How to cure gingivitis
In almost all cases, gingivitis, or infection of the gums, is caused by poor hygiene of the teeth and gums. Although it is possible to cure gingivitis at home, it is always best to consult a dentist for a professional diagnosis and to receive the most appropriate treatment. You can avoid gingivitis by brushing your teeth, using dental floss, gargle and irrigating your mouth.
Treating Gingivitis with Advice Recommended by the Doctors
Recognize the symptoms of gingivitis. Gingivitis can progress in its early stages with few visible symptoms. When gingivitis worsens and becomes a periodontitis, the symptoms usually only:
- Bleeding of the gums after tooth cleaning.
- Painful, swollen and reddened gums.
- Persistent bad breath (halitosis).
- Line of the gums that withdraws.
- Deep spaces between teeth and gums, which cause tooth instability.
Understand how plaque causes problems. Food trapped under the gums is combined with bacteria to create plaque, a toxic compound that irritates the gums and makes them bleed.
- This colorless film of sticky material contains food particles, batteries and saliva, and attaches to the teeth above and below the gum line, promoting gum disease and tooth deterioration. The plaque hardens and becomes tartar in just 24 hours. At that point the damage is done – only a dentist can remove the tartar. Every day this contaminated crust grows and inflames the gums.
- For this reason, you must remove plaque every day to avoid gum disease. Brushing only your teeth with a toothbrush is not enough to remove plaque.
Learn about non-surgical options. Most gingivitis treatments involve a dentist, although keeping the problem under control is just as important. If you have light gingivitis, consider these non-surgical treatments:
- Professional cleaning. Your dentist may advise you to support a professional cleaning of teeth and gums twice a year if you tend to suffer from gingivitis. The dentist who practices the procedure will remove plaques and tartar under and over the gum line.
- Root scaling and leveling. Like professional cleansing, this method is administered with the use of a local anesthetic. The patient’s plaque and tartar are removed, and the rough spots are flattened. This procedure is performed when the dentist determines that plaque and tartar below the gum line must be removed.
Learn about surgical dental options. Advanced gingivitis or periodontitis may need to be addressed with dental surgery. These interventions include:
- Surgery of the flaps and reduction of pockets. This surgery reduces the space between the gums and the teeth by lifting the parts of the gum in contact with the tooth, removing plaque and tartar, and repositioning the gingiva tightly against the tooth.
- Regeneration of tissues. If the bone that supports the tooth has been completely eroded by gingivitis, this procedure will help you to stimulate tissue and bone regeneration by surgically installing a piece of mesh between the bone and the gum. This procedure is usually performed in combination with flap surgery.
Help yourself. Regardless of what happens on the dentist’s chair, it’s what happens in your bathroom that determines the success or failure of the treatment you’ve chosen.
- Note that most home remedies such as creams and ointments treat only the symptoms of inflammation and do not remove the plaque that causes gingivitis.
- Healing and preventing gingivitis require daily plaque control. This generally means that you will have to stop the plate alone. Brushing your teeth every day with a toothbrush is a good start, but it is not enough.
Use oral irrigations. It is an effective treatment against gingivitis that dentists recommend for daily plaque control. An oral irrigator is connected to a tap. The sprinkler will hit the mouth and gums with a pressurized water jet to remove the food particles from the bacteria below the gum line.
- Research from the UNMC College of Dentistry in Lincoln indicates that “when combined with the use of the toothbrush, oral irrigation is an effective alternative to brushing and flossing in the reduction of bleeding, inflammation of the gums and plaque removal.”.
- Some dentists still recommend using dental floss. The point of infection is 4-10 mm deep. The thread will reach at most 2-3 mm.