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What’s pH Got To Do, Got To Do With It? Summertime in Montana. It’s pretty spectacular. It’s a good thing the days are so long because of all the activities we have to do before sunset. I have really appreciated the rainy days as they force me to have a rest day. Summertime also brings a lot of tourists. Tourists with which true locals as well as longtime residents have a love hate relationship. Just realize that a lot of us were tourists at some point who fell under the spell and immediately adjusted our course towards permanent residence here. A lot of us (myself included), even moved here from…gulp…California. So, while I’m still going to be mildly annoyed at the increased congestion, I will maintain my graciousness towards our visiting friends. At all three of our Smile Montana locations, we have the opportunity to see tourists on a daily basis whose amazing Montana vacation is being interrupted by a dental emergency. Some emergencies are simply a chipped tooth or loose crown while others are the result of inflammation
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by Dr. John F. Miller DDS - SMILE MONTANA and/or a bacterial infection and can be quite painful. Some just need the reassurance that they will be fine until they return home, while others need quick intervention for a return to health. I am grateful for my abilities to be able to quickly have their situation resolved and to send them back out on their adventures.
During these visits I get the chance to meet people not just from various regions of the United States, but from all over the world. I get to hear from them what they have already done on their trip, and I can offer up suggestions to further enhance the remainder of their time. Don’t worry, I’m keeping the secret spots secret. It’s mainly food suggestions from around the valley. Without fail during all of these interactions is their amazement and awe at the Flathead Valley and Glacier Park. I appreciate being reminded of how great his place is daily by those who have to leave…and I don’t. Don’t become jaded folks… life is good! Let’s get into the topic at hand in this issue, the pH scale. What is it even? How is it calculated?
How is it relevant to my oral health? Should we even care? Alkaline water? Hopefully we will have these questions answered for you by the end.
To make this as simple as possible just imagine pure water. Ok so pure water is referred to as neutral in the context of pH. So, it should equal zero right? Wrong, it is actually at a pH of 7 on a scale that goes from 0 to 14. These are logarithmic units meaning each unit represents a tenfold increase or decrease depending on the direction you are going. So why is water neutral? As we all know, water is also referred to as H2O. In other words, two hydrogen atoms combined with a single oxygen atom resulted in water. These atoms attract because hydrogen atoms carry a single positive charge while oxygen carries charge of negative 2. Now, if we had a glass of water it’s not simply just a bunch of H2O molecules in there. It is a dynamic interplay of H2O molecules, H+ ions, and OH- ions, but the resulting ratio is even…neutral.