Preventing Gum Disease

Pro­tect­ing Your Smile against Peri­odon­tal Gum Disease

Adults past the age of 35 lose more teeth to gum dis­ease than from cav­i­ties. 3 out of 4 adults are affected at some time in their life by this dis­ease. The best way to pre­vent cav­i­ties and peri­odon­tal dis­eases is by devel­op­ing reg­u­lar and cor­rect tooth brush­ing and floss­ing habits, and reg­u­lar pro­fes­sional exam­i­na­tions and cleanings.

Unfor­tu­nately how­ever, even with the most dili­gent home den­tal care, peo­ple can still develop some form of peri­odon­tal dis­ease. Once this dis­ease starts, pro­fes­sional inter­ven­tion is nec­es­sary to pre­vent its progress.

Peri­odon­tal gum dis­ease treat­ment is nec­es­sary when var­i­ous con­di­tions affect the health of your gums and the regions of your jaw­bone which hold your teeth in place. When your gums become unhealthy, they can either recede or become swollen and red. In later stages, the sup­port­ing bone is destroyed and your teeth will shift, loosen, or fall out. These changes not only affect your abil­ity to chew and speak; they also spoil your smile.

Some Other Impor­tant Fac­tors Affect­ing the Health of your Gums:

Peri­odon­tal Dis­ease and Tobacco

You are prob­a­bly famil­iar with the links between tobacco use and lung dis­ease, can­cer and heart dis­ease. But cur­rent stud­ies have now linked peri­odon­tal dis­ease with tobacco usage as well. In fact, peri­odon­tal dis­ease cases in tobacco users have been found to be even more severe that in non-smokers. This com­mon find­ing is because the many chem­i­cals in smok­ing low­ers a person’s resis­tance to this dis­ease by decreas­ing blood flow to the gums and affect­ing the func­tion of cells in the body that attempt to limit the pro­gres­sion of this disease.

Also deeper for­ma­tion of pock­ets between the gums and teeth as well as greater loss of the bone and fibers that hold teeth in the mouth is com­monly found in smok­ers com­pared to non-smokers. In addi­tion, your chance of devel­op­ing oral can­cer increases with the use of smoke­less tobacco.

Smok­ing depend­ing on its amount and dura­tion over the years can be a big risk fac­tor in the pro­gres­sion and sever­ity of peri­odon­tal dis­ease once this dis­ease has started. Chem­i­cals in tobacco from smok­ing such as nico­tine and tar slow down gum and bone heal­ing and com­pro­mise the results and pre­dictabil­ity of suc­cess fol­low­ing peri­odon­tal treat­ment. Prob­lems caused by tobacco include: lung dis­ease, heart dis­ease, can­cer, mouth sores, gum reces­sion, loss of bone and teeth, bad breath, tooth stain­ing, and decreased suc­cess with peri­odon­tal treat­ment and den­tal implants. Quit­ting tobacco will reduce the risk of devel­op­ing these diseases.

For more infor­ma­tion go to www.smokefree.gov.

Dia­betes and Oral Health

Indi­vid­u­als suf­fer­ing from dia­betes, espe­cially uncon­trolled dia­bet­ics, have a higher risk of devel­op­ing bac­te­r­ial infec­tions of the mouth, includ­ing peri­odon­tal dis­ease. These infec­tions may impair your abil­ity to process insulin, result­ing in greater dif­fi­culty with con­trol­ling your dia­betes by your physi­cian. Peri­odon­tal dis­eases will be more severe than those of a non-diabetic per­son and treat­ment more dif­fi­cult. How­ever, well-controlled dia­bet­ics have a lower inci­dence of cav­i­ties and infec­tions com­pa­ra­ble to a non-diabetic person.

Steps to pre­vent peri­odon­tal dis­ease include daily brush­ing and floss­ing to remove plaque from your teeth and gums, reg­u­lar den­tal vis­its for pro­fes­sional clean­ing and reg­u­lar peri­odon­tal eval­u­a­tion. Your health pro­fes­sional must also be told of your his­tory and the cur­rent sta­tus of your con­di­tion. And finally, you can help resist peri­odon­tal infec­tion by main­tain­ing con­trol of your blood sugar lev­els with the help of your physician.

Women and Peri­odon­tal Health

Through­out a woman’s life, hor­monal changes affect tis­sues through­out the body. Fluc­tu­a­tions in hor­monal lev­els occur dur­ing puberty, preg­nancy and menopause. At these times, the risk of gum inflam­ma­tion or peri­odon­tal dis­ease may increase, requir­ing spe­cial care of your oral health.

Puberty

Dur­ing puberty, there is increased pro­duc­tion of sex hor­mones. These higher lev­els increase gum sen­si­tiv­ity and can lead to greater gum irri­ta­tions from plaque and food par­ti­cles. The gums can become swollen, turn red and feel tender.

Men­stru­a­tion

Sim­i­lar symp­toms occa­sion­ally appear sev­eral days before men­stru­a­tion. There can be bleed­ing of the gums, bright red swelling between the teeth and gum, or sores on the inside of the cheek. The symp­toms clear up once the period has started. As the amount of sex hor­mones decrease, so do these problems.

Preg­nancy

Your gums and teeth are also affected dur­ing preg­nancy due to hor­monal changes. Between the sec­ond and eighth month, your gums may also swell, bleed and become red or ten­der. Some­times large lumps may appear as a reac­tion to local irri­tants. How­ever, these growths are gen­er­ally pain­less and not can­cer­ous. They may require pro­fes­sional removal, but usu­ally dis­ap­pear after pregnancy.

Peri­odon­tal health should be part of your pre­na­tal care. Any infec­tions dur­ing preg­nancy, includ­ing peri­odon­tal infec­tions, can place a baby’s health at risk. The best way to pre­vent peri­odon­tal infec­tions is to begin with healthy gums and con­tinue to main­tain your oral health with proper home care, care­ful peri­odon­tal mon­i­tor­ing and required pro­fes­sional cleanings.

Oral Con­tra­cep­tives

Swelling, bleed­ing and ten­der­ness of the gums may also occur when you are tak­ing oral con­tra­cep­tives, which are syn­thetic hor­mones. You must men­tion any pre­scrip­tions you are tak­ing, includ­ing oral con­tra­cep­tives, prior to med­ical or den­tal treat­ment. This infor­ma­tion will help explain a con­tribut­ing fac­tor to the con­di­tion of the gums. This infor­ma­tion will also help elim­i­nate risk of drug inter­ac­tions, such as antibi­otics with oral con­tra­cep­tives – where the effec­tive­ness of the con­tra­cep­tive can be lessened.

Menopause

Changes in the look and feel of your mouth may occur if you are menopausal or post-menopausal. They include feel­ing pain and burn­ing in your gum tis­sue and salty, pep­pery or sour tastes. Care­ful oral hygiene at home and pro­fes­sional clean­ing may relieve these symp­toms. There are also saliva sub­sti­tutes to treat the effects of “dry mouth.