When you brush or clean in between your teeth, you notice your gums bleed. A little blood is no big deal, right? Wrong! Bleeding is the first sign of gum disease, an infection caused by bacteria. If you wash your hands and they started to bleed, you’d be concerned. The same thing goes for your mouth.
So what’s the difference between the different types of gum disease? What can you do to prevent infection in your mouth? Why does it matter if your mouth is infected? For the answers to these and other questions, read on!
What is gingivitis?
Gingivitis is inflammation of your gums. Signs of inflammation include swelling of the gum tissue, bleeding, tenderness, bad breath and gums that look bright red in color instead of a healthy, pale pink. Inflammation is caused by the body’s response to a bacterial infection, most often caused by poor, or less than thorough, oral hygiene. Breaking it down a bit, the fuzzy feeling you get on your teeth is plaque and is full of live and dead bacteria and its toxic byproducts. As this bacteria eats sugar and starches (that you eat), it excretes acidic toxins. You read that right — bacteria poops acidic toxins in your mouth. These toxins irritate your gums and cause infection. These same toxins are what cause cavities. Yes, cavities (decay) in your teeth are a bacterial infection.
If this bacteria/plaque isn’t thoroughly removed, your body’s immune system can’t fight the infection. However, your body will try and inflammation will occur. Inflammation, especially chronic inflammation, anywhere in your body is not good. It’s worth writing again, inflammation is not good!
What is periodontitis?
The longer bacteria go undisturbed and unremoved by brushing and cleaning in between your teeth, the more virulent or strong the bacteria gets. This can lead to more than gingivitis, which only affects your gums. In your body’s fight against this bacteria, the tissue holding in your teeth (for instance, connective tissue and bone) begins to break down. This tissue cannot grow back. If left unchecked and the infection continues, you are simply left without the supporting structures that hold your teeth in, like bone and ligaments, and your teeth may need to be extracted.
When bone, ligaments, gums and supporting structures of teeth begin to break down, this is periodontitis. When your gums and supporting structures start to break down, a pocket is created around your tooth where a toothbrush, floss or other homecare aides cannot clean as well. When your gums break down it can also cause them to recede, exposing the roots of teeth. The roots of teeth are not covered or protected by strong enamel. They are covered by cementum, which is softer, so tooth sensitivity can become a problem and the exposed roots can decay (get cavities) easier.
Like with gingivitis, dental hygienists have specialized instruments and training to remove this bacteria. Pacific dental group suggest that to go to your dentist immediately if you have any of these conditions.
Source from dentalproductsreport.com
