What can you do if you have periodontal diseases?

Answer 1

No, the bacteria cycles every 60 to 90 days and once you have it you have to diligently floss and brush to keep your perio controlled. It is also communicable. You can pass the bacteria to your partner from kissing. You can give your partner periodontal disease.

Answer 2

I'm going through this on a daily basis so I'm answering this with personal experience. It depends on how advanced your condition has become. In other words, how infected with bacteria your gums have become. See a dental hygienist as soon as you can. If your gums bleed when you brush or floss or your gums bleed easily when gently poked, you most likely have gum disease. It all depends on how advanced your case is, and there are 4 stages from what I have been told. Stage 1 has the best chance of being cured or the bacterial level being able to be reversed, stages 2 thru 4 are incurable. I was told I was between a stage 2 and 3. Your dental hygienist will tell you. Do not gauge for yourself. From what I've been told, once you have gum disease you have it for life. Your mouth is like Disneyland for bacteria. Like most visitors, they'll never stop coming back. Since my case was slightly advanced, they did a scaling/root planing procedure which was where they gave me a local anesthetic and basically scrubbed my gums from the root and up. After that I have to go in every 3 months or so to have what's knows as periodontal maintenance done. What they do is a cleaning of my gums, not the scaling root planing, just a general cleaning. Then my gums get flushed with medication, then irrigated. This keeps the bacteria from infecting my gums further, combined with my own personal home care of flossing and proper brushing. They also check the gum pockets in order to make sure my teeth aren't falling out of the gum line. It sucks, but once you have it there is no turning back. Good Luck!

I am a registered dental hygienist, and in addition to all of the wonderful information in the last posting, I'll add this:

If your "gum disease" (periodontal disease) is early and has not yet invaded the jaw bone, then there is still a chance that it could be reversed. however, once the bone around your teeth becomes infected and starts to break down, it is incurable. At that point, the best we can do is to stop or slow the progression and maintain what is left. If you have been told that you have any 5mm pockets or deeper, then you are probably in the incurable phase. 4mm pockets are borderline.

Obviously, as a dental hygienist I am going to recommend that you see your dentist or hygienist about this, professional intervention is truly your best bet. However, if you want to help the condition or try and somehow positively impact your situation from home there are a few things I would recommend:

#1 If you smoke, QUIT SMOKING!!! Most advanced cases of perio are also smokers. It is the #1 link to periodontal disease

#2 if you have Diabetes, do your best to keep your blood sugar well controlled. Take your medications as directed. Control your diet as recommended. Uncontrolled or poorly controlled Diabetes is the #2 link to perio.

#3 Buy a Sonicare or Oral-B Sonic Complete electric Toothbrush. Any of the higher end models that cost around $100 and say the word "sonic" in them will be beneficial. You will get superior plaque removal results, and it is the bacterial plaque that causes perio. Use this at least 2x a day for 2 mins. (there is a built in 2 min timer, isn't that nice?)

#4 Floss.....yes I know, the "F" word. But you NEED to floss, at least once a day. Sorry, you just have to.

#5 If you absolutely won't floss regularly then you need to do SOMETHING every day to clean in between your teeth such as stimudents, a tooth pick, a prox-a-brush or a water-pik. But, I promise...NONE of these are as good, or as cheap as regular old floss.

#6 Consider antiseptic mouthrinses. Now, I personally don't use a daily mouthrinse because I haven't seen enough clinical evidence that it is beneficial, however, I don't think it could hurt. Listerine would be an example, Crest Pro-Health rinse is another example (but watch out, it stains some people's teeth) or even a simple hydrogen peroxide rinse which can be mixed at home. If you are a smoker I would not recommend the hydrogen peroxide rinse, however, because there is some evidence that suggests that particular combination might increase your risk for oral cancer.

There are many many more factors that go into the prevention, treatment and maintenance of periodontal disease, but that ought to be enough to keep you busy for a while.

Managing gum disease is all about daily plaque control - essentially sound oral hygiene. That means, in most cases, stopping the plaque in your mouth is really in your own hands. Brush every day. Floss every day. Period. Your dentist or oral hygienist may recommend fluoride toothpaste or tartar reduction rinses. Colgate Total is approved by the FDA for helping to prevent advanced gum disease by reducing plaque and tartar.

Dental professionals recommend oral irrigation as a great way to really clean teeth and gums. Oral irrigators get what tooth brushes and floss don't, so plaque and tartar and the resulting advanced gum disease never come back.

Oral irrigators flood the mouth with a jet of water under pressure to flush offending food particles and bacteria from the mouth. From under the gum line where the infection is. It is just like a wound on your arm - you must keep it clean for it to heal. And now there's fresh evidence that advanced gum disease responds well to oral irrigators. Do not use any mouthwash that has alcohol as an ingredient.

The alcohol kills the good bacteria as well as the bad.

There is a new gum disease treatment on the market. It dissolves tartar above and below the gum line; which prevents destructive anaerobic bacteria from mounting attacks on your gums. Otherwise, it does not harm good bacteria.

Answer 3

If the disease has progressed beyond 'gingivitis' probably not. However, any successful treatment will require an increase in proper home care in the form of improved oral hygiene, usually involving better brushing and flossing.

In my practice, I tell the patients that treatment of gum disease is a three-legged stool. All three legs must be present and functioning or the treatment will likely fail in the long-term.

Leg one: Initial therapy. This involves thorough scaling and debridement of all involved tooth surfaces. This must be performed by a competent and licensed dentist or dental hygienist. It may also involve minor surgeries and incorporate antibiotics or other medications.

Leg Two: Thorough and effective daily home care; brushing and flossing, and any other specific instructions given by the professional to maximize oral cleanliness. No treatment in the dental office can compensate for lousy oral hygiene at home.

Leg Three: Regular and routine follow-up care in the dental office. This requires maintenance scaling at prescribed intervals. No one with gum disease can be expected to be 100% effective every day with their home care, and once the tartar has begun to form on the teeth, it cannot be removed by home care alone.

If everyone does their part, gum disease most often can be effectively controlled with the three-legged stool in place. Occasional, additional treatment may be required, depending on the individual situation. Please note that I did not say gum disease can be 'cured' but only controlled. Currently, there is no recognized cure for gum disease. Some people are just better at controlling the disease than others.

Answer 4

Brushing and flossing alone cannot completely remove all of the plaque and biofilm from a person with gum disease. If it could, most gingivitis would be non-existent. Plaque biofilm is full of anaerobic bacteria (living without oxygen) that are deposited on your teeth and in the concave root surfaces under your gums. Your brush and floss can't physically reach all of these areas to completely remove these bacteria. However, with an irrigator, you can easily deliver a stream of water to flush the bacteria and loose particles out of these hard-to-reach areas.
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Managing gum disease is all about daily plaque control - essentially sound oral hygiene. That means, in most cases, stopping the plaque in your mouth is really in your own hands. Brush every day. Floss every day. Period. Your dentist or oral hygienist may recommend fluoride toothpaste or tartar reduction rinses. Colgate Total is approved by the FDA for helping to prevent advanced gum disease by reducing plaque and tartar.

Dental professionals recommend oral irrigation as a great way to really clean teeth and gums. Oral irrigators get what your toothbrush and floss, don't, so plaque and tartar and the resulting advanced gum disease never come back.
Oral irrigators flood the mouth with a jet of water under pressure to flush offending food particles and bacteria from the mouth. And most importantly, from under the gum line where the infection is. It is just like a wound on your arm - you must keep it clean for it to heal.

There are many types of irrigators. Fairly new on the market are irrigators that attach to your showerhead or your sink faucet.
A search on Amazon will produce 99% of available products.
All types have pros and cons.

Answer 5

Essential oils for gingivitis (gums bleeding): Essential oils that may be helpful in gingivitis are geranium, lemon and tea tree oil. Tea tree oil is a powerful natural antiseptic. Add a drop of this oil on your toothbrush on top of the toothpaste before brushing. This will help inflamed and irritated gums and even prevent gum disease.

Make a mouth wash using one drop of each of geranium, lemon and tea tree oil in half a glass of water and gargle.

Put one or two drops of tea tree oil to a cotton ball and dab your gums, this will reduce inflammation of gums and even prevent gum disease.

http://www.fatfreekitchen.com/teeth/gingivitis-gums-treatment.html

Answer 6

Natural Remedies to Gum Disease We spend the better part of our lives fighting cavities tooth and nail. Then when we hit our thirties and forties, we have to worry about another threat to our pearly whites: gum disease, or gingivitis. The problem can be caused by any number of the 300 or so different types of bacteria that take shelter in our mouths. Without proper brushing and flossing, some of these bacteria burrow into our gums, resulting in a plaque buildup known as gingivitis that causes gums to redden, swell and bleed easily. Although it's painless, gingivitis can lead to the more serious and more painful periodontitis as well as eventual tooth loss. The natural remedies in this chapter, in conjunction with medical care and used with your dentist's approval may help control gingivitis, according to some health professionals. Did you know that your teeth are the strongest, best constructed, and most capable of resisting disease of any part of your body? If that is true, then why is the most resilient part of your body the first to start developing problems? Though your teeth begin to develop problems tooth decay, cavities, gum disease from the time they emerge from your gums, and continue to deteriorate until old age, that is not necessarily the way things are supposed to happen. In the absence of periodontal disease, teeth and gums have every chance of remaining healthy and strong until a ripe old age. Unfortunately, 75-95% of Americans unknowingly suffer from periodontal disease, which can not only destroy teeth, gums and the nerves that serve them, but also mysteriously lead to heart disease, diabetes, respiratory illness, osteoporosis, pre-term or low birth weight delivery, and stroke. Pregnancy gingivitis is very prevalent and curable WITHOUT drugs or surgery. So what causes periodontal disease? Well, most people are unaware that periodontal disease is contagious, and was probably contracted at an early age. Microbes are passed from one person to another, instigating the first stage of periodontal disease: tooth decay. Other stages include pyorrhea and gingivitis, usually considered separate diseases, but which are actually part of the same disease. Loose teeth, bleeding and pain are all evidence of the microbial organisms settling along the gum line and working their way under, where they will settle in a place that cannot be reached by flossing and brushing. To combat periodontal disease, one must be able to clean under the gum line, where pockets form between teeth and gums in the presence of decay. But brushing for five minutes and flossing three times a day won't do a thing to flush out the microbes hidden in these pockets. One of the first steps in treating periodontal disease is to realize that this is a wound to your body the same as an infected cut on your arm. You must eliminate the cause keep the wound clean. Many people own an electric oral irrigator of some sort. It usually gets stored in the same place under the sink gathering dust. Out of sight - out of mind. If there was a small cut on your hand that bled every time you washed your hands, it wouldn't take you long to get to the doctor. The same thing is going on in your mouth; however you don't see it. (But, you can sure smell it.) Luckily, there is a simple and inexpensive way to clean those pockets every day. An oral irrigator that attaches to your shower head or sink faucet allows users to flush particles out which are trapped between the teeth and under the gum line. For deeper pockets, irrigation with a solution such as a salt/baking soda/water mixture may be required. Many people have found relief using Hydrogen Peroxide (for a limited time) and colloidal silver. Irrigating tools for using an undiluted solution are available on the internet. The most popular irrigators are the WaterPik and OralBreeze.com. They both can be found on Amazon.

Answer 7

To combat periodontal disease, one must be able to clean under the gum line, where pockets form between teeth and gums in the presence of decay. But brushing for five minutes and flossing three times a day won't do a thing to flush out the microbes hidden in these pockets.

One of the first steps in treating periodontal disease is to realize that this is a wound to your body the same as an infected cut on your arm. You must eliminate the cause keep the wound clean. Many people own an electric oral irrigator of some sort. It usually gets stored in the same place under the sink gathering dust. Out of sight - out of mind. If there was a small cut on your hand that bled every time you washed your hands, it wouldn't take you long to get to the doctor. The same thing is going on in your mouth; however you don't see it. (But, you can sure smell it.) Luckily, there is a simple and inexpensive way to clean those pockets every day.

An oral irrigator that attaches to your shower head or sink faucet allows users to flush particles out which are trapped between the teeth and under the gumline.

For deeper pockets, irrigation with a solution such as a salt/baking soda/water mixture may be required. Many people have found relief using Hydrogen Peroxide (for a limited time) and colloidal silver. Irrigating tools for using an undiluted solution are available on the internet.

See Your Dentist When…

• You have bad breath that doesn't go away within 24 hours.
• Your teeth look longer, the result of gums shrinking away from your teeth.
• Your teeth are loose, fall out or break off near the gum line.
• You notice a change in your tooth alignment, the way your bite feels.
• Your dentures fit differently.
• Pus pockets form between your teeth and gums.
• Your gums are still swollen, sore or bleeding despite good oral hygiene.

Answer 8

I have it. I get scalling done every 6monthd and brush daily with electric tootjbrudh and its VERY VERY important to floss!!

Answer 9

You can start by flossing your teeth more to get rid of some of the damage. Then you should go to your dentist and they can work on your gums. It depends on how serious the gum disease is.