Gingivitis
If you have gingivitis, your gums become irritated by plaque, which is a mixture of food, bacteria and bacterial waste products that can build up on your teeth. If you don t clean plaque off your teeth regularly, your gums will become red, swollen and shiny, and they may bleed. This is the early stage of gum disease and is completely reversible. If you remove the plaque, your gums will recover. But if you don t clean the plaque off your teeth, the gingivitis may develop into periodontitis.

Periodontitis
If you don t get treatment for gingivitis, your gums may begin to pull away from your teeth, leaving small pockets. These pockets trap plaque that you can’t reach with a toothbrush. Over time, the plaque will harden to become tartar (calculus). Plaque and tartar build-up can cause further irritation, which may gradually spread to the bone structures around your teeth. As time goes on, the pockets can get deeper and more difficult to clean, and your gum and bone may shrink. This is called periodontitis.

If your gums shrink, they can expose some of the roots of your teeth, making them sensitive. And if you have bone loss, your teeth may become loose. If you don t get treatment for a number of years, your teeth may fall out, or need to be taken out by a dentist.

It’s rarely possible to make the bone structures grow back, so periodontal pockets aren t generally reversible. However, if you receive the appropriate treatment and make sure you floss and brush your teeth well, the progress of the disease can be stopped.

SYMPTOMS OF GUM DISEASE

You may not know that you have gum disease. Often it’s not painful and you might not get any symptoms. This is one of the reasons why it’s important that you attend regular check-ups with your dentist.

Usually the first signs of gingivitis are?

• bleeding gums when you brush your teeth
• red and swollen gums

If gingivitis has developed into periodontitis, you may have?

• a bad taste in your mouth
• a wobbly tooth or teeth
• gum abscesses (pus that collects under your gum)

Periodontal Disease Treatment

Oral Hygiene
The first step to achieving short and long term gum health improvements is to ensure that the patients oral hygiene regime is good. We will take time ensuring that you are doing all the right things and non of the wrong things to ensure that the efforts you put result in the maximum results. Periodontal patients need to accept that, due to their genetic susceptibility, their oral hygiene regime will need to be optimal and maintained daily for the rest of their lives.

We are simply talking about the correct use of toothbrushes, floss and interdental brushes.

Active Treatment
This involves the removal of the hard and soft deposits that are stuck to the teeth, namely Plaque and Calculus (calcified Plaque). Whilst similar to a “Scale and Polish” that you may have at your dentist, successful periodontal treatment relies on meticulous removal of deposits above and below the gum. Whilst the Calculus its self does not caused the disease, we remove it to aid long term Plaque removal and give the gum tissues a clean environment in which to heal. It also looks better when it is removed!

Advanced Treatment Options
Occasionally, despite everyone’s best efforts, certain areas of gum disease may not resolve with Non-Surgical Therapy. In this situation we may consider some advance treatment options such as Periodontal Surgery.