Gum Disease Treatment

What is gum disease?

Gum disease is an infection in the gums surrounding the teeth. When bacteria builds up, it irritates the gums and causes the gums to pull away from the teeth. Once the gums start pulling away, it creates pockets where more bacteria can accumulate. Gum disease can progress to periodontitis, which does lasting damage to the underlying bone and causes loose teeth and persistent bad breath.

Signs of gum disease include bad breathe, red, swollen and bleeding gums, mouth sores, receding gum line, pus seeping from the gums and teeth that seem to be loose.

What Causes Gum Disease?

Gum disease is usually caused by the following factors:

• Poor dental hygiene
• Smoking
• Diabetes
• Genetic factors
• Changes in the metabolism and hormone levels during pregnancy, puberty and menopause
• Medications that have oral side-effects or dry mouth may lead to gum disease.

How do I prevent gum disease?

Gum disease can be prevented by maintaining proper oral hygiene such as brushing your teeth twice a day, flossing or using a floss brush daily, not smoking and using mouth-rinse.

How can gum disease be treated?

Depending on the severity of the condition, gum disease can be treated non-surgically or surgically.

Non-surgical professional dental cleaning can remove build up of tartar and plaque above and below the gum line. Additionally, under local anaesthesia, deep scaling and root planning are done using a local anaesthetic to remove hardened plaque and calculus from the mouth. Following this, a second procedure targets deeper pockets affected by bacterial build up.

For infections in the pockets of the gums, microbial therapy is used to treat bacteria accumulation.

Surgical treatments include tissue regeneration and laser therapy. Tissue regeneration is used when the bone has been affected by gum disease. The grafting of the bone allows for the bone to re-grow and strengthen, and tissue grafting aids thing and weak gums.

We Offer Laser Periodontal Treatment an alternative to standard periodontal surgery which is used for treating periodontal gum disease.

Periodontal laser therapy allows your dentist to access inflamed gum tissue more precisely in order to remove the inflamed and infected gum tissue around the tooth. Once the infected gum tissue is removed, your dentist will begin root scaling in which the tartar build-up around the root of the tooth is removed.

Laser surgery has many benefits, but one of the most important is patient comfort and quicker healing. The absence of pressure and heat creates a much more comfortable experience for the patient, and the laser's precision minimises damage to surrounding tissue.

What happens after treatment?

After you have had treatment for gum disease, you may have some pain, sensitivity and minor bleeding of the gums for a few days after the treatment. Pain relieving medication and an antiseptic mouth rinse will be prescribed for you after scaling and root planing. Good oral hygiene practices should be followed after treatment.

Going forward

Once your active gum disease has been successfully managed, it is vital to maintaining proper oral hygiene in order to prevent reoccurring infection and inflammation of the gums. Gently brush your teeth twice a day, floss once a day, use antibacterial mouthwashes and visit Dr Chodree for routine dental check-ups to maintain oral health and ensure gum infection does not advance to periodontitis.