People with mental health issues are still stigmatized. The media portrays most people with mental illness as violent or flat out crazy. Yet, that is not an accurate portrait of a person with mental health concerns. First, if we were to remove all the mentally ill people from the population: violence would only decrease by 3% according to Dr. Phillip Resnick, M.D. psychiatrist (served as an expert on the Unabomber and other criminal cases).

Secondly our picture of mental illness is at the peak of symptoms. When most people think of mental illness they think of: 1) The person with anxiety who can’t leave the house or attend social situations; 2) The person who is depressed who can’t get out of bed, can’t go to work or school and who is suicidal; 3) The person with bipolar disorder or schizophrenia who is floridly psychotic, hallucinates, hears voices and has delusions; 4) The veteran with PTSD who can’t function in public, has an extreme response to a car backfiring and who can’t sleep for days; or 5) The person with any kind of mental illness who self-medicates with alcohol, street drugs and perhaps is homeless.

This portrait of mental illness would be like believing people who have cancer are all bald, weak, bedridden, vomiting, and ill. Yet people, who have had cancer treatment, hold jobs, are parents, are siblings, run races for the cure and get to celebrate another year of recovery.

The person with mental illness, who is in treatment generally looks and is very well! They too hold jobs, go to school, get married, parent, have goals and friendships. Frankly you run into people every day that are among the healthy, with mental illness. It could be your doctor, a salesperson, dentist, school teacher, banker, lawyer, engineer, carpenter, or banker, boss, coworker or friend. However, we rarely see the functioning mentally ill because of the stigma. They don’t announce another year without psychosis, being afraid to leave their home, or not being bed ridden or suicidal. So, we have a skewed view of mental illness.

We do know that most mental illness, which really is a neurological brain function illness, is a combination of genetics and luck of the draw. Shake the family tree of someone with mental illness and you’ll generally find a variety of family members with anxiety, depression, “strange behavior or eccentric behavior’, hospitalizations, suicides, and addictions. Only a small percentage of mental illness is totally environmentally caused by extreme neglect, abuse or trauma. The rest of the folks with mental illness had a “normal” childhood.

What does good treatment look like to produce the highest level of functioning? Let’s look at the top 4 supports to insure the best outcome:

• A loving, supportive family who is supported themselves. Family members must go to their own counselor or to a support group. This is to help them get through the grief of lost potential, fear and help them know how best to help and not …

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Gum disease is one of the most common health problems in America, yet in many cases, it is completely avoidable. Left untreated, gum disease can permanently damage many of the tissues in your mouth that are responsible for keeping your teeth in place.

Gum disease is known by professionals as Periodontitis. It is actually a term for a group of inflammatory diseases that affect the periodontium, or gum tissues. You need not be old to contract these diseases, either. Youngsters can also get it, so it's best to adopt proper dental care procedures from a young age to prevent them.

If you are one of the unfortunate people who has contracted this condition, what can you do to treat it? There are several things that can be done to help rid yourself of the ravages of gum disease, but the best thing, as with many health conditions, is to catch it early. The early stages of gum disease are known as Gingivitis, and thankfully, these can usually be completely treated if they occur.

What You Can Do To Treat Your Gums

The first stage of gum disease treatment involves a strict brushing and flossing regimen. Brush your teeth at least 3 times each day, preferably four times. Make sure you brush for at least 2 minutes. Many people neglect proper brushing, which can easily lead to dental problems, including gum issues. Next is flossing completely all your teeth, including below the gum area. You need not really floss all your teeth, only, as one dentist succinctly put it "… the ones you want to keep". Floss at least once each day, but twice is better.

You must concentrate on keeping the tooth and gum area free from the bacteria and other pathogens that can lead to more advanced gum disease problems. Your next step is to thou rough rinse your mouth with some variation of antiseptic mouth rinse. This will help kill the bacteria that cause the gum disease. Rinse for at least 30 seconds, giving the active ingredients time to work their magic.

This regimen can prevent gum disease from occurring entirely, or reverse early stage Gingivitis problems. Sadly, for many people, the problem has advanced to a stage where this alone will not be enough to reverse the problem.

What to Do for More Severe Gum Disease Problems

Your gum disease may have progressed past mere Gingivitis, to actual Periodontitis. This is more serious, and should be treated at once, lest it cost you the teeth in your mouth. Your first step, after adopting the brushing and flossing regimen described above, is to visit your dental care professional.

They will most likely recommend a thorough cleaning, including a root planning and scaling, which removes plaque and tartar below your gum line. The procedure also inhibits future plaque and tartar build up. You may have to start on an antibiotic to kill the infection from the inside as well. Sometimes the Periodontitis has progressed to the point where there …

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