Going to your dentist for regular dental cleanings helps keep gum disease at bay, but sometimes, despite best intentions and efforts some patients find themselves in the early stages of gum disease. It’s important to prevent gum health from reaching this stage and even more important to not let it get any further. To prevent things from getting even worse, a dentist may recommend additional cleanings or a scaling and root planing. Following through on these appointments is extremely important since failure to do so could lead to needing even more aggressive and expensive treatments.
If gum disease is allowed to progress, a dentist may refer a patient to a periodontist for laser gum surgery or a gingivectomy. At this stage it’s no longer about simply cleaning calculus off the teeth, but rather about going after the infected gum tissue itself. Using lasers or more traditional tools, the periodontist removes bacteria and diseased gum tissue. It’s far from ideal to get to this stage but the gums will heal after a few weeks and remain healthy with proper attention and care.
If a patient waits too long to seek treatment the gums could start receding. At this point gum grafting is needed in order to restore the gums. This surgery is significantly more invasive, often requiring the harvesting of tissue from elsewhere in the mouth to promote restoration of gum tissue. This surgery is important in order to prevent the gum disease from getting worse and risking the stability of the bone holding the tooth in.
If a patient has not been able to get their gums treated past the point of needing a gum graft, the infection could start affecting the bone tissue underneath the gums. As the infection spreads the bone is lost, causing teeth to come loose. At this stage the bone tissue underneath the gums needs to be restored with a bone graft procedure. For this procedure bone may need to be harvested from elsewhere in the mouth in order to restore the missing bone or the periodontist will use materials known as allografts or xenografts instead. This procedure is more intense than any of the others mentioned here and it’s best to avoid reaching this stage altogether.
If your dentist tells you that you need to see a periodontist or get extra cleanings we hope you take the time to listen to them as failure to do so could cause far greater issues in the long run. At Concord Lexington Periodontics we don’t want cost to be a barrier to getting the important care you need so payment options for periodontal care like CareCredit are available to those who choose.
If you have gum diseases or have been instructed to visit a periodontist by your regular dentist we welcome you to set up a periodontal consultation at Concord Lexington Periodontics.