Every time you visit your dentist, your hygienist tells you to brush and floss every day. We want you to keep your teeth and gums healthy. Why is it so important to keep your gums healthy? What’s so important about the tissue around your teeth?
What Your Gums Do for You
Your gums provide support and protection for the roots of your teeth. They contain the vessels that deliver blood to the teeth and carry away waste products. Gums act as anchors for your lips and tongue and form a base for the interior of your mouth.
Keeping these overlooked tissues healthy is as important as keeping the rest of you healthy. It can be easy to forget your gums because it seems like brushing your teeth should get the gums too. Unless you are brushing properly, you may be missing some important areas and could even be making things worse.
Gum Disease and Periodontitis
Your teeth sit in sockets in your jaw, and the gums grow up around the teeth. This forms little pockets of gum around each tooth. Unless you are careful to brush around each tooth, food and debris can remain in these little pockets and decay. This causes cavities in your teeth and irritates the gums. Over time, it can lead to infection in the gum itself.
As gum disease progresses, your gums may appear red and swollen and be sensitive to the touch. You may notice pain when you chew. You might see blood when you brush your teeth or floss. In the worst cases, your gums may begin to recede from your teeth, and your teeth will become loose. At this point, you have periodontitis, a serious gum disease.
What We Can Do
At Babylon Dental Care, we want to keep you from getting any serious gum disease. Our skilled hygienists, like Francesca Oddo, will make sure your teeth and gums are in good shape when you visit us. She knows what to look for and will carry out one or more of these treatments to help prevent gum disease.
- Probing. Before cleaning, she needs to check where any sensitive locations are on the tooth or gums. This also helps determine whether the gums have begun to recede.
- Scaling. Scraping tartar and plaque deposits from above and below the gumline is necessary to ensure nothing remains to irritate the gums. Once all debris has been removed, the gums will begin to heal.
- Irrigation with an antibacterial solution removes any remaining bacteria that might remain.
- Tooth cleaning will ensure that all remaining surfaces are free of plaque and tartar.
Francesca will finish with a complete flossing and rinsing to make sure your mouth is completely clean. It’s up to you to keep it that way.
Schedule Your Next Appointment
If you haven’t been to see us in the past six months, it’s time to schedule your appointment for a routine cleaning and x-rays to make sure your teeth and gums are in good condition. We’ll check for any signs of gum disease and other problems. Call Babylon Dental Care today at (631) 983-6665.
