Gum Disease Treatment and Periodontal Care

For good oral health, you need to consider more than just your teeth; your gums and bones support your teeth and play an important role to your overall oral health. Periodontal care focuses on maintaining the health of your gums and bones in your mouth. The goal is to prevent or eradicate infections in the gums, protect the roots of the teeth, and control the inflammation of the gums. The periodontal team at Lex Smiles is well equipped to provide world class gum disease treatments and other periodontal care to ensure that your gums and bones are healthy.

Recognizing and Treating Gum Disease

Many people are living with gum disease, also known as periodontal disease, and are not aware of it. The first signs of gum disease are red, swollen, and bleeding gums. As the infection progresses and gets deeper into your gums, you may also experience chronic bad breath, receding gums, tooth sensitivity, increasing pain while chewing, and loose teeth. If left untreated, periodontal disease can lead to the loss of bone and eventually tooth loss. Gum disease can also affect your overall health, contributing to heart disease, diabetes, respiratory issues, and other serious illnesses.

Thanks to the many advanced gum treatments our periodontists offer, We can help you control and even reverse the effects of periodontal disease. In early stages, gum disease treatment may be fairly simple. In more progressive stages, treatments become more involved. Here are some of the periodontal treatments we offer at Lex Smiles:

Root planing and scaling
Soft tissue grafting
Bone grafting
LANAP: Laser Assisted New Attachment Procedure

At Your Periodontal Appointment

During your first appointment, one of our doctors will thoroughly evaluate the condition of your periodontal health by testing the depth of the “pockets” in your gums and checking for any bone loss or other potential complications. After the examination, we will work with you to implement the ideal treatments to eliminate bacteria and promote tissue regeneration.
Once we identify a problem, it is critical to begin proper treatment of your gums quickly, so as to avoid any further damage from the infection. The sooner we take action to eradicate the bacteria, the easier the treatment process will be. Mild cases can usually be controlled with a deep cleaning below the gum line called a root planing and scaling.

Where significant tissue loss has occurred, soft tissue grafts and bone grafts may be needed to maintain support of your teeth. Some patients will be candidates for the laser gum treatment called LANAP, A laser assisted surgical approach to treating advanced cases of gum disease. In cases where teeth have been lost or need to be extracted, we can replace them with functional and attractive dental implants.