Category: Gum Disease

Gum Disease

Gum disease isn’t just disastrous for your teeth, but also for the rest of your body. Thus, poor dental hygiene leads to a build-up of plaque along the gumline. Your gums become inflamed and bleed. Therefore, if you don’t brush and floss daily, you’ll fall victim to gum disease and tooth decay. Moreover, bleeding gums, bad breath, receding gumline are the common symptoms of dental plaque. If you touch teeth with tongue and get a fuzzy feeling, that’s a dental plaque. In advanced cases, it could appear as a grayish or yellowish coating on teeth. You get cavities even if you brush daily. There are several bacteria ever present in your mouth. They feed on sugar and starch present in food particles, you conveniently leave behind on teeth with bad brushing and poor dental hygiene.

If you ignore it, the plaque on the roots of the teeth under the gums, destroy the bone that supports the tooth. Your tooth falls off.

While gingivitis is inflammation of the gums around the teeth, periodontitis occurs when the bone below the gums gets infected. Periodontium refers to the structures that surround and support teeth such as gum and bone. Periodontology is the study of the supporting structures of the teeth.

Gingivitis starts when food debris mixes with saliva and bacteria which, in turn, forms dental plaque that sticks to the surfaces of teeth. If dental plaque isn’t removed by brushing with toothpaste and flossing, it can become mineralized and form tartar, or calculus. Tartar is very hard, and only professional dental cleaning can remove it.

Both dental plaque and tartar are filled with harmful bacteria, If they aren’t removed from teeth, they will begin to irritate the gums and cause gingivitis. If left untreated, gingivitis will often extend from the gums to the bone and lead to periodontitis. When the underlying bone gets infected, the gums will start to recede away from the teeth and form deep gum pockets. This is called attachment loss. These pockets readily collect plaque and bacteria. Because these pockets are very difficult to keep clean, more bone loss occurs. As periodontal disease progresses into later stages and more bone tissue is lost. The gum pockets are deeper and the teeth may eventually become loose and fall out.

Bad breath, or halitosis, is most frequently associated with gum disease. The oral bacteria that is present in the mouth release chemical gases called volatile sulfur compounds that have a strong odor. Bad breath can also come from the bacterial plaque that builds up on the tongue. When the plaque and tartar are removed from the teeth and tongue with regular brushing, flossing, and professional dental cleanings, the halitosis can be eliminated. This is the easiest way to reverse bad breath, but it can take a while for the mouth odor to completely disappear. A person needs to be consistent and persistent with oral hygiene to reverse the condition.

Other causes of bad breath include partially erupted wisdom teeth, dry mouth, mouth breathing, postnasal drip, infections in the throat or lungs, tonsil stones, smoking, digestive problems, and systemic diseases like diabetes.