Question:
Hi David,
Thank you for your website! I find it to be very informative! I plan on purchasing the products you listed on your site to help me with gum disease issue.
At age 26, I was diagnosed with mild periodontal disease and I would like to know – is there a cure for this? My dentist and every website I researched this question on says NO. But I don’t know- could there be?
I was never raised to floss and brush 2x a day so prior to age 26, I would never floss and only brushed my teeth in the morning – so I guess it is my fault why I am in the awful predicament – Oh how I wish I knew better then!
I am now 28 and though I brush 2x a day, and floss the gum pockets in my mouth have now increased from mild to moderate! What am I doing wrong???
I feel like I have tried everything in my power to make my gums better to but to no avail and it is so depressing! I am genuinely scared to death of losing my teeth.
Two weeks ago, I had the dentist perform a deep cleaning to my teeth and gums and have bought and am now using a mouth irrigator (Water Pik) and Peridex mouthwash – but this morning, I woke up with puffy gums around my bottom 6 teeth.
So my question to you is what were the depth of your gum pockets before and after you started implementing your program? I guess I can use some hope right now.
Thank you for your time
–
Stephanie
Answer:
Hi Stephanie,
Thanks for writing in with your question. Your situation saddens me so much that I decided to stay in tonight to answer your question instead of going out to my favorite hang out to be with friends.
Your situation is serious – that is why I stayed home to answer it tonight. There are two action steps for you to follow right now. 1. Go to a periodontist immediately. 2. Purchase these two books Read the gum disease book first and the other second.
I have trouble understanding how a dentist could tell you that there is no cure for your situation. On the other hand, I have not been in your dentist’s shoes and I have not seen your mouth and I have no idea what shape your are currently in. So I don’t want to comment on that too much. But I know this – it sounds bad. I also would like to know exactly which websites told you there was no hope?
It is a shame that you didn’t brush and floss before the age of 26. I find that incredible, but I guess it is possible. That is a most likely a major contributor to your problems today. You didn’t mention it, but do you have a lot of fillings and cavities too?
If your gums are puffy, it could also be an indication of a tooth or several teeth with infections that are close to or at the root. This is something you need to find out right away. May I suggest that you make an appointment with your periodontist immediately?
Are you on the Peridex because of your recent ‘deep cleaning’? Unfortunately, and many dental professionals may scream at me for this – I am not a believer in this deep cleaning stuff. It is also called SRP or ‘Scaling and Root Planing’. I have a relative who believes her dental health went down hill after her ‘deep cleaning’ treatment. On the other hand, there are most likely instances when a SRP is truly needed. That is a dilemma that each must choose the answer to on his own and with information from his periodontist or dentist.
I avoided my prescribed SRP, did some things at home and 5 months later my dentist agreed that I no longer needed such a treatment. This is after she previously told me, ‘nothing else would help’.
I’m going to tell you that I believe your periodontal health can improve, but you are going to have to work your butt off to make it happen.
There are two aspects to keeping your gums healthy. Both are needed and one will not save you without the other. You need both professional care and better home care.
1. Professional care – Right now, you need the help of a good periodontist. Trust me on this one. They know more about taking care of your gum tissue than general dentists do. They have more professional training specifically on gum tissue health and disease. He will work with you in conjunction with a good hygienist who will probably work for him.
2. Home care – This is where you have admittedly failed in the past ( failure to brush and floss). However, you should know that I personally believe that brushing and flossing are not enough for the vast majority of people anyway. You need additional tools and understandings to help you with your home care. You can also get advice from your periodontist and hygienist when you are in the office. However, I personally did things beyond what I was told. Those things I have written about.
There are so many things I want to tell you right now, Stephanie, that it could fill a whole book. And it has. I’m going to recommend that you read my book, What You Should Know about Gum Disease, to help you understand your situation better and to get a better idea of the home care tools and techniques that are available to you. These are things that your dentist or periodontist is not likely to tell you. At the very least, I highly doubt they would tell you everything I have written about in the home care section of my book – chapter 3.
Also, it is a pretty good bet that you haven’t been fully educated about what gum disease is and what causes it – and therefore, what you can do about it. That is probably not your fault. Dentists are pretty busy and I’ve not been to one yet that has fully explained things to me. I needed to go out and do a lot of research to reach the understandings that I have today.
I want to make perfectly clear that I am all for professional dental care and I acknowledge that it is needed. When it comes to your gum health, please see a periodontist.
Now, I’m not here to bash any products, but if you just bought that [product name withheld], please consider taking it back. You know what kind of oral irrigator I recommend already ( you can see it in the sidebar). It is the only one I recommend and I’ll tell you why: It is the one that worked for me. In addition, there are professional studies that show it’s effectiveness (2 that I know of) One is described here. Because of my personal experience and these two studies, I only believe in the Hydro Floss. I can’t say that others don’t work because I haven’t tried them, but I do know what helped me and what the scientific literature says about the Hydro Floss and how it does better than irrigators that don’t use its patented technology. The others may work to reduce plaque too, but I’m skeptical that they are as good as a Hydro Floss at reducing plaque between office visits.
However, based on what you have said, and again I haven’t seen your mouth, you’ll want to read the information in my book and consider asking your periodontist about the other things I mention in chapter 3 that can help you.
I suggest reading the first 7 chapters of the book. You can skip the appendix. And I recommend that you read them over and over again until the information completely sets in. This way, you will at least be better informed about what you are facing.
I also suggest reading the Cure Tooth Decay book as well. Because the nutritional information (and information about herbs) in there may be helpful to you as well. You can get both books here. Now, if you want the information in my book immediately, you could choose the e-book. That is available here. Normally, the e-book runs $ 29.99 – which is even more than the cost of the print book on Amazon. But, as a special benefit to you only – contact me and I’ll tell you how to get the e-book at a discount.
Your situation is serious – that is why I stayed home to answer it tonight. There are two action steps for you to follow right now. 1. Go to a periodontist immediately. 2. Purchase these two books Read the gum disease book first and the other second.
Here is another pointer for you. Do not brush hard. The dental plaque is what you are trying to disrupt and that is easy to do. It just has to be done consistently. Brushing hard can cause your gum tissue to recede further – especially if it is in a diseased state.
I wish you the best of luck and you should have further questions as you move further – I expect that you will if you are truly working to solve this problem. Feel free to come to this site and submit any future questions you might have.
In addition, may I suggest that you sign up for updates from me as well? That way you can get future information from me that may aid your understanding of what you have read about in the book as well as other health and wellness information too.
BTW – to answer you last question. My pockets were mostly 4s with a few 5s. There were no sixes or beyond. Now, my gums are really healthy, but I am stuck with the recession. There isn’t much that dentistry currently believes in that can make the recession go away except for gum grafts and bone implants in some cases – I’m hoping that will change in the future. You might see a SLIGHT reduction in the recession if you get your gum tissue healthy. However, you can stop the recession from getting worse – but you must do the serious work to make it happen.
On the other hand, I do believe in miracles and I believe everyone should…. That is tempered with the knowledge that you should do everything you can and not be tempted to wait on a miracle.
Good luck Stephanie, I believe you can do it. Please come back here to keep us posted on your progress.
Sincerely,
David Snape
Author: What You Should Know about Gum Disease
* Please be advised that this post is for information purposes only and does not intend to render advice, diagnosis or treatment on any health condition. Only your licensed doctor or dentist can give advice, diagnosis and render treatment. The USFDA has not evaluated any statements about any products found on this site.
Tags: cure periodontal disease, gingivitis, gum bleeding, Gum Disease, gum recession, gum tissue, periodontal disease
Stephanie & David,
I am a dental hygienist and educated extensively in periodontics.
My first question is to David. Because I just happened upon this webpage and I am not sure of who you are or your credentials, I will respond only out of concern for Stephanie and respect for you trying to give advice to someone desperately seeking answers.
Stephanie, you like many patients, have had an incredible amount of information presented to you and it can be confusing. To make matters worse, the information has been either interpreted incorrectly or presented to you incorrectly. I will respond to just what you have posted here and try to clarify the best I can for you and what I think you are trying to convey.
First, You asked. Is there a cure?
What needs clarification here is for what. Periodontal Disease or Periodontitis.
Periodontal Disease is a loss of:
1. Alveolar bone (the bone surrounding your teeth),
2. The Periodontal Ligament (your teeth have a ligament that surrounds them, holds them in the bone socket and provides absorption to biting forces. In other words the teeth are not “fused” to the bone in normal situations.
3. Gingival fibers and attachment apparatus: These are all the fibers that attach the gum tissue to the bone and circumfrentially the gum tissue surrounding the teeth.
Any anatomical body structure that has the suffix “itis” means inflammation of that structure. (example tonsilitis, appendicitis etc..)
Thus Periodontitis is an inflammation (infection) in part or all those periodontal structures (mentioned above) caused from a bacterial origin (plaque). If part of those structures are inflammed, it can be a less serious state of gingivitis. If all those structures are inflamed/infected resulting in loss of bone at any site around a tooth or teeth, it is periodontitis.
Now, Periodonatal disease generally is more the FACT that there is bone loss. Understanding then that it is not a matter of “curing” the condition of bone that is lost and may I add that in some cases the type of bone loss (how the bone has degraded) can and should be considered for bone grafting by a periodontist. There are some instances that the bone can be grafted and reversed. Generally if the condition has happened over time, the type of boney architecture that results is not usually graftable.
What is curable?
PERIODONTITIS is curable in nearly all cases by eliminating the inflammation of infectious bacteria at all depths of the gum pocket and tooth surfaces involved and this is where you can find yourself confused and mislead by what David is explaining in his case. You can cure inflammation and thus prevent any more bone loss in most all situations. That is in essence the curable part of periodontitis.
There are many times, that I see patient(s) that have a 4-5mm pockets and spend a great deal of time cleaning those pockets out for them at their routine cleaning appointment with the understanding that they are going to have to follow all my instructions and demonstrations for homecare and come back and see me in 3 months. A 5mm pocket is in most all circumstances slight-mod loss of bone and I inform them that this is most likely the case. The question is whether it is SL or Sl-Mod. The reason why I give the condition a chance to resolve is because, if there is a combination of inflammation (pseudopocketing) or (false pocketing due to swollen gums and not loss of bone), we should see improvement in 3 months if they do what I recommend. I use this rationale because if they do get scaling and root planing (SRP- Deep Cleanings), I would have them on a 3mo (Supportive Periodontal Therapy recall anyway). This is to prevent areas from getting re-infected because of a lapse in home care or to determine the thoroughness of the treatment (SRP) itself. So, it usually makes sense to my patients that if the routine cleaning was thorough enough and their homecare is thorough enough and 3 months would be a short enough period of time to prevent re-infection, the pocket should resolve. In other words, I do my best (given the limitations of a routine cleaning appoint (Pophy), the patient does their best and we will both see the results. If the pockets depths are still present and there is bleeding upon probing from bacteria still attached to the deeper structures (usually the sides of the tooth root surface), then we discuss treatment such as scaling and root planing. In some cases, I have had a 5 mm pocket depth resolve to a 4mm with no signs of inflammation or bleeding on probing. In some cases, I will watch those areas and monitor them and KEEP THE PATIENT ON A 3-4 month recall for awhile so they don’t fall off the wagon with their homecare. In other cases, there is no resolve and continued inflammation (infection) and we discuss what I previously explained to them as DEEP CLEANING or SRP treatment.
But don’t misunderstand me, SRP treatment is absolutely the first line of treatment even referred to as Phase I therapy and if you do go to a periodontist it is almost certain that they will have a hygienist do SRP as the first course of treatment.
See what I think is missing here and to be fair to David is what are the pocket depths? Are we talking 4-5mm sl-mod or 6 mm (millimeters) or greater, which are not going to resolve with any guru device or self-therapy. I have treated patients for more than 10 years and do periodontal treatment (SRP’s) routinely, a 6mm pocket is not going to resolve without treatment
Another question:
Did your dentist or hygienist do your Deep Cleaning? I am just curious about that. Usually, most dentist’s forte is not in periodontal treatment. They aren’t usually trained as extensively as their hygienists in scaling techniques and periodontal knowledge. They usually refer them to their hygienists for treatment.
Now, in your case and what you should do.
Yes, I do agree with David, ask your dentist for a referral to a periodontist. If he beats around the bush, just set yourself up an appointment with one. If he acts hesitant about giving you one (after he has already carried out phase I treatment or SRP’s) then I would suspect something’s up. Many times they won’t refer right away and they want to carry out Phase I because if they let the periodontist’s hygienists do it, it is money out of their own pocket. They get cranky about that. However, many of them do not realize when they are in over their heads either. So, get the referral. What you have had done thus far is not working and that is OK to find that out at this point. No harm done. if anything, the process of bone loss has been slowed way down with the treatment made thus far and your homecare efforts..
Additionally,
-Being as young as you are, let’s consider the following:
Slight to Moderate bone loss at your age with inconsistent or nonexistent inbetween the teeth care (flossing), is conceivable.
-Moderate to advanced would make me pause and question your health history information and take a hard look at the condition of your restorations. If there are overhanging margins on crowns or fillings that are deep into the gums, it is not good and can explain the persistent puffiness in your gum tissues. Grossly overcontoured restorations can most certainly protect bacteria from even the most meticulous home care efforts (brushing, flossing etc..) and harbor more long term forms of plaque bacteria that put more pressure on the bone integrity.
David,
As far as having a relative that received SRP treatment and the pocketing had been perceived to have worsened, that would be a perception and not a reality. If the condition worsened, it would have to be due to other factors and as far as your success David in preventing further bone loss—congratulations. However, remember that you do have periodontal disease. Maybe not periodontitis, but stable periodontal disease. I certainly would be asking my hygienist, what my pocket depths are every time I got my cleaning.
Well I hope this helped a bit. I know it is long, but like David, I felt compelled to respond and take as much time as needed.
A. Thomas Bozung RDH