Paws, Reflect & Heal with Dr. Randy

The Hidden Dangers of Pet Dental Neglect with Dr. Rocco Mele

• Dr. Randy Pet Vet • Season 2 • Episode 12

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In this episode of Paws, Reflect & Heal, Dr. Rocco Mele and I delve into the critical yet often overlooked topic of dental health in pets. We discuss common dental issues faced by dogs and cats, the progression of periodontal disease, and the unique challenges in feline dental health. We really want to emphasize the importance of early detection, proper dental hygiene, and veterinary intervention. We also address common myths surrounding dental care, the role of inflammation, and preventive measures that pet owners can take to ensure their pets maintain healthy teeth and gums.

Main Takeaways
- Dental care is just as important as diet and exercise.
- Periodontal disease is the most common dental issue in pets.
- Inflammation is a key factor in dental disease progression.
- Brushing pets' teeth is the most effective preventive measure.
- Gentle dentistry often fails to address underlying issues.
- Anesthesia is necessary for thorough dental cleanings.

Chapters
00:00 Introduction to Pet Dental Health
02:20 Common Dental Issues in Dogs and Cats
05:09 Understanding Periodontal Disease
07:53 Retained Baby Teeth and Fractured Teeth
10:11 Unique Challenges in Feline Dental Health
12:53 Stomatitis: Causes and Treatments
15:33 Prevention and Management of Dental Issues
18:24 The Importance of Anesthesia in Dental Procedures
20:59 Debunking Dental Myths
24:29 Conclusion and Final Thoughts


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Send your questions to randy@drrandypetvet.com so Dr. Randy can answer them in future episodes!

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Products and Resources I Recommend
Microbiome Testing
Animal Biome - Gut Microbiome Health Test

Nutrition
K9 Natural

Feline Natural

Just for Dogs
Farmers Dog

Other...

SPEAKER_01:

And he says, Oh, I I see you do veterinary dentistry. I want to ask you a question. I said, Okay, go ahead. Well, the endodontist is working on me. And he was a he was a dentist, an endodontist. He says, I have a dog that fractured his tooth. Is that painful for that dog? And I thought to myself, what kind of question is that? I says, absolutely it's painful. I couldn't believe he was asking me the question.

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to Pause, Reflect, and Heal. I'm Dr. Randy Aronson. In this episode, we're going to take the deep dive into a subject that I know perplexes most of my clients. And it's a shame because if more pet parents knew more about how to keep their pets' teeth and gums healthy, everyone would benefit. Sadly, when it comes to our pets' health, dental care is often overlooked. But I want to stress that it's every bit as important as good diet or regular exercise. In fact, dental and gum disease are among the most common health issues affecting both dogs and cats. And most would be avoided with really some good preventative measures. In dogs, periodontal disease tops the list, followed by issues like broken teeth, tooth rot abscesses, and retained baby teeth, especially in smaller breeds. Cats have their own unique set of challenges, including painful tooth resorption, widespread gingostomatitis, aggressive oral cancers like squamous cell. So with early detection, proper dental hygiene, and veterinarian, most of these issues can be managed, and as they said before, preventative. This is a hugely important topic, and we're gonna you're gonna learn a lot in this show. So make sure you stay tuned. I'm gonna bring in with us a great friend, Dr. Rocco Mele, to make this happen. He's very special guest and really second to none in the pet dental world. Dr. Mele, welcome to the show, buddy.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you, Randy. Really happy to be here. Thanks a lot.

SPEAKER_00:

Uh before we start, I just want to ask a favor of our listeners. If you like our podcast, you can hit the subscribe button. Give us a like if you're watching on YouTube, and if you're on the podcast apps such as Apple or Spotify, please follow us. Um your comments are always welcome, no matter what platform. And lastly, follow me on Instagram at Dr. RandyPetvet. Thanks for your support. Rocco, let's let's talk about um some general questions. So um what do you think your your most common dental or gum diseases that you're seeing in dogs and cats? And a little bit of difference between the two species, if we could.

SPEAKER_01:

Usually the the most common thing that I see, and that we see, I think, in dentistry, is uh periodontal disease. Very common in both species, uh, more in dogs, I think, than cats. Cats have their unique problems, that's for sure. But periodontal disease, we also see a lot of trauma, fractured teeth, uh, oromaxillofacial trauma from uh accidents, congenital issues. We always see malocclusion, missing teeth, retained baby teeth. And there's also something that we we see more often than not is uh is oral cancer anymore. We see a lot of oral cancers, uh benign and malignant. So I I guess uh at the top of the list, periodontal disease would be would be the most common thing that we deal with. Uh we deal with others too, but that's the most common.

SPEAKER_00:

So let me ask you a question on that. Um you know, it's so common in pets. In your view, what do you actually think is happening in the pet's mouth when this develops? Like tell us how that progression happens.

SPEAKER_01:

Um you know, what happens is uh it starts with just I don't know the exact cause, quite honestly. Some people genetically there's a problem, sometimes people say diet. I I really just don't know. All I know is that when it starts, it starts with uh plaque in the mouth or any type of inflammation. Inflammation is the real problem. And if left unchecked, then the inflammation it just progresses. It progresses to periodontal disease, different grades of periodontal disease. And also, we see with dogs that that have uh chronic chronic oral problems, if you do lab work and you do blood work, you're always getting an elevation in total protein, globulins, and so on. And that's a real problem. That's a killer. When you have inflammation anywhere in your body, you you get that inflammatory process, it starts. And then the the periodontal issues just progress from simple grade one to grade four. And at grade four, there's just basically no saving of teeth. It's just a horrible problem.

SPEAKER_00:

And you know, um, I tell my clients a lot, and I know I've heard you say this too, uh, the problem with periodontal disease is this is happening underneath the gum line where many times we can't see what's going on. And, you know, we get these cases that come to us where people have done dentals without um dental radiographs. And it's like, you know, in my world, in your world, it's almost malpractice nowadays not to look for that because I I was told it's about 40 or 50 percent of the disease going on in their mouth is all is often periodontal or more for that matter. Uh but we can't often see it. Is that correct?

SPEAKER_01:

That is correct. And I mean, especially uh with with problems in cats, sometimes the the mouth in cats can look so normal. And without dental radiographs, you can't pick up anything. And uh, you know, it it's a matter you need to take dental x-rays. Years ago, you know, 50 years ago when we when I started this, dentistry was unbelievable. You wouldn't believe what we did in dentistry. But nowadays, um the the dental x-rays really pinpoint a lot of disease processes. And uh the way we do it here is when we take a patient in, we we once we get them anesthetized, and then we take our dental x-rays and start the cleaning. That's when I call them and I give them the final diagnosis, treatment plan, and so on. But the x-rays tell us tell us quite a bit. Sometimes when the dogs come in, you can smell them when they walk in the door, and we know something's going on, and uh we know there's a periodontal problem. But um that that's it. The dental x-rays have to be taken. I don't see how anybody can practice dentistry at a level or an advanced level without that.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep, I absolutely agree. You know, um I have a number of podcasts about in removing inflammation from the body, and I'm really a very strong proponent of working on microbiome and diet uh to get a lot of that inflammation out. And I think it really helps our dental world also, and it's really coming. You know, microbiome is uh, you know, the biome is the eighth organ in human medicine nowadays. It's become so important, and they're isolating individual bacteria and fungus that basically can be corrected to prevent some of these things. So I think we're gonna see a big, big upturn in in a lot of this. And as people get away from some of the really high-processed foods and those kinds of things, inflammation starts to wane, and we're we're much, much better off when it comes to the mouth, I think.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, inflammation, Rand, as you say, is something it's I call it a slow killer. It's just the organ failure, weight loss, fatigue, muscle wasting. It's just a chronic, chronic problem caused by so many things, heart valvular problems, and so on.

SPEAKER_00:

So um let's go to the dog for just a second. And in the dog-specific problem, we see a fair amount of retained baby teeth in a lot of small breeds often. You know, how serious that is this? And what when should parents act on this, Rocco?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh it is common. We see it occasionally in cats, but more often in in little dogs. And the what the the thing that I use, uh, if I see when I examine a dog, no matter what age, eight weeks, twelve weeks, sixteen weeks old, if we if we see them in, uh if I see two teeth in one area, like especially in the canine area, if we see an adult tooth and a baby tooth, it's very important to get those to get those taken care of. And usually we extract those teeth right away to prevent certain things. And we prevent um orthodontic problems, malocclusions, and also when the two teeth are in the same area, you get a lot of debris in there, a lot of hair, a lot of food, and it just sits in there. And what happens when it sits in there? Inflammation, periol problems, and it gets worse and worse and worse, that's for sure. So it is very important to get it taken care of.

SPEAKER_00:

Um I wanted to ask you about um in dogs uh fractures in the teeth. Um, your thoughts on on this, and also people ask about like chewing bones, antlers, hard toys. Um are fractures something you see often?

SPEAKER_01:

We see fractures a lot, a lot, and especially in the dogs that that have that are on hard toys, chew bones, things like that. One of the most common fractures we see with chewing like that is the upper fourth premolar fracture. You get a slab fracture, causes a real problem in dogs if left untreated. Um trauma, we see a lot of trauma, which will fracture canines uh and left untreated can be a real problem. But um certainly fractures are a big part of practice, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_00:

Um in the cat, let's go to the cat for just a second. And um we did talk about tooth resorption, it's a you know as a condition that's unique to them. Um can you explain what it is and why it's so tricky to catch early?

SPEAKER_01:

We see it a lot in cats. I think probably I don't know, 70% of cats have this problem. And many times it's obvious when you examine the kitty, you can you can see the crown is fractured off, there's only one piece of crown left, a lot of inflammatory disease at the gums. Every once in a while you'll see normal teeth, and you'll see just small areas of inflammatory process taking place, especially at the premolars on the mandible. And if you're not if you're not, if you don't know what you're looking at, you can just miss these and just rule them off as just a little bit of some gingivitis. But every time I see something like that, there is an indication of the resorptive problem taking place. And this is where the whole tooth, uh inside of the tooth, is being eaten away. And we're not at a crown fracture yet, but yet as time progresses, the roots become so weak and and disintegrate basically that the crown will fracture off and you won't have a tooth there, and you'll think it's just an area of missing tooth. But then the problem lies under the gum line when the roots start to uh just become fragmented and ankylosed.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, typically what's your what what's your solution in that situation for that cat?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh, you know, the people try just, you know, they'll help them out a little bit, but the the the treatment of choice certainly is is surgical extraction. And surgical extractions with uh resorptive lesion, no matter what teeth, are getting into a difficult area. I mean, these are these are difficult surgical extractions. They're not easy, especially if the if if you have a normal tooth that's fractured and you have healthy roots, relatively easy to extract the tooth, no matter what tooth it is. But boy, when they're diseased and you cause that much inflammatory disease in the gum line, that much problem under the gum line, the fractures become really tough because you have to do gingival flaps to approach the tooth, remove some of the bone, the buckle bone around those roots, and then you have to take those roots out basically in fragments. And then to close that area, the tissue is so friable that it's a very, very difficult job to do. So it it is it is quite a deal to do. But the extraction usually works very, very well. As opposed to stomatitis sometime when you have to do uh extractions, then you don't get the results that you get, I think, in something like uh resorctive lesions.

SPEAKER_00:

Sounds great. Let's go to stomatitis because um tell our listeners what that is, and um talk about like um you know, basically, you know, possible causes, um, and then you know your treatment for something like that.

SPEAKER_01:

Uh basically stomatitis, we see a lot in cats, and it's not it's not uh the kind of prognosis that we see in other uh other issues. But bottom line is what happens is the the cat is allergic to basically the plaque on the teeth. It's an overactive immune system, they're allergic to the plaque, and it can cause real severe uh inflammatory disease. Um other things that can cause it are certainly caleesi virus, herpes virus, FIV, different things like that that affect our immune system. But once it starts, it can get really very severe. And the only treatment for that is either full mouth extraction or partial mouth extraction.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and that um as as one who has done a few of those, but I know you've done way more, it's it can be a real bear, to tell you the truth.

SPEAKER_01:

It's it it is amazing. When you when you start to see the when you start to see those, you get frustrated a lot. That's for darn sure. And because usually full mouth extractions, especially with a with a diseased mouth, uh inflamed mouth, is is a time-consuming thing. But uh many times when we get all those teeth out of there, we can get a pretty decent uh uh prognosis from it. But believe me, there's no hundred percent on those. Sometimes we we will get 80 percent, sometimes 90%, sometimes 20%. And then the the ones that we have 20%, and what we have to try to do is medically help them along every once in a while with medication. But it is it it's probably one of the most serious problems that we can see. Very difficult, very frustrating to deal with. Medication, antibiotics, steroids can help the kitty, pain medication can help them, but it doesn't make it go away.

SPEAKER_00:

And you know, it's funny, um, recently, again, because I've been working a lot with microbiome and cats, um when we um identify how out of whack some of these dysbiosises are, that you know, the microbiome is messed up, and we correct that on whether it's a food sensitivity or uh a microbiome problem, these cats definitely get better. I mean, we definitely can help them along the way after someone like yourself has has dealt with them too. So it makes it nice because now we're having some newer tools uh in the mouth, you know, through the gut, you know, which is really interesting.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I'll be uh I'll be definitely calling you for some of that. That's for sure, some of that knowledge. I wanted to ask you one thing. What do you think about uh you know, vitamin vitamin D is really important, inflammatory, it decreases. What do you think about supplementing vitamin D for some of these patients?

SPEAKER_00:

I think it's huge. And you know what? It's amazing you mentioned that because on our microbiome tests, we get a D level. And um I will tell you that nine times out of ten, it's low. And so we use a fair amount of um um oral liquid vitamin D for cats, especially in the food. Um, and we then look at levels again and we can get them up, and things get better once we do that because it's it's hugely important in this. You're absolutely right.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I tell you, in in human, I work with a lot of human oral surgeons doing this thing, and when when they do these types of implants and different types of major surgery, they're always checking vitamin D levels. They find if it's like you said, low, the healing is very slow, a lot of failure takes place, and uh they always do them on the human patients. I try to do them on some of my animal patients, but we found that at that time we were trying to do with vitamin D levels very expensive to do. And and most owners just don't want to go through that.

SPEAKER_00:

VDI labs now makes a really nice blood vitamin D level test that is not crazy expensive. It's very it can be very affordable. So we've been using them a lot because they're spot on with their microbiome stuff, as is our animal biome that we use, but um really really helpful with the vitamin D levels when we get those back.

SPEAKER_01:

I'm gonna get that in from later later on after we're all finished and everything. I'll get you some uh text and get some of that information from you. That'd be great.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely, absolutely. Let let's let's move a little bit to uh prevention and management because um you know I know both of our jobs would be so much easier if people would would do this and do a little bit of uh prevention. So let's talk about some of the ways the parents can help with gum disease, you know, um uh you know, whether it's uh a brush or shoes or you know, kind of your your favorite scenarios in this in this world. And then I I do have to ask you about some of the oral stuff that's available.

SPEAKER_01:

You know, the one of the main things is um certainly we have to we have to uh educate our clients. And I don't think that's being done a lot. I think when I see clients come in, we do mostly all referrals anymore. And every time I see a client, we also we go through a uh a lengthy talk about what's happening, trying to let them know what's going on. We do a lot of show and tell, a lot of skeletons, just to show them what happened so that they're aware of different things going on in the mouth. Most clients will come in and they're not aware of anything happening in the mouth. We see referrals coming in from uh outside veterinarians that send them in for, well, this is the this is the history, needs one uh one extraction. We see the patient and you open the mouth, and I gotta tell them that we got a little bit more than one extraction. So that's kind of a difficult thing, but but uh uh talking to the client about what's happening in the mouth, number one, is very important. Um, brushing is probably the gold standard if you can do it in dogs and cats. And what I recommend is I don't, well, whatever they like, brushes, finger brushes. I really like to use just a uh swab, a three by three swab, or not a swab, you can even use a gauze pad with a little water. Just rubbing the teeth in your mouth, rubbing the teeth will remove the plaque. The more you do it, if you keep the plaque off the teeth, you're gonna really help prevent calculus, that's for sure. Um dental chews, I think, are really uh are really good. Um water additives. I I just I don't know exactly how how they work. I think brushing is the most important thing. But but people like special diets too. There are dental diets that they use that that seem to be made in a way, they're very porous and they help clean the teeth out a little bit. But brushing, brushing, brushing, if you can, is the best thing. It doesn't have to be perfect. You just put it around your finger. You don't have to do the palatal side or the lingual side of the tooth, just the outside of the tooth to keep the to keep the uh plaque off.

SPEAKER_00:

And I, you know, you know, I and I know you've done this also, I start working with my puppy and kitten clients right at initial vaccination time to get them used to this, you know, even just starting putting your finger in your mouth, their mouth with the flavored paste, let's say. Um I know a lot of my clients use bake use baking soda on that gauze because if it's a little bit abrasive. Um but you know, if you could start slowly acclimating your dog, your your puppy or kitten to this, you're gonna be in a great place as they get older. Because if you don't do this early, it makes it that much harder later on, as you and I both know.

SPEAKER_01:

It it it does. I mean, I I think you're right exactly right. If you start early, do it quick. And usually they'll they'll kind of look away or kind of repel a brush or something like that coming in the mouth. Not all. Some pay some patients will take the brush really nice, but uh I find that getting your finger in there with a little pad on it really does the job.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep, yep. Um so a couple things that I wanted to mention just for our clients, just as a little background, is you know, some of the things that people can miss um with their animal's uh you know, mouth is you know, looking for things like bad breath, drooling, uh difficulty eating, pawing at the mouth, uh visor visible tartar or red swollen gums, and of course the tooth loss. So, you know, people kind of keep their eyes open for some of this. It can it can really be a huge, uh, huge benefit to tell your veterinarian or or seek veterinary care as media as media as you you know immediately as you can to get that remedied uh when when possible. So I know a lot of people um ask the question, and I'm gonna really be strong about this, and I I I know you'll probably back me up on this. And they ask about gentle dentistry versus anesthesia-related uh options. And I want to tell people that gentle dentistry in my world is anything but gentle. Uh these animals need to be held down, sometimes scraped with a tartar scraper, uh, micro pitting the enamel, causing more problems, uh, and never get under the gum line because it's impossible to do that. You and I both know you can't adequately do that without some anesthesia. So, you know, people say, well, you know, I can have this done. And I had a client, you'll love this, just two weeks ago, they came to see me, had a gentle dentistry done in California by a veterinary technician, um, was here visiting its um look, I'm looking at its mouth, and it had the worst pyrrhea and the worst halitosis I've seen in a long time. And I go, how long ago was this done? And she told me, and I said, you know, what's happened is they basically got off some of the calculus and maybe some of the plaque from the outside of the tooth, but never addressed the gum line. You know, we caught we talk about this micro pitting that these things can cause where bacteria can actually attract more. And this poor animal was in terrible shape. Um, elevated white cell count, like you said, elevated total protein and globulins, um, and obviously required a full mouth, dental procedure, a number of extractions with it. So um, you know, I I warn people about these anesthesia-free cleanings, they're they're just a they're a ripoff, quite honestly, and in my world don't really do anything for our pets.

SPEAKER_01:

I think that's 100% right. I think all you do with uh gentle cleaning or whatever they're calling it now, it's very traumatic to the pet. Very traumatic. And usually when you have calculus on there, especially a large amount of calculus, you think you could knock off with a probe or anything like that, a curette. Um, there's something going on under the gum line or even into the into the root area of the tooth. So to do something like that, it's it's a disservice. You're you're missing so much. Unfortunately, we have to anesthetize, give a general anesthetic to all our patients to do proper x-rays and proper cleanings because we do a lot of cleaning up under the gun. And what happens to the calculus that's on the lingual side, it's on the uh palatal side, that you can't deal with that, you just knock it off the buccal area. Um so I agree 100%. I I think it's a disservice to the to the patient and the client.

SPEAKER_00:

And I want to remind our listeners also that uh Rocco and I have been around long enough to see anesthesia really evolve. And we're at a point, you know, at Paw's Veterinary Center where every single body function is being monitored during that procedure. That the anesthetic gases that we use are incredibly safe, and when we turn them off, the animals typically wake up. But we also do a lot of pre-operative work, whether we get EKG blood pressure, like heart enzyme like BNP, or just general blood work, to know we're really backing our bet on these cases. And thank God we don't lose animals under anesthesia. It's it I know it's a huge myth for people to worry about this, and and you know, don't get me wrong, anesthesia is always uh a risk, but we've minimized that to such a great degree. Uh, I'm so thrilled to be able to do these things and have our animals, even a 10-year-old heart patient, do great with these procedures.

SPEAKER_01:

I think so, and we we we do the same. Certainly, a careful history is very important to see what's been going on with the patient. And before we do any procedure, we're doing some complete lab work. If we see any indication on our uh examination or history that there might be something else happening, we focus in on special types of thyroid tests, different types of tests that we want to uh pick up before we do the procedure. So that's number one. The when I do surgery, I always have an assistant and we always have another technician that that is very uh knowledgeable in anesthesia, watching the anesthesia so that the person that's helping me doesn't have to do the anesthesia. We're taking monitor every five, ten minutes. So, and like you said, Rand, we have IV fluids, monitoring system, blood pressure going on all the time. Um and the medications that we use, the type of uh gaseous anesthetics and the pre-meds that we use are are very, very safe. Most of the ones that I use, if you have a you can wake them up very, very quickly. Um the other thing that I found that's pretty interesting. I I don't know I don't I don't know what this is about, but I see a lot of patients referred in, and the first thing we hear is uh my dog or cat has a murmur, has a heart problem. And I I'll tell you, certainly, the way I do it is we check the animal if there's no clinical signs, we don't have any uh fluid in the chest, any coughing, very healthy, the uh lab work looks normal. One of the things that I've noticed is, and I tell them you you get no guarantees on these things, of course, but the the patients that I do that have hard murmurs with no clinical signs, dogs or cats, do one, do so well, so well. In fact, they do better than some of the normal patients that we have. I have no I don't understand that. I just don't know why that is, but they do extremely well. They're perfect through the hole. The other patients that we have, we're monitoring. Sometimes we have to bring the blood pressure up a little bit, down a little bit, we have to bring the heart rate up a little bit. So these patients, nothing. Nothing.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep, yep. And what people need to also understand is many of these murmurs are caused by bacteria that has come from the mouth, attached to the mouth, leaflets in the heart, and cause an endocardiosis where they basically have these murmurs to start with.

SPEAKER_01:

Absolutely. Absolutely. That that's just like in people, same thing, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00:

So to kind of wrap this up, and and I can't I can't thank you enough for being so gracious with your time, Dr. Murley. Um, do you have like one dental health myth you wish that every pet parent understood? Like something that would be overriding for you uh to reiterate to our listeners.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I had uh I saw that question on there, and I put I wrote down some things. Wait a minute. Yeah, help myths. One of the common things that that we see is dental disease is not painful. It's uh it's it's something normal, the dogs can handle it just fine. Uh fractured teeth are not painful, fracture down into the pulps, not painful, malocclusions, not painful. Um and uh when the dog they always ask me, well, here's what's going on. We've got a real real problem here, but my dog is still eating. He's still eating, and you'd be surprised the mouse that we see, horrible mouse, the patient is still eating, and the owner stinks doing really fine. But one thing that I've noticed is, and I always tell the owners, once we're finished with the procedure, no matter what the procedure is, especially periol problems, uh you'll have a different pet in about three days. And then at two weeks, you won't believe how healthy the pet is, or how they feel. They feel very good. That's my that's that's the what I've seen. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. I can't tell you how many times we've gone in and done uh you know a dental prophylaxis, a dental procedure, um, whether there was you know extractions or not. And um people come back, you know, for like a two-week recheck and they're going, this dog is a completely different dog. I mean, I can't believe I didn't know you know that this dog was really having a problem.

SPEAKER_01:

Let me tell you a story. I was sitting in a uh endodontist office. I was getting my uh a root canal done. I was getting a root canal done. And we do those too. But I was getting a root canal done. Right. And one one of the associates came in and he says, Oh, I I see you do veterinary dentistry. I wanted to ask you a question. I said, Okay, go ahead. Well, the while the endodontist is working on me. And he was a he was a dentist, an endodontist. He says, I have a dog that fractured his tooth. Is that painful for that dog? And I thought to myself, what kind of question is that? I says, Absolutely, it's painful. I couldn't believe he was asking me the question. But anyway, that's that's a funny thing.

SPEAKER_00:

I Rocco, you're the best man.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you for having me. I I really appreciate it. There's nothing more that I enjoy more than talking to you and uh also discussing all these things, these dentistry things. But I am going to contact you about some of that, uh, some of those tests and everything that you do. I'd I'd really like to start doing some of that.

SPEAKER_00:

Absolutely. Anytime you know that, just reach out and we'll we'll communicate off of this and and I'll get that stuff to you.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. Thanks, Rand.