INTEGRATING NATURAL PRODUCTS IN DENTISTRY
In the StellaLife Innovator Series, host Liz Lundry welcomes Dr. Ali Sajadi, a renowned periodontist, master clinician, national lecturer, and clinical professor at the University of Texas School of Dentistry in Houston. Dr. Sajadi shares his holistic, natural approach to patient care and advocates for collaborative, multidisciplinary dentistry.
Video transcription:
Liz Lundry, RDH - Hello. Welcome to the StellaLife Innovator Series. I'm Liz Lundry, and today I'm going to be speaking with Dr.Ali Sajadi. He is not only a master clinician, but he's also worked in the insurance world, is a national lecturer, and does research. He's a clinical professor at the University of Texas School of Dentistry in Houston, and he's received a number of leadership and excellence awards during his career. Welcome, Dr. Ali Sajadi. Thank you for talking to me today.
Dr. Ali Sajadi - Thank you, Liz. I'm more than honored to be here and to share a little bit about my history and my thoughts and philosophy on StellaLife.
Liz Lundry, RDH - That is wonderful. Thank you. You've had a multifaceted career, from medical research to health management and health insurance. You ultimately became a periodontist, and you're a pioneer in the collaborative, multidisciplinary approach to patient care. Can you please tell us about your business model and your holistic approach that you follow in your practices?
Dr. Ali Sajadi - Sure. In 2014, actually towards the end of '13 into '14, I had been a resident in periodontics about halfway through my program and realized in spending time Moonlighting on the weekends that there was a loss in translation between patient care and interplayed connections with referrals. A lot of times, as we move into a more modern age. Technology tends to have its benefits and its disadvantages, and expectations of the past don't always follow. For me, it was really important to create a multidisciplinary model where the specialty teams would be able to collaborate almost as a think tank on each patient that comes in through the door. If you look at that model, it has been very successful across many corporate platforms in dentistry in the United States and beyond. Realistically, that map and that workflow tends to get watered down when you have multiple offices. We wanted to offer a single source group that wasn't going to expand beyond a certain number, but was going to offer high-quality care, be affordable at the same time and accessible to several of the patients through insurance, but realistically meet every need that could be met within the confines of a modular dental practice.
The holistic approach and how that came across is that as we were progressing into more modern times in medicine, people are looking for alternative forms of medicine because what we know and what we've studied in the past, though evidence-based, may not always be the best solution for every patient. That doesn't mean that other solutions are unapproachable. It just means that their research is probably limited. Being an open box type of person or outside the box thinker, I wanted to make sure that we had opportunities for patients to express their concerns, their interests, bring in their information, and then vet it. Realistically, as a researcher, you're supposed to be open to any concept that comes through and you want to research it. That's how I feel upon the products at StellaLife . Realistically, their product line is of a holistic and natural-based approach, being that they have a complex of over 17 different natural ingredients. For me, that's an important solution. If it resolves the same concerns like pain and anxiety or this infection of the mouth, well, I'd rather use the natural or more holistic approach than the chemical approach.
Liz Lundry, RDH - Definitely. With your model, you are really making it so much more convenient for your patients and also being able to clearly communicate with them because so many times people don't move ahead with treatment because of the confusion, but because you have everything so organized. It really makes it a better service, the best possible one for your patients. And then we appreciate you being a still life doctor. So it's nice because the patient compliance is good, works for them, and it also tastes good, which I really, really enjoy that because the patients appreciate that so much. But as a clinician, with your extensive background, you treat some pretty complex surgical cases, and I know you have a passion for the rehabilitation and regeneration of facial and oral tissues. So using a natural approach, including Style Life, tell us about your facial therapeutics that's part of your practice.
Dr. Ali Sajadi - Absolutely. Yeah, we embarked on that a few years ago under the direction and really the education led by the CareAesthetics Group and Dr. Myron and his team. The facial The therapeutics industry is an incredibly growing segment of medicine. Currently, it's on project that by 2028, it will outpace many of the normal routes of medicine and dental care that we seek for surgical intervention of facial and esthetic concerns for patients. Up until now, we used chemicals and/or synthetic products to try to achieve a result for patients that were expressing concern about certain esthetic issues. In the last few years, the research that has developed through Dr. Myron's group and others in the expressive unlocking of power of healing through platelet-rich fibrin has given us a modality for which we can use autologous or same blood product from that patient and using to achieve some of those same results with a natural or holistic approach. Being that office that looks at those New Age, modern-style treatments that minimize the use of chemicals and additives, we looked intently into it and trained and sent our entire team to be trained on these. Now we've been offering it quite successfully to our patient base and beyond.
The solution is a wonderful solution for those looking to rehabilitate or revigorate, really, their face and their facial esthetic concerns. We can achieve wrinkle reduction. We can achieve almost a smoothening of the face, similar to a mild version of a facelift, as well as augmentation of areas that people may have had concerned with in the past. Everything that we use is straight from the patient. So there's not any cross-contamination issue. There's not any reaction issue to any of the materials. It is God's way of healing your body, and we're harnessing and unlocking that power. I'm really excited to be able to couple a holistic product alongside a holistic treatment flow with StellaLife.
Liz Lundry, RDH - Yeah, absolutely. As far as having esthetics as part of the practice of facial esthetics, All of us have heard from patients who've had maybe a smile design, a full veneer case or whatever, and they say, Well, now my teeth look great, but can you do something about my lips because of the wrinkles or whatever? That's really If we're going to be doing esthetics, it's beautiful, literally, to be able to offer that full service for the patient. It's so exciting for them. Then they trust you, they're familiar with you, they know how well they're going to be treated when they come in. With that relationship, and of course, having both things going, you've got incoming patients that are looking for these two different things. It's a great way to get more referrals to get patient flow as well. Absolutely. It's exciting stuff. Yeah. On all the other things that you're doing, it includes being a national lecturer, you're a published author, and a researcher. Tell us about the research that you're doing.
Dr. Ali Sajadi - In the past, I focused on osseous tissue lesions and infections around implants, and we were successful in getting some publications that talked about infections around dental implants and how to treat them. Today's research focus, I've got a couple of different fronts. One, looking at the Essentially, the patient experience, the anxiety and the pain scale, and how different products on the market can achieve the same result of pain and anxiety control without the use of opioids and/or controlled substances because that's a huge epidemic in the United States, and it seems that there's a lot of good research being done, and some in the dental front, but we really want to understand what the patient's perspective is, because pain is subjective. I've treated patients that have had a full mouth rehabilitation with implant care and expressed that they had no discomfort and took an Ibuprofen the following day, and that was about all they took. I've had a patient that had essentially a deep cleaning and waited for weeks and still complaints of discomfort I think that being pain is relative and it's relative to the patient, anxiety as well. We want to understand from their perspective what's going on, and that's one of the focuses of my research now.
In addition to understanding the diagnosis of periodontitis in the United States and the accuracy with which we're seeing. Some of the most recent census reports indicate that over 50% of Americans are walking around with some gum disease. Well, gum disease is also a harbor of other issues like heart disease, diabetes, and other things. It's an inflammatory-mediated process that expresses its symptoms when there are other things at play. If we can look at a diagnosis accuracy relative to the diagnosis criteria, Maybe medicine and dentistry can combine forces to find some of these issues and treat patients before they get too severe or too costly for the healthcare system in general. My focus there now is to look at the diagnosis accuracy in the United States, and then look at some of the products like StellaLife or others that can help reduce pain and anxiety for the patient experience.
Liz Lundry, RDH - Yeah, I admire your eagerness to learn and explore and also your compassion for each patient as an individual because having been in Hygiene for over 40 years, something like we're not always patient with people because we figure, Well, they shouldn't be in that much pain. There may be something else going on, but we need to recognize that and provide the support that they need. With the epidemics of the opioid crisis in Perio, I've been a long-time trainer, in office trainer with the J. P. Institute. When we look at patients' tissue, basically, if their tissue, if their gums are bleeding when we probe or when they floss or when we're doing a prep, then when you look at that statistic, it's more than 50% of our patients that come in with bleeding tissue in the Perio then. It is a widespread epidemic, again, with all these systemic issues that go along with it. I'm very grateful to you for what you're doing for your community and the world at large. Continue on and really appreciate your time today sharing what you do with all of us. Thank you again for joining me today. I really want to thank everybody else who's on the call today.
That was very inspirational to me. I hope you're all inspired. Until we have our next segment of the Innovator Series, please stay well and stay happy. I look forward to seeing you next time. Thank you all so much. Thanks, Dr. Sajadi.
Dr. Ali Sajadi - Thank you. It was an honor.