Periodontal Therapy

Your oral health is important for many reasons. However, many people in Albuquerque only focus on their teeth. Though you do want them to be white, that doesn’t indicate health. Your teeth can’t be healthy if you don’t have healthy gums!

The gums play a huge role to keep your teeth healthy and beautiful. However, you might not focus on that when you care for your teeth. Many people don’t brush their gums, and we don’t usually recommend it because a toothbrush can be too harsh.

Flossing does help remove the debris near to the gums, but it often isn’t enough.

Therefore, gum disease is a top cause for tooth loss for adults. Periodontal disease is rising for children and adults, but it doesn’t have to force you to lose your teeth. At Ivory Dental, we offer many periodontal therapy procedures to assist. However, it’s important for you to visit us regularly so we can check your gums and help you learn how to take care of them at home.

Why Should You Consider Periodontal Therapy?

Your gums are your teeth’s lifeline. Without them, you don’t have a firm spot for the teeth to sit and be cradled. Often, the teeth feel loose inside the gums. This might not be a figment of your imagination; it could be real.

The gums could pull away from your teeth if you have periodontal disease. However, there are things we can do to help. While you always want to brush your teeth and floss, we offer special rinses and use different treatments while you’re in the office.

Periodontal therapy is crucial so that we can catch the disease at its early stages. That way, you have a better chance of saving your teeth and protecting them from further damage or the need for extraction.

Don’t deal with unsightly red gums or those that bleed. Let us help you choose the right periodontal therapy today!

Common Symptoms of Periodontal Disease

In many cases, gum disease is a silent thing. You don’t experience any symptoms or feel pain. However, that is the primary reason why it’s so dangerous. Therefore, you should seek routine checkups from our dentist because he can check for periodontal disease. You could have it right now and not even know it!

Many times, patients are at an advanced stage of periodontal disease when they first notice the problem. Therefore, it’s crucial to get routine cleanings and checkups at our office. During these times, we check your gums for potential issues, including:

• Loose-feeling teeth
• Teeth that appear longer (receding gums)
• Gums that pull away from the teeth
• Pain when you chew
• Sensitivity to hot or cold food and beverages
• Persistent bad breath
• Swollen and reddish-looking gums
• Tenderness or bleeding

While you might notice some of these, most people don’t. It’s when you go to the dentist and get checked out and answer questions that you initially realize the problem.

What Are Some Periodontal Therapy Options?

When you visit our office for a routine checkup, we make sure that you don’t have periodontal disease. If there are any gum issues, we can do a periodontal screening. This can evaluate your gums and focus on their health.

During the exam, we check the gum pockets for bleeding and plaque deposits inside. We also assess the appearance of your gums for color changes. This also focuses heavily on your medical and dental histories.

Once we have all of the information, we can create a treatment plan based on your needs. You know you’re getting quality care that’s focused on your specific needs. Depending on the symptoms and severity, here are a few of the treatments we offer:

Gum/Bone Grafting

As your gums recede, they expose the tooth root. This can cause many problems in the gums and teeth. If we catch it in time, we can prevent this problem. If not, we stop it from being worse and causing bone loss.

We perform a gingival graft. The gum surgery can cover your exposed tooth roots with soft tissue. Usually, we take the tissue from your palate to even out your gum line.

Scaling and Root Planing

Scaling or root planing are both non-invasive treatments and can reduce inflammation and infection within the gums. We thoroughly clean out the periodontal pockets. In a way, we’re lifting up the gums and reaching under them to remove tartar and bacteria. When we’re done, we give you antibiotics to disinfect the gums and smooth everything out.

Sometimes, we can do it all in one visit. However, we often break it up into two different appointments for the top/bottom. The process could be uncomfortable, but we offer a local anesthetic if necessary so that you don’t feel anything.

Many times, you only need the treatment once to reverse gingivitis (simple gum disease). However, if your symptoms persist, you might need another deep cleaning therapy or another periodontal procedure.

Periodontal Disease Treatments with Lasers and Dental Crown Lengthening

We can also use lasers and crown lengthening procedures to treat periodontal disease. Laser technology lets us use a special hand tool to remove the diseased tissue causing the infection. It’s often painless and precise, so you see faster healing times.

Sometimes, your gums overtake the teeth, making them appear smaller. We usually call that a gummy smile, and it’s fixable with dental crown lengthening. Typically, we remove extra gum tissue, exposing more of the teeth. Though it’s cosmetic, we can use it to restore decayed teeth that have been blocked by the gums.

What Are Pocket Reductions?

Another great periodontal therapy is a pocket reduction. It seems a little strange, and many people don’t know what it is.

Your gums should always fit snugly around your teeth to keep them in position and sturdy. However, if bacteria builds up, the gum pockets might loosen over time to expose your teeth under your gum line.

Those pockets can make it painful to eat and are bacteria magnets. However, we can perform a pocket reduction to prevent this from happening. Then, we clean underneath the gums with the scaling and planing option. When we’ve done that, and everything is clean and sterilized, we can reattach the gums to the teeth.

How Dental Implants Help with Periodontal Therapy

Severe gum disease rarely has many treatment options. Though we try to clean underneath the gums, there isn’t much more we can do. Often, your teeth become loose and might fall out. They may also be so severely decayed that there isn’t much that a filling or root canal could do to save them.

If that happens, we often recommend that you extract the loose teeth. Sometimes, you must remove them all, though some might fall out on their own. Once you start losing teeth, you must replace them.

Often, we recommend dental implants. These are prosthetic teeth that function properly. In a sense, we implant a screw-like post made of titanium or another metal. We must attach it deeply into the jawbone to act as your tooth root.

This is a strong foundation, and it’s just what you need to stimulate the jawbone and keep it growing and healthy. Once you heal up from that process, we can put a crown over the metal part sticking up.

Why Should You Try to Avoid Dental Implants?

Typically, we want you to avoid having to get dental implants. It’s always better to protect the natural teeth and keep them in your mouth for as long as possible. However, you may have no other choice if your teeth are severely damaged or you have periodontal disease in its advanced stages.

That’s why we recommend that you visit Ivory Dental twice a year for cleanings and checkups. We can check the mouth and gums for gingivitis, which is easily correctable in the early stages. Most people don’t need more than one deep cleaning, and we also help you find ways to prevent gum disease between office visits.

Ultimately, it’s better to do that than to extract multiple teeth or lose them and add implants. Still, this is a great choice when everything else fails!

Treat Periodontal Disease with Our Therapy Solutions

Most people experience gum disease at least once in their lifetime. It’s actually very common, and children are now prone to it. Whether it’s from what you eat or not knowing how to care for your teeth, we can help.

In fact, if we catch gingivitis early enough, it’s easy to reverse any damage. That’s excellent news because you can treat it effectively and have a beautiful and healthy smile once again.

Albuquerque residents require a trustworthy dentist, and Ivory Dental is available to help. We offer many periodontal therapies and services to help you. However, it’s best to call us and request an appointment first. That way, we can determine the extent of the damage and find the right treatment plan for you.

Protect your teeth now by calling and asking us about our periodontal therapies and services!