How do you know you have periodontal disease? What is periodontitis? How do you acquire it? How do you treat it?

Periodontitis is the inflammation of the tissues surrounding your teeth.  At first, you will lose your alveolar bone that surrounds your teeth.  If you leave periodontitis is untreated, it can lead to more serious problem such as loosen teeth. Gum diseases or problems do not happen in an instant. It actually takes months or years before it surfaces in your mouth. This is the reason why many believed that only people over 40 will acquire gum diseases.

Gum problems start when you ignore your dentist’s advice to regularly brush your teeth.   The moment you ignore brushing your teeth, plaque starts to accumulate in your mouth.  When your immune system gets weak, then shall these gum diseases such as mouth sores arise!

Here are a few tips on how to detect if you are having gum problems.

  • Redness or bleeding of gums
  • Mouth sores or swelling of gums
  • Bad breath
  • Receding gums
  • Loosening of teeth

The widely known periodontal disease treatment is the scaling and root planing. These two are called the conventional ways of treating your gum disease most especially periodontitis. The procedure can only be performed by professional dentist.  Scaling and root planing are the process of deeply cleaning your teeth and gums.  Depending on how severe the gum problem, scaling and root planing are considered as an initial procedure for dental surgery.

Patients and professional dentists attest that the periodontal disease is considered as one of the most traumatic experience they have.  That is why most patients have to undergo extensive diagnosis in order to determine the root cause of the problem.  This is to avoid reoccurrence of the problem. Moreover, when surgeries happen, it is expected that patients would experience post surgery discomforts. These can’t be avoided however there are medicines available over the counter.  If the pain is really unbearable, you dentist can recommended or provide prescriptions that will help you relieve the pain.

It would greatly help if you avoid habits that would worsen or irritate the tissues of your gums. These can be through eating spicy and sweet foods, smoking or chewing cigarettes.  Studies show that smoking weakens your immune system and worsen the condition of your gums if you continue to chew or eat cigarettes.  Moreover, smoking is also known as life threatening habit.