throw in the towel. He stayed humble. He asked questions. He kept going back up to Idaho. He was a hustler. Finally, this guy JR Simplot guy figured it out, and he became a billionaire. My favorite JR Simplot quote was, they said to him one time, they said, "JR, you're in Idaho. You're a billionaire. You ever thought about running for Governor, or Senator?" He said, "Why? I own them all." That, my friend, is the reality of American politics. They're all owned, bought, and paid for. It must be very embarrassing, living up in Canada looking down at your neighbors. I always think of Canadians these really refined people living in the upper loft of an apartment, and they're looking down and they're all down there smoking and drinking and no one's reading. It must be very embarrassing, when you look down at the United States.
Dr. Coopersmith: Listen. We're very proud to be American neighbors. There's good and bad in everything, and I'm sure the North American treaty notwithstanding, I'm sure there's going to be some sort of [French 00:59:44], we say in French, where we get the two countries back to loving one another like we have for many, many years. We share the longest common border of any two nations in the world.
Howard Farran: My take on it is I think the most successful people in media and social media and all that stayed focused on one subject. If I want to watch a chef, I just want to know his recipes. I don't care about his politics or his beliefs and all that. I've started to stay away from religion, sex, politics, violence. Those are the four no-nos. But what I always tell my homies, especially those young kids on politics, I see politics exactly like sports.
How many of my staff complain about their husband because all day Saturday, he watches five college football games, then all day Sunday, he watches three NFL games, and he never gets anything done. I see so many of these young dentists on social media, and they're spending all this time talking about politics. It's like, "Dude, you could have spent all that time and set up your hygiene department. You could have used all that time and learned how to do root canals." If I spent 40 years ... if I spent 40 days and 40 nights obsessing about North Korea, or Putin and the Ukraine or whatever, I couldn't buy myself a cup of coffee. In fact, I may be able to buy less coffee, because I have patients not coming back. You're actually losing money when you watch politics and sports. The reason I watch sports is because politics makes me feel bad, and when I watch the Arizona Cardinals, it actually makes me feel good. If you're watching something that's making you cuss and scream at the TV, turn the damn thing off.
I've got to tell you my most embarrassing Canadian story. When I tell you this story, you're probably not going to believe it, or you're going to think I'm dumber than a rock. I got out of school in '87. It was some dental society in Toronto that brought me up in 1990. This guy introduces me, "This guy is the Wayne Gretzky of dentistry." I said, "Who is Wayne Gretzky?" They thought I was kidding. I said, "No, really, who is it?" I grew up in Kansas. I never saw a hockey game or lacrosse in the '60s and '70s. Now, in Phoenix, we actually bought one of your Canadian hockey teams.
Dr. Coopersmith: That's right.
Howard Farran: Anyway, so that night, it was lucky. That night, the Toronto team was playing a New York team. This guy said, "You've never really seen hockey?" I said, "Never." He said, "Okay, well, I've got four amazing tickets." He took me to a hockey game. That is the fastest, funnest game in the world. I love the Phoenix Coyotes. Football, you play for 30 seconds, and you stand around for a couple of minutes, then it's 30 seconds. You wait a minute or two. 30 seconds. Hockey's just crazy.
Dr. Coopersmith: It's on the fly. It just keeps going until a penalty or an offside.
Howard Farran: That was amazing. Well, hey, dude, that was the fastest hour of my life. We're at an hour. We're three minutes in overtime. Basically, you're going to send me those videos, and my homies are going to PerioTwist dot com, and they're going to donate $139 to get 100 of them. Hopefully, they're going to fall in love with them. When they buy them, if they use the Dental Town code, they're going to get a 10% off. But more importantly, I want a marketing side to this. Hopefully, you really explained to them this deal that that billfold wallet, PerioTwist business card because, again, giving someone a business card, they'll probably just throw it away or put it in their pocket and the washing machine will eat it.
But if you give a monkey a toy, and he starts playing with it, you might just change their behavior, and have a customer for life. I think this could be a big part of getting dentists to switch from advertising to loyalty. Loyalty is changing their behavior. I don't want implants and crowns and root canals. I love doing it. But I'd rather see your beautiful wife than Allan for a root canal and an extraction and a root canal any day.
Dr. Coopersmith: That's the secret of our success. They want to see her. They don't want to see me.
Howard Farran: But hey, Allan Coopersmith, Nathalie Fiset. Go to PerioTwist.com and thank you so much for coming on my show.
Nathalie Fiset: Thank you.
Dr. Coopersmith: Howard, it was a great privilege and a pleasure, and we thank you very much, and I'll send you off those videos this afternoon.
Howard Farran: All right. Have a rocking hot day.
Nathalie Fiset: Thank you.
Dr. Coopersmith: Thank you so much.
Howard Farran: Eat some fresh maple syrup for me.
Dr. Coopersmith: You've got it. Tonight.
Nathalie Fiset: A healthy mouth is a healthy body. By taking care of your mouth, you're going to decrease dental bacteria. You're going to prevent cavities, gum disease, bad breath, stroke, heart disease, and other serious health issues.
Narrator: Husband and wife team Dr. Allan Coopersmith and Nathalie Fiset recognize the many problems associated with current options for cleaning between the teeth, and developed a revolutionary new tool in oral health care, the PerioTwist.
Dr. Coopersmith: We are very proud to say our PerioTwist is composed of an FDA approved, medical grade plastic, which is BPA free and incorporates 100% natural anti-bacterial, making it self-cleaning, in between uses.
Narrator: Say hello to the new wave of oral health care. To learn more about the future of oral care, please visit us online at PerioTwist dot com. It's something we do every day. We wake up and brush our teeth, usually, without thinking twice about it. Many of us don't realize brushing our teeth does more than just to clean our mouth and give us a great looking smile. It's an important part of maintaining our overall health.
Nathalie Fiset: It's very important to take care of our mouth. This way, we can decrease the amount of bacteria, and we can have better gums and this way being healthier, because we know there's a link with gum inflammation and some disease, so it's better for our overall health.
Narrator: Research has show that the billions of bacteria living in our mouth-especially the bacteria hiding between my teeth-can inadvertently affect other health systems in our body.
Dr. Coopersmith: It's important to understand that gum disease starts between the teeth where your toothbrush and your mouthwash cannot reach to clean. The bacteria settles on the teeth and creates cavities, and it settles on the gums to create swelling and pain, inflammation, and bleeding. That bacteria, then, is able to penetrate the gum tissue, and go into the bloodstream and travel and circulate all over your body. That can create serious illnesses into the future.
Narrator: While flossing or other methods of leaning between our teeth have been a practice encouraged by dentists for years, if they are done improperly, it can lead to bleeding of the gums, which has many people opting out of the process completely.
Nathalie Fiset: People stepped out of flossing because it's very hard to use it properly. It takes time, and then if you use some brushes with natural, they're afraid to break their teeth with it. It scratch. It doesn't feel good. Then, if they take a small one for the front, it's too small for the back, so they just give up and they feel they cannot do a good job anyway.
Dr. Coopersmith: It's essential for people to clean in between their teeth, and use the interdental cleaners. That's where the bacteria's hiding. If you do so, you can virtually eliminate and prevent a lot of tooth decay and prevent a lot of tooth decay and gum disease, and significantly reduce bad breath, as well as all the problems inherent with infections going through your entire body, because of the bacteria that's there.
Narrator: Dental surgeon Dr. Allan Coopersmith, and registered dental hygienist Nathalie Fiset recognize this issue with the most important area of the mouth, and worked to find a solution by creating a new tool to combat bacteria and aid in dental treatment.
Dr. Coopersmith: It's very upsetting to us to perform dental treatment on patients knowing that all that could be prevented. Most people just refuse to floss or clean between their teeth. That became our a-ha moment where we had to design a tool that would be so easy to use that more and more people would use it and effectively be able to remove the bacteria between the teeth that causes all the problems in the first place.
Narrator: The importance of taking care of our body starts from the inside out. By implementing smart oral health care techniques, we can stop or prevent disease before it even occurs. The PerioTwist is a revolutionary interdental cleaner that is kicking outdated techniques out the window. Developed with anti-bacterial properties approved by the FDA, and made with a plastic that will not harm your gums, this economically reusable tool can be used anywhere, on the go.
Nathalie Fiset: Our goal was to make something very easy to use to clean between our teeth. It will cost 12 years of research and development to come with that high-tech design. It's a one size fit all tool, so no matter if the space within your teeth are big or small, it will fit, and you don't need a bathroom, you don't need a mirror. You just put it back in your cap and put it back in your pocket, and you're ready to go.
Ellen H.: Now that I have arthritis, flossing became so painful that I just gave up. Then, I found out about the PerioTwist. I can't believe how easy it is to keep my mouth clean. It fits in all the spaces, large and small. I have a lot of expensive dental work, and I want to take care of it. PerioTwist is helping me do that. I wish I had known about it a long time ago.
Dr. Coopersmith: From the very first day that the patient starts using the PerioTwist, we see a significant improvement immediately. They love the clean squeaky feeling that they get. They're unaccustomed to it because they have not cleaned between their teeth in the past, and they're happy to do it. They're encouraged to do it. It's a very effective result, as we see right away.
Narrator: To learn more about the future of oral care, please visit us online at PerioTwist dot com.