Periodontology

The basis for a healthy mouth is healthy gums. The absence of gum disease and tooth decay will help you maintain your teeth for life. There is no need to start having teeth extracted as you grow older, as long as you look after your teeth and gums well. This starts with good home-care on a daily basis so that the dental plaque (the bacteria) are removed every day and therefore gum disease and tooth decay do not get a chance to develop. We will teach you how to achieve this with the use of manual or electric brushing, and the essential use of either dental floss or inter-dental brushes. Both tooth decay and gum disease are preventable diseases but without proper care and guidance teeth can still be lost.

Gum disease does not progress at an even pace. There will be periods when the disease will progress extremely rapidly and then slow down again. These period of rapid deterioration may coincide when you are feeling low or run down. The bad news is that the bone attachment that is lost during the active phases is virtually impossible to regain. The good news is that we can control the advance of the gum disease as long as you remove the plaque completely every day.

Because gum disease is on the whole a pain free disease, is can gradually creep up on you without you realising. It is most important to realise that just brushing your teeth, even if you do it really well, will leave the plaque behind in between the teeth, under the contact points. It is vital that once a day those areas are cleaned with dental floss or inter dental brushes. We will teach you how to use these and in the case of the inter dental brushes we will assess which size is the optimal size for your teeth.

Treatment becomes more difficult as the gum disease progresses but it can be very successfully treated in the earlier stages. Early detection is very important!

One particularly important aspect of gum disease is the impact smoking has on it. The loss of bone, the attachment of the teeth, is lost much faster than in an equivalent non-smokers mouth. Definitely non something you would want to do! There are other factors that influence periodontal disease like diabetes, medications, stress, excessive biting forces and a poor diet. On the issue of pregnancy it is good to know that with proper care, there is no need for a deterioration of your teeth and gums during a pregnancy. The gum are more likely to bleed though, caused by hormonal changes in you body. With meticulous oral hygiene and some straight forward dietary advice you will come through your pregnancy without any problems.