By Sorry Tooth Fairy…There’s a New Hero In Town!
As many parents know, there have been miraculous strides in medicine with the advent of storing chord blood. Chord blood has shown to assist in blood cancers and genetic diseases of the blood, but what about the other tissues? Well, there is more great news! You can now save you child’s baby teeth for a much better purpose than just the tooth fairy.
We all thought they were “just baby teeth.” Well, those baby teeth contain mesenchymal stem cells that can form tissues such as bone, nerve, muscle, and blood vessels. They also help body tissue to repair itself, and they play an important role in healing by suppressing inflammation.
So what could banking your child’s tooth mean? There are hundreds of clinical trials underway, indicating the use of mesenchymal stem cells to treat diseases, to heal injuries, and to grow replacement tissues like bone, nerve, muscle, and blood vessels. In fact, mesenchymal stem cells are currently being tested clinically to treat autoimmune diseases like Crohn’s and Graft Versus Host Disease as well as in regenerative applications like bone and cartilage repair and cardiac muscle repair after myocardial infarction.
This exploding field of research, called Regenerative Medicine, holds the promise that your child, utilizing a toolkit of their own stem cells harvested and stored early on, can live a life of unprecedented wellness. Regenerative medical therapies could become common treatments used alongside more traditional ones.
Imagine a future where serious conditions like type 1 diabetes are treated with a combination of drugs and regenerative medicine. Imagine skin and bone grafts created from your child’s own cells. Imagine treating age-related conditions like arthritis, dementia, and Alzheimer’s using cells from your child’s teeth that were banked when they were young. Banking your child’s teeth may not seem as obvious as saving for their college education, but it could impact their lives just as much.
What’s the process? Well if your child is having a baby tooth extracted for orthodontic reasons, this is a great option for you! Our board certified pediatric dentist recommends that healthy teeth, with an intact nerve are best for this type of preservation. The tooth needs to be professionally extracted in order to avoid damage to the nerve, and to ensure that enough of the mesenchymal cells are preserved. Teeth that are naturally coming out and are “hanging on by a thread” typically do not have enough pulpal tissue to preserve.
Where do you bank the teeth? There are several different stem banks you can store you child’s teeth, each with varying cost. The Brush Stop Pediatric Dentistry’s Dr. Khoury is a preferred provider with most of the stem cell banks, and would be happy to discuss the process further and to determine which bank is best suited for you and your family. Call us today at 760-635-5995 to learn more about how your child’s teeth can save their lives!
To learn more about The Brush Stop Dental or about Stem Cell banks in Carlsbad, CA, please call 1-760-635-5995 or Feel free to take a tour of the practice: https://thebrushstopdental.com/office-tour/
– Dr. Jenna Khoury, a Board-Certified Pediatric Dentist in Carlsbad, CA.
