A Description of the Enemy

Pathogenic microorganisms tend to be mobile: increased mobility often correlates to increased virulence.

Bacteria

• Spirochetes look like snakes. With their constant spiraling motion, they worm their way into the tissue of the gum. They can eat right through the skin to feast on blood and fibrin. If your gums bleed easily, always suspect the presence of spirochetes.

• Small gliding rods are short, cigar-looking bugs that cruise rapidly from one end of the screen to the other. They are fairly tough to kill. They may grow on bone and eventually destroy it.

• Large gliding rods are long and graceful. They also may destroy bone.

• Spinning rods are the whirling dervishes of the bug world. They are very active, constantly twirling. Unfortunately, these colorful bugs are associated with progressive PI.

• Clock Arms (Cytophaga) look like they were designed to tell the time, with extended, pole-like arms swinging like the hands of a clock.

• Motile cocci are small specks that zip around the slide. Sometimes these bugs are seen in the slides of children who do not brush carefully enough. They can cause bleeding and mild irritation.

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One-Celled Animals

• Trichomonas tenax look like miniature mice with five extended tentacles flailing in front as they overcome any bacteria in their way.

• Amoebas are shapeless blobs that creep about in slow motion. Their shape depends on what they have just eaten. They devour white blood cells after first stinging them. When a white blood cell is stung, it goes in to frenzy, releasing enzymes that dissolve the surrounding tissue. This degrading of the tissue calls for even more white blood cells, which meet a similar fate. Since amoebas are asexual and are capable of reproducing quickly, the increase in damaged white blood cells provides more food for the ever-growing amoeba colony. They alone may do more damage than any other microorganism.

• Yeast, fungus and candida are slow moving and are either long strands, which are invasive, or dots that can grow rapidly. This pathogen has the capability of switching functions, depending on which stage it is in.