Kirkland Dentist Encourages Patients to Be Involved in their Dental Health

Ryan Fox always wanted to be able to help people.

“For me it came down to something as simple as someone having something that hurts and me knowing how to fix it,” says the Kirkland dentist and father of two. “I was drawn to the magic of medicine.”

On his way to medical school, however, he began to recognize what a strain the long hours and consuming lifestyle placed on the families of the doctors he was meeting.

“I wanted a family, so I thought dentistry would be the right fit for me,” he says.

After earning his Doctorate of Dental Surgery at the University of Washington, Dr. Fox worked for a short time in Everett. However, six years ago, he bought a practice at 12527 NE 144th Street in North Kirkland and hasn’t looked back.

“Kirkland was a good fit,” said Fox, who grew up in the Tri Cities but now lives and works in Kirkland. “It’s kind of a fun area with a fun vibe, but still family friendly and relatively safe.”

Fox, who says almost everyone on his team has been with the office for years, describes the office environment as special. “The staff members know pretty much all of the patients,” he said. “And everyone has a pretty impressive drive to keep learning. We do a lot of continuing education as an office. We have a lot of speakers come in to talk about new technologies. There is a real thirst for knowledge. And our team gets along very well, which is very cool.”

offers services in three areas: preventative, restorative and cosmetic dentistry, including services such as invisalign, veneers and implant restoration. Preventative and restorative dentistry are the mainstays of the practice. However, “we enjoy doing the cosmetic work, so if someone wants to talk about it, we’d love to get into it,” says Fox,adding that they are not big on sales and marketing. “We approach the cosmetic services gently.”

Fox also noted, however, that some traditionally cosmetic services have restorative benefits. For example, people with crooked teeth may experience bone loss or other problems because their teeth aren’t aligned the way they should be. A product like invisalign, clear braces that straighten teeth, can not only improve the appearance of the teeth, but improve the patient’s oral and even whole-body health.

The office is a family practice, serving patients of all ages, including many children. “We take a lot of pride in working with kids,” says Fox. “Because of our staff – they all have kids and they’re all good with kids – our office does as well as many pediatric offices with kids. The key is you don’t want kids to have a bad experience. So we make a lot of effort to make sure they have a positive experience. We put ourselves in the patients’ shoes and make sure they are comfortable.”

“The neighborhood is great,” he adds. “We have new families coming in all the time. It’s ideal. People around here are nice people who generally take care of their teeth. It makes it fun.”

Fox is committed to empowering patients to make the best decisions for their oral health.

“One of my pet peeves is when I hear friends say they need fillings or crowns and I ask why and they say ‘I don’t know – they just told me.’” Fox says. “In this day and age, you need to know. It’s important to be informed. You should know why.”

To help patients understand the status of their oral health and what their options are, Fox often takes detailed pictures of the affected areas, which he shows the patients on a computer screen next to their chair. “I don’t want to dictate to the patient. I want to educate, empower and inform so they’re an informed part of the decision making.”

In fact, he is so committed to helping patients be informed about decisions made regarding their own health that he provides second opinions free of charge to people considering, or trying to understand, recommendations that have been made to them.

Dr. Fox is also committed to using good technology to improve the service he can provide patients. “One thing that’s really cool is that we’ve gotten into CAD/CAM,” says Fox. The system allows his staff to take a tooth that has been prepared for a crown and scan it digitally, rather than having patients bite on the gooey impression material like they used to. After scanning the tooth, the 3D image is uploaded to a computer in the office and the staff can design a crown on the spot.

Once the crown has been designed, the data is sent to a new milling system within the office that takes reinforced porcelain and manufactures the crown. They can then stain and glaze the tooth to give it natural characteristics, and then they can cement the tooth in place – all in the same appointment.

“The technology has been around for 25 years,” says Fox, “but until recently, the material they were using and the fit weren’t good enough. But about 2 years ago, there was a huge improvement and now it’s super accurate and very strong material. And now we can do it all in one appointment, which makes it much easier for patients.”

Moving forward, Dr. Fox says they plan to keep doing what they're doing. “We will keep trying to stay current with technology and improve our ability to educate and inform patients.”

In the meantime, Dr. Fox has a few recommendations:

1. Be proactive with your health. Even if it’s been a long time, it’s always better to come in and get checked. Knowing is better. Preventative is always better than restorative.

2. Flossing really is important. He recommends that you floss every day, but if you don’t, even a few days a week is better than nothing.

3. Drink water after every meal – especially after sugary foods such as candy, or even bananas and raisins, which are high in sugar and tend to stick to the teeth. And, it helps it remove stains from food and drinks like wine and coffee. “If you spill wine on your counter and wipe it off with water right away, it comes right off,” he points out. “But if you leave it overnight, then you have a problem.” This principal of drinking water, he says, is especially true with kids.

“For me, my favorite thing is to have someone come in for a cleaning, everything looks good, we talk for a while and then they leave,” he says. “It may sound counterintuitive because we can do all of these [cosmetic and restorative] things. But when everything looks good, they feel better, we feel better and everyone is happy.”

And, Dr. Fox points out, more and more research links dental health to systemic health, meaning taking good care of your teeth may be more important for our overall health than previously recognized.

So, he says, drink your water, brush and floss your teeth and don’t forget to get a regular dental checkup. Not only is it important for a healthy smile, but it may just improve the health of your whole body.