Gum Disease Treatment

Treating Gum Disease at Ethicare Dental

At Ethicare Dental, we have a well defined protocol for preventing and treating gum disease, formulated in coordination with our general dentists, hygienists and periodontal consultant specialist.

We strive to protect your natural teeth and keep you in good dental health, and to do this we also need to focus on your gums. 

Thorough assessment and treatment

At your initial examination and assessment we will chart and monitor the condition of your gums. As well as looking for things like bleeding, inflammation, recession and pain, we use a scoring system called the CPITN (Community Periodontal Index of Treatment Needs). This scores various sections of your mouth between 0 and 4, 0 meaning perfect health and 4 meaning there is more severe bone loss. As soon as you get a CPITN score of 4 this indicates that more detailed charting is required and we record the bone loss (pocketing) at 6 points around each tooth.

If you do have pocketing or bone loss, this area will require special attention. Our hygienist will need to thoroughly clean the area, possibly using local anaesthetic. Your dentist will review again 2-3 months later to see if the pocketing has reduced.

If the pocket is disappearing, you are not growing new bone back but this means a healthy environment has been created and indicates success. If the pocketing has not responded then the area will need to be cleaned thoroughly again by our hygienist and reviewed once more 2-3 months later. If at this point the pocket has not responded to standard therapy, despite our best efforts and a good standard of oral hygiene, you will be offered a referral to our periodontal specialist. 

Specialist Gum treatment

If you consider your case particularly severe or you have been referred by your own practitioner, you can see our periodontal specialist straight away. Indeed, there are times where immediate referral to a periodontal specialist is indicated.

The reason why one particular area of the mouth does not respond is often unclear. In some cases, the anatomy of the roots or the location in your mouth means the bacteria or tartar is more difficult to remove. Our periodontal specialist is well practised in carrying out more complex procedures to eliminate periodontal pockets and regenerate bone.

It is important to realise that once you have suffered from periodontal disease it is something that you have the potential to experience again. Indeed many of the problems are episodic and cumulative. It will require more frequent hygiene appointments (3-4 monthly) and a high standard of oral hygiene is necessary to prevent problems.