What You Should Know About Periodontal Disease
Periodontal disease, which is commonly referred to as gum disease, can affect anyone. Even if you take the best care of your teeth and gums as possible, the disease could affect you and cause serious gum infections. Untreated periodontal disease can also have major impacts on your overall health. If you want to gain a better understanding of periodontal disease and protect your gums as much as possible from infection, you should review some of the key facts about the condition.
Early signs of the disease aren't always easy to recognize.
Periodontal disease doesn't always cause a full-blown infection in its early stages. If you want to know for sure if you have the condition, you should visit your dentist for a thorough examination of your teeth and gums. Some symptoms of periodontal disease that may or may not be noticeable in the early stages include:
- Bleeding gums
- Gum puffiness
- Mouth sores
- Bad breath (halitosis)
- Teeth that have loosened or shifted
Periodontal disease can affect your heart health.
When open sores on the gums that are caused by periodontal disease allow bacteria to get into the body, heart and blood vessel damage can occur as the bacteria travel through the bloodstream. Periodontal disease can even increase your risk of experiencing a cardiovascular event, such as a heart attack or stroke, by two to three times if the condition is left untreated.
Periodontal disease treatment may be easy if the condition is caught early enough.
In the early stages of periodontal disease, a deep cleaning using a hygienist's tools at a dentist's office may be all that's needed to treat the infection, and regular home care with brushing and flossing can keep gum disease from returning. Scaling and root planing is an even deeper cleaning method that can remove more of the hardened plaque and tartar that contribute to gum disease and smoothen rough spots on the gums to inhibit the bacterial growth that often worsens the condition.
Surgery may be required to treat more advanced cases.
If periodontal disease is particularly severe, surgical procedures can often restore lost and damaged gum tissue and treat other structures in and around the oral cavity that may have been affected by the condition. Soft tissue and bone grafts are often successful at restoring lost gum tissue and bone that can result from advanced gum disease. A guided tissue regeneration procedure can also promote the growth of healthy tissue and bone to reverse some of the condition's effects.
Periodontal disease is a dental condition that shouldn't be taken lightly regardless of the current state of the infection. A dentist can check the health of your gums and diagnose gum disease that may be in its earliest or more advanced stages.
For more information, contact a local dentist's office such as Comprehensive Dental Care.