Gum Treatment

Your teeth are like a house - what you see are the teeth (the house) and what you do not see is the root (the foundation). Normal gums hug around our teeth very firmly but diseased gums do not attach to our teeth due to inflammation. This damages the foundation of our teeth. A house will fail if its foundation is weakened, and similarly, teeth will fail if the root is weakened by gum disease. Gum treatment can control this disease process.

Periodontics is the branch of dentistry that deals with the treatment of gum diseases and the other structures around the teeth and jaw bones. If such a condition is not treated, a person could suffer tooth loss and loss of the jaw bone.

Normal teeth require a good professional cleaning every three to six months to remove calculus or tartar. In some countries, calculus and tartar are also known as ‘dental stones'. Given a long period of time, calculus will cause the gum to separate from the teeth and lead to teeth loss if left untreated.

 

The simpler procedures take about 30 minutes. More complex or extensive ones take up to two hours. Depending on the severity of the gum problems, occasionally two or more visits are required.

 

When scaling and root planing is followed by periodontal surgery, then the process can be spread out over several weeks. Healing is a time dependant process. We simply have to allow sufficient time for healing. The general rule is the more complicated the procedure, the more healing time is needed.

 

Our patients commonly tell us that they return to 99% of normal daily activities within a few hours after our procedure. This usually means that the person can have a reasonably normal dinner, go to work on the same day, see friends, do business, talk on the phone and go shopping. The less invasive procedures allow you to resume normal activities rapidly. After a more extensive surgery, however, some rest would be nice too.

 

Certain procedures such as dental implants and crown-lengthening are definitive and end with placement of a functional dental restoration. Other procedures such as scaling and root planing should be continued every three to six months to maintain healthy gums.