periodontal disease?

Answer 1

What's your question? Are you asking what it is or something?
It's like gingivitis except worse.

Answer 2

Yes. Bacterial plaque on your teeth and gums particularly on the gum line produce toxins that cause your gums to recede and peridontal pockets to appear. More bacteria get into these pockets and eventually the bone supporting your teeth becomes infected too. When this happens your teeth loosen and fall out.

I was silly enough to go for ten years without seeing a dentist. After years of red inflammed gums and bad breath at 28 years old my gums suddenly receded dramatically. I was shocked by this especially when I found out that my granddad had lost all his teeth to gum disease at 30!!

I went to a dentist and he reassured me that it was not as bad as I feared. My gums had receded a little but there was no evidence of real peridontal disease yet. I bought myself a phillips sonicare electric toothbrush and I must say it was one of the best things I've ever bought. I have an elite model version now and it is superb. My gums firmed up and began to look pink instead of red. My breath freshened up and my teeth are cleaner than ever.

My dental hygienist says I have excellent gums now.

I can't praise the sonicare toothbrush enough. Manual toothbrushes are hopeless in comparison. Having said that my father who is 80 years old still has all his own teeth and he has always used a manual toothbrush....he uses both hands to brush his teeth and maybe that's the trick? All I know is that I would strongly recommend that people who are worried about peridontal disease get a sonicare toothbrush.

As far as toothpastes are concerned I don't personally trust the Colgate Total antibacterial toothpaste with it's Triclosan ingredient. Triclosan is actually a pesticide and I wonder if it actually kills of good bacteria and encourages the development of more toxic super resistant kinds in the long term.

I use an expensive toothpaste called Blanx which claims to kill off only the bad bacteria in your mouth. I do like it alot but it's a bit pricey at the moment. My second favourite toothpaste is old fashioned mentadent SR (with zinc citrate as the anti-bac). It's very cheap but kills off the good bacteria as much as the bad. Zinc citrate is not as hardcore as Triclosan so I'm more comfortable with it.

You can tell that I've been very concerned about my oral health over the past few years and I've done my research. GOOD LUCK with your teeth and gums.

Answer 3

Periodontitis, or Pyorrhea, is a disease involving inflammation of the gums (gingiva), often persisting unnoticed for years or decades in a patient, that results in loss of bone around teeth. This differs from gingivitis, where there is inflammation of the gingiva but without bone loss; it is the loss of bone around the teeth that differentiates between these two oral inflammatory diseases.

Symptoms
Symptoms may include the following:

occasional redness or bleeding of gums while brushing teeth, using dental floss or biting into hard food (e.g. apples)
occasional gum swellings that recur
halitosis or bad breath
persistent bad taste in the mouth
recession of gums resulting in apparent lengthening of teeth. This may also be caused by heavy handed brushing using a hard tooth brush.
pockets between the teeth and the gums (Pockets are sites where the jaw bone has been destroyed gradually or by repeated swellings).
loose shaky teeth in later stages
Patients should realize that the gingival inflammation and bone destruction are largely painless. Hence people may wrongly assume that painless bleeding after teeth cleaning is unimportant, although this may be a symptom of periodontitis progressing in that patient.

Prevention
Daily oral hygiene measures to prevent periodontal disease include:

brushing properly on a regular basis (2 times a day), with the patient attempting to direct the toothbrush bristles underneath the gum-line, so as to help disrupt the bacterial and plaque growth that may occur there.
flossing daily and using interdental brushes if there is sufficient space between teeth and behind the last tooth in each quarter.
using an antiseptic mouthwash. Chlorhexidine gluconate based mouthwash or Hydrogen Peroxide in combination with careful oral hygiene may cure gingivitis, although they cannot reverse any bone loss due to periodontitis. (Alcohol based mouthwashes may aggravate the condition).
regular dental check-ups and professional teeth cleaning as required. Dental check-ups serve to monitor the person's oral hygiene methods and levels of bone around teeth, identify any early signs of periodontitis, and monitor if it has responded to treatment.

Treatment of established disease
If good oral hygiene is not yet already undertaken daily by the patient, then twice daily brushing with daily flossing, mouthwashing and use of an interdental brush needs to be started.

A dental hygienist or a Periodontist can use professional scraping instruments, such as scalers and currettes to remove bacterial plaque and calculus (formerly referred to as tarter) around teeth and below the gum-line. There are devices that use a powerful ultra-sonic vibration and irrigation system to break up the bacterial plaque and calculus.

It is difficult to induce the body to repair bone that has been destroyed due to periodontitis. Much depends on exactly how much bone was lost and the architectural configuration of the remaining bone. Vertical defects are those instances of bone loss where the height of the bone remains somewhat constant except in the localized area where there is a steep, almost vertical drop. Horizontal defects are those instances of more generalized bone loss, resulting in anywhere from mild to severe loss of initial bone height. Sometimes bone grafting surgery may be tried, but this has mixed success. Bone grafts are more reliable in instances of vertical defects, where there might be a sufficient "hole" within which to place the added bone. Horizontal defects are rarely if ever able to be grafted properly, as there is nowhere to secure the bone.

Dentists sometimes attempt to treat patients with periodontitis by placing tiny wafers dispensing antibiotics underneath the gumline in affected areas. However, the general scientific consensus is that antibiotic treatment is of minimal value in treating bone loss due to periodontitis. It may help to recover about one millimeter of bone, but it is questionable if this is of significant therepeutic value.

Answer 4

periodontitis i suppose, do you need a patient?