Periodontal Care (Gum Health)
Periodontal care is a crucial aspect of overall dental and oral health. Imagine that your teeth are trees deeply rooted in the ground. If the ground they’re rooted in becomes weak and diseased, those trees won’t be able to withstand the storms that come. When your gums are clean, strong, and healthy, they support your teeth in their daily work of helping you eat, talk, and smile. If the gums are weak and unhealthy (periodontal disease), they won’t be as supportive, and your teeth may suffer pain, infection, bleeding, and even tooth loss. Here at Keep Smiling Dental in Beavercreek, OH, we strive to help our patients get a healthy smile, from gums to teeth and everywhere your oral health is concerned! Let’s learn more today about caring for your gums with good periodontal care.
Periodontal Care vs. Periodontal Disease
Periodontal care involves diagnosing and treating all aspects of gum health. Gum health supports your overall dental health and can keep your teeth healthy. So, we try to prevent periodontal disease from the beginning or treat it in its early stages before it becomes severe. Periodontal disease (gum disease) has a few different levels of severity, but it is incredibly common in the U.S. population. National statistics report that almost half (47%) of adults over 30 have mild, moderate, or even severe gum disease. Adults 65 and older have an even higher incidence of periodontal disease: 70%! You and your Beavercreek dentists at Keep Smiling Dental are on the front lines of preventing and treating all levels of periodontal disease in all of its forms:
Gingivitis
Gingivitis is the first and mildest level of gum disease. It develops if tartar and bacteria build up on your teeth, infecting your gums. If you notice any of the following symptoms, it’s important to work on reversing this condition with your dentist right away:
- Red, swollen gums
- Bleeding gums
- Bad breath
- Heat or cold sensitivity
- Pain and tenderness in the gums
Gingivitis is reversible with good oral hygiene and regular dental care. But without treatment, gingivitis can develop into periodontitis, which is much harder to treat and can lead to irreversible bone loss.
Periodontitis
If gingivitis is allowed to worsen, it becomes chronic, inflammatory periodontitis, which can start destroying the gums, tissues, and bones that support your teeth. All the symptoms of gingivitis worsen, and the gums start receding from the teeth, which can become further infected. In severe periodontitis, the gums and jawbone fail to support the teeth. Teeth may even start to shift and fall out, making eating, talking, and smiling hard! The kicker here is that periodontitis infections can both worsen and reflect other chronic health problems including diabetes, heart disease, and other infections further afield in your body.
Although periodontitis can’t be reversed, periodontal care with your dentist in Beavercreek can slow it down and keep it from progressing, helping you to save teeth, reduce pain, and prevent further infection.
How Does Gum Disease Start?
Gum disease starts simply: with a buildup of sticky, filmy, bacterial plaque that accumulates on teeth and gums every day. The bacteria feed on food particles and sugars and create this film that congregates near the gumline. We can brush and floss the plaque away, but it will start to regroup after your next meal. This is why it’s so important to keep your teeth clean.
Any plaque left behind hardens into tartar—a cement-like crust that harbors more bacteria. Although you can’t brush away tartar, a regular professional dental cleaning can remove it to prevent problems. Without proper daily oral hygiene and regularly scheduled dental cleanings, tartar builds up, irritates and inflames the gums, and causes gingivitis, which can descend into periodontal disease.
Some other health conditions or habits can also aggravate gum disease, including smoking, hormonal changes, obesity, poor nutrition (especially low levels of vitamin C), genetics, certain medications, autoimmune diseases, etc.
Prevent Gum Disease Now with Periodontal Care in Beavercreek
Periodontal care at Keep Smiling Dental focuses heavily on prevention! We actively educate and encourage our patients from a young age on the essentials of daily dental hygiene:
- Brush your teeth twice a day, for two minutes at a time: once in the morning and once before bed at least. If you can brush after every meal, even better!
- Floss at least once a day, preferably before bed so that food particles and plaque between the teeth are removed before you go to sleep at night.
- Keep your regular dental cleaning appointments, typically every 6 months. During this time we will thoroughly clean and polish your teeth, removing any plaque buildup and keeping an eye on any evolving dental health conditions.
Scaling & Root Planing (Deep Cleaning)
Scaling and root planing is a deeper cleaning than what you would receive at a typical dental cleaning and polishing. Our dental hygienists will gently and thoroughly scrape away tartar that has accumulated both above and beneath your gums, removing it from pockets of gum tissue supporting your teeth, even down to smoothing the roots of your teeth below the gumline. If you have symptoms of periodontitis like swollen or bleeding gums, tooth scaling, and root planing can remove the problematic tartar that can worsen your gum and dental health. Tooth scaling and root planing can reverse gingivitis and halt or slow mild to moderate periodontitis, preventing it from worsening.
Periodontal Maintenance
Scaling and root planing is a periodontal maintenance technique that will need to be repeated, typically every 6 months, but sometimes more often depending on the patient’s needs and condition. Our Beavercreek dentist will advise you on how often you might need these periodontal treatments to prevent gum disease from getting worse and to keep your teeth and gums as healthy as possible. For some patients, our dentist may prescribe a course of antibiotics to treat severe infections so that the gums have a chance to heal. Of course, your dedication to daily brushing and flossing is also crucial to minimizing tartar and bacteria buildup between periodontal maintenance cleanings.
Crown Lengthening
Our Beavercreek dentist may recommend crown lengthening treatment if your smile is suffering from extensive periodontal disease as part of a restorative dentistry plan. During crown lengthening surgery, the dentist removes severely damaged gum tissue to expose more of the tooth’s surface area so that a crown or bridge can be securely applied. Crown lengthening can be part of an overall plan to halt the advance of gum disease while helping you get a more confident, bright smile.
Schedule Periodontal Care with our Dentists
At Keep Smiling Dental, we have an entire team of dentists and hygienists who want to help you get the happy, bright, healthy smile you deserve. If you are worried about gum disease, or if you just need to schedule your next appointment, contact us today at our Indian Ripple or Lakeview locations.
