Periodontal Disease

Periodontal disease is the disease of the gum tissue and bone supporting the teeth holding the teeth in. What causes it is a combination of bacteria, and that bacteria thrives on food that's left in the mouth, that's not cleaned out, that gets underneath the gums, hardens onto the teeth, and creates a living environment for that bacteria to thrive. It makes the gums red, puffy. They'll bleed when you brush them or touch them. When that gum tissue has been diseased for a prolonged period of time, the bone that holds the tooth in starts to go away, and food gets down deeper. It gets the deeper tissue infected, and more bone goes away. Slowly, the bone goes all the way away, and the teeth become mobile and can fall out, is the end result of periodontal disease. There's multiple types of periodontal therapy. Depending on the severity of the disease, the simple solution would be to clean the hardened food debris, calculus, off the teeth and go through with the laser to eliminate the bacteria that are causing the disease. The next step would be to do gum surgery if the disease has progressed further. At our office, we do a more modern technique with a laser that's less invasive, and we just selectively remove the tiniest layer of diseased tissue, and we stimulate new bone growth and new tissue attachment with the laser. Most patients don't need surgery. The sooner you stop the disease, the less likely you are that you'll need surgery. The recovery time with the noninvasive laser gum surgery is very minimal. A week to two weeks. Most people feel very little discomfort at all. The regeneration of bone tissue and gum tissue does occur over the next year from the surgery, so you'll get added health benefits throughout the next year from the procedure.