You don't have to go to Petoskey

For a long time, some Saultites have travelled to Sudbury, Petoskey or southern Ontario for specialized dental treatment, such as periodontics (treatment of gum disease and placement of dental implants) and endodontics (root canals and root canal repair).

There are also dentists in the Sault who combine general dentistry with specialized dentistry, and a few dental offices in the Sault bring in visiting dentists from southern Ontario.

However, Dr. Bridget Lamberts and Dr. Diana Paczesny want Sault Ste. Marie residents to know they don't have to go out of town to receive that specialized touch.

The two dentists are unique in that they both devote all their professional time to their respective specialties.

Lamberts is a periodontist who devotes all her professional time to treatment of gum disease and dental implants, and Paczesny is an endotontist who concentrates solely on root canal treatment.

Both specialists are located at 212 Queen Street East, Paczesny in Suite 204, Lamberts in Suite 205.

"I'm not sure if everybody knows there's a local practice here (in periodontics and endodontics).  There's a lot of travel (and expense) involved in being treated out of town obviously," said Lamberts, speaking to SooToday.

"I don't do any type of general dentistry, I only do surgery or manage gum disease," Lamberts said.

Lamberts, like Paczesny, completed additional years of specialized training after obtaining a doctor of dental surgery degree.

"All dentists have gone through dental school and all dentists can do root canals, but I think everybody should work within the scope of what they feel comfortable with and feel most competent doing," Paczesny said.

Statistics have shown the average endotontist, for example, performs 25 root canal treatments a week, while general dentists do about two root canals a week.

"The truth is, in dentistry, dentists can legally treat anything a specialist does, root canals as well, but they don't have a master's degree in specialized treatment (involving three years of additional training after dental school)," Paczesny said.

"Usually we prefer people to be referred by their regular dentist, but people are welcome to come in without a referral as well," Lamberts said.

Both dentists want the public to know they are aware visiting a dentist ranks high on lists of phobias, and both offer sedation for their patients.

"We offer different types of sedation so that you can be relaxed…a lot of our procedures we do with just freezing, but if people are anxious, we certainly offer sedation," Lamberts said.

"(Gum disease) is a very treatable condition, but it's important people are diagnosed properly, which just means seeing your dentist regularly (apart from proper brushing and flossing) and that their dentist screens them and lets us know if they need our help, and they'll tell their patients to ask us for help with these more advanced cases," Lamberts said.

"We have great success in helping people keep their teeth even if they have advanced gum disease, it's really what I specialize in."

"If cleanings aren't enough to manage the infection or inflammation around people's teeth then we have lots of other options to re-contour tissue and bone and give people a healthier architecture of bone in their mouth to help them prevent more bone loss or tooth loss," Lamberts said.

"Then there will be some people with too much bone loss to manage, which is where dental implants come into play."

As for root canals, Paczesny says there are many myths associated with the procedure.

Contrary to what many believe, root canals (and gum surgery) are not painful, root canals do not cause illness, and pulling a bad tooth is not a good alternative to root canal treatment.

"Root canals don't cause pain, they actually treat the pain and save the tooth," Paczesny said.

"In general root canals are caused by very large cavities…if you wait too long to treat a cavity it will progress through the tooth and get the nerve infected, so visit your dentist and maintain good oral hygiene."

"If someone is playing hockey and gets hit with a puck and a tooth is damaged, that will probably need a root canal in the future, so I also treat teeth affected by trauma," Paczesny said.

Another thing Paczesny has is the technology.

"I work with an operating microscope and that's something no other dentist in the city has."

"I can see the tooth with higher magnification, I can look for cracks, extra canals, and those are the things that, if a root canal will fail, the dentist will have missed, so as endodontists our technology is higher than that used by the general dentist."

A Sault native, Lamberts returned to her hometown with her husband, a surgeon, and began her current practice in June 2013.  

She was educated first at London's University of Western Ontario, then worked for her doctor of dental surgery degree at the University of Toronto before going on to obtain a Masters of Science and Diploma in Periodontics at the University of British Columbia (am extra three years of study) in 2010. 

Paczesny, a Toronto native, moved to the Sault in 2011 with her husband, a physician based out of Sault Area Hospital. 

She was educated at the University of Waterloo, then worked for her  doctor of dental surgery degree at McGill before obtaining her specialty at Boston University.

Dr. Paczesny's office may be reached by phone at 705-575-ROOT (7668), while Dr. Lamberts office may be reached at 705-450-1011.

(PHOTO: Dr. Bridget Lamberts and Dr. Diana Paczesny. Darren Taylor/SooToday)