A visit to the dentist can be full of a lot of good information especially regarding how to care for your gums. It can be also quite overwheling when you are informed that the health of your gums is not what you thought it was. My first recommendation is don't panic!

Generally speaking gum disease progresses slowly (there are some rare exceptions) so you do have time to digest all the information presented and to decide what to do.

Treatment will depend on the severity of your gum disease as you would expect. Early gum disease often requires very little professional treatment at all and will likely involve getting you back on schedule with your professional hygiene maintenance appointments and instructions for home care. As stated previouly, home care is most ofter the key in theses cases.

By maintaining great oral hygiene you will help keep your teeth and gums health. If you do find that your gums are bleeding or if it has been a while since you have had you teeth and gums checked it would be a good idea to visit your dentist.

Your dentist will check your teeth and gums and let you know what is happening that you may not be able to see. Your dentist will discuss with your the status of your gums and this can range from healthy to mild/moderate gum disease right up to severe periodontal disease when the infection has spread to the bone holding the teeth. Next we will talk about what this all means.

As I eluded to in my last post, flossing your teeth is the most effective method to avoid early gum disease. No matter how often you brush your teeth, it is the cleaing of and eliminating the bacteria between your teeth that realy makes the differece. You need to continue brushing, but brushing alone is most often not enough.

Flossing is tough and a hard habit to get into. My suggestion is to start with your upper front teeth only. They are easy to access and easy to floss. Do this for a week or a month until you feel confident about it. Then add one or two teeth at time as you become comfortable. This allows you to figure out how to manipulate the floss aroud one/two teeth at a time and avoid the frustration that comes if you try to do your whole mouth in the beginning. Before long you will be flossing your whole mouth in approximately one minute.

If you are at home wondering if you may have early gum disease the best test is to pick up some dental floss. Try flossing your teeth. If there is any bleeding especially around your back teeth you likely have early gum disease or even more gum disease. If you are already flossing this test will not work and your gums are likely already quite healthy. If you think you may have gum disease see your dentist as soon as possible to discuss treatment opions.

Treatment can often be very simple and cost effective. Most of the success in treating gum disease come from patients help with their own home care.

Everyday and several times each day adult patients come into dental offices with a condition called early gum disease. Even worse, some patients do not even make it to a dental office. The reason is that early gum disease (and sometimes more severe gum disease) is a little like diabetes or high blood pressure in that you can have for quite a while and not even know it.

There is no pain, no tooth sensitivity and even no bleeding when brushing. So this can go on for years and slowly get worse. Believe it or not this is the first step towards tooth loss if not addressed. If the thought loosing teeth concerns you it is important that you address this condition and be sure it is treated if present.

Your consultation and consent process are complete and you and your dentist have established your treatment goal. Cavities and other disease conditions such as abscessed teeth or gum infections have been treated. You are now ready to begin work on your new smile.

There are many ways to remake a smile as we have discussed previously especially if comprehesive treatment does not fit in your budget. For the sake of argument lets assume that to give your the smile that you have always dreamed about you need to restore your 10 upper front teeth.

Your first appointment will be to shape your teeth so that temporary restorations can be placed tp give you an opportunity to study the size, shape, speech and feel of your new teeth. Once your are happy with the temporary teeth an impression is made of the temporaries so they can be closely duplicted for your permanent restorations.


You will return for fitting and insertion of your permanent restorations which will be tried in place. Everything should look and feel similar to your temporaries and will be placed in your mouth with a strong cement. Your new smile is now complete. You will need to return a short while after to confirm the bite is ideal. Now you can enjoy your new smile!!!