Picture this: You’ve just woken up in the morning, and you head to the bathroom to brush your teeth. After giving yourself a quick smile in the mirror before starting your day, you notice something unusual—your teeth look ‘longer’ than they used to.
So, what gives?
The problem likely isn’t with your teeth—but your gums. Your teeth didn’t magically grow overnight, but with time and poor oral health care, your gums can recede, exposing more of your tooth and causing it/them to appear longer.
In addition to teeth looking longer than usual, other signs of gum recession include:
· Swollen, bright colored gums
· Bleeding gums
· Visible tooth root
Gum Recession and Periodontal Disease
Severe gum recession can lead to something known as periodontal disease, which is caused by a buildup of plaque that leads to inflammation and bleeding gums. As this happens, deep gum pockets form and bacteria gets trapped—making it very hard to clean with a regular toothbrush. Then the cycle continues—the trapped bacteria causes even more problems with your gums, like recession.
Patients who use tobacco, have diabetes and those who don’t brush and floss each day are at a higher risk for developing periodontal disease.
We Can Help
The best way to fight gum recession and periodontal disease? Keeping a regular visit schedule with us that includes a cleaning every six months and booking a visit as soon as you sense something isn’t right with your oral health. That way, we can stop periodontal disease in its tracks, before it becomes a more serious (and costly!) problem for you.
A treatment known as scaling and root planing (essentially, a “deep clean”) is often recommended for mild to moderate cases of periodontal disease. For more severe cases, gum graft surgery may be required—if your gums continue to recede, you risk losing your teeth as they help to keep them solid and in place!
If it’s time for you to be seen in our practice, we invite you to book a visit today. As a reminder, we’re practicing socially-distant protocols and keeping our practice as clean and sanitary as possible to help keep our patients healthy and happy.
We can’t wait to see you in the practice soon.