Gum Disease is Preventable BUT……

Gum Disease is Preventable

The thing about dentistry is people avoid it until they suffer from pain.  Then they’re the first to ring up and want an urgent appointment.  Such sudden and severe pain happens with teeth suffering from dental decay, dental abscesses and it happens when the dreaded wisdom teeth start to erupt or get infected.  But it’s a funny thing; gum disease is preventable but patients with gum disease don’t generally suffer from pain until it’s getting too late to do anything to help.  By the time they are in pain, they have gum abscesses and acute infection and so much bone loss that there is no alternative to multiple tooth extractions.

As a Dentist, I want to make sure patients are all warned about gum disease because I know it is an entirely preventable disease.  Yes, that’s right, ENTIRELY PREVENTABLE!  Last month, I mentioned the importance of the home cleaning and of course the way to achieve this is to see your dental hygienist and get professional advice, and professional cleaning.

It is true that the vast majority of gum disease occurs in a minority of the population and this supports the view that it is at least partly a genetically influenced condition.   So often we find our gum disease patients have a family history of parents, uncles, aunts or grandparents who lost their teeth prematurely.  But even with the genetic susceptibility you can achieve a healthy set of gums to compliment your lovely white teeth.

Smokers Are More Prone to Gum Disease

The other most important influencing factor that can make you more prone to gum disease is smoking.  This is not new information.  Since the early 1980’s research shows us that smokers have greater degrees of dental disease and less teeth.

Now further medical research has reported in numerous articles the proven link between poor oral health with gum disease and general medical health including higher incidence of Stroke, Coronary artery disease, diabetes, premature birth and low birth weight babies.

So if you want to ensure that you don’t lose teeth due to gum disease you need theservices of an experienced dental hygienist, correct cleaning techniques, be a non-smoker and have your dentist examine your gums carefully looking for gum inflammation and pockets at each dental examination because gum disease is preventable.

contact the friendly team at NQ Surgical Dentistry today on (07) 4725 1656 or call in to see us at 183 Kings Rd, Pimlico QLD 4812

For more information: Dental Hygiene Therapy