Gum Disease Treatment
Cleaning and Polishing
Receiving regular preventative professional cleaning and polishing can reduce your risk of developing gum disease. This is because plaque and calculus can build up below your gumline where you cannot clean it off yourself. Only dental professionals can remove this build up for you, helping to prevent gum disease.
However, we have found the traditional recommendations of having this treatment performed every 6 months is lacking in evidence. Recommendations from the National Health Service suggest that you should determine the appropriate interval between examinations and cleaning with your dentist.
Read more here:
https://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/dentalhealth/Pages/Dentalcheckups.aspx
Gum Disease (Periodontitis) Treatment
Periodontitis really should be called gum and bone disease because it causes both your gums and the bone supporting your teeth to become degraded.
If your Periodontitis is not treated you may risk losing your teeth.
To treat Periodontitis, we first require thorough measurements from between your gums and your tooth. There should be a small gap between your gums and teeth, up to 3mm in depth. With Periodontitis the measurements are generally 3.5mm and above as your gums begin to detach from your teeth. Mapping out these measurements throughout your mouth gives an accurate record to refer back to once treatment has begun.
Gum disease treatment is basically removing all of the plaque and calculus from your teeth, right under the gums, so that your gums can heal and re-attach to your teeth.
In most cases, it will take one or two appointments, with local anaesthetic to make sure the treatment is comfortable, to remove all of the calculus and plaque.
You will require follow-up appointments a couple of months after your treatment to ensure it was successful. Some cases will need more ongoing gum disease treatment, some will only need supportive or preventative therapy.
Once you have gum disease, you need to make sure you are being examined at regular intervals specific to your situation and risk. If you get complacent about gum disease, you may end up back at square one, or worse.