Preventing Periodontal (gum) disease is the foundation for your smile. Fresh breath confidence is the other huge benefit of all hygiene therapies.

 

Our dental hygienists are trained to provide you thorough, comprehensive, customized hygiene therapy and the knowledge of how to maintain this.  This is important for your lifelong oral health, as well as you physical health.

 

Periodontal Disease

This is a low grade inflammatory condition for many adults. Our bodies respond to plaque and tartar that we may miss cleaning from around our teeth. Unfairly, some people produce more inflammation than others and will have more susceptibility to problems. Severe inflammation leads to gums and supporting bone around the teeth being destroyed. This means in simple terms: loose teeth!

 

Signs of gum disease include bleeding from gums on cleaning, swollen, red areas, gums receding, or a bad taste. Gum disease can however not give you any pain unless it is really advanced. At this stage there can be movement, loosening or even tooth loss. Periodontal disease is the biggest cause of tooth loss in adults. Smoking is also a major risk factor in gum problems.

 

Prevention is the key and for many adults,  gum health can be maintained with  proper home care which includes tooth brushing twice daily and use of floss or products for between the teeth. We supplement this with regular 6 monthly hygiene visits. Your periodontal therapist will be able to reach all those hard to reach areas that we call pockets.

 

Healthy gums are tightly attached to each tooth and have little or no gaps or pockets. Where the gums are less healthy and inflamed , these pockets are deeper and harder to clean by oneself. These areas harbor mouth bacteria that our bodies react to.

 

If it is a long time since you have had professional gum care or have specific problems then we can tailor treatments to your needs. First line treatment involves meticulous cleaning of plaque and the hard tartar from all areas around the teeth. Excellent home care is needed. We will give our most up-to-date advice on this and only advise products that we use ourselves.