Board certified periodontist Dr. Vikas Mittle discusses how to treat periodontal disease to regain the health of your teeth and gums with home maintenance (brushing and flossing) as well as more aggressive treatments such as scaling and root planing (deep cleaning).
How To Treat Receding Gums and Reverse Bone Loss
Hi, my name is Dr. Vik Mittle. I am a Board Certified Periodontist at Shine Dental Associates of the North Shore in Syosset.
Some of the treatments for periodontal disease or even gingivitis include routine cleanings and maintenances every three months and doing your job at home brushing and flossing. Whether it be a Waterpik or the picks out there that you can buy at a local drug store, they’re all very important in terms of maintaining oral hygiene.
Sometimes we need to be a little bit more aggressive in a conservative approach and we do what we call a scaling root planing, commonly known as a deep cleaning. We do it sometimes in one or two visits and really we’re focusing underneath your gums and we try to remove as much of the tartar, plaque and the calculus that’s underneath all your gum tissue. Sometimes, though, the disease is pretty severe and the deep cleaning may not be sufficient enough. Sometimes we have to approach it surgically.
Now, don’t get intimidated by the word ‘surgical.’ We do it right here in this chair. We numb you up the same way you would get a filling, but it’s something where we can physically and visually remove all the plaque and tartar where we gently move the gums aside so we can have better access. We use our own instruments, and we remove all the detectable plaque, tartar, and calculus that’s underneath your gums, which we now move to the side that is attached to your gum tissue which is attached to the roots of your tooth, which we scrape off and remove and then we can grow back some of the bone that you lost from this infection.
We use bone grafting, and we use some biological materials. We use all the stuff that medicine uses in our arsenal in dentistry, and we can grow back some of the bone you did lose from this infection. After that’s all done, we put it back together, and you go to work the same day. No more than Advil or Tylenol for discomfort. Maybe a little bit of sensitivity, nothing crazy, but nothing serious. It’s not surgery where it’s done in a hospital. It’s right here in this office.
Suppose you have any questions in terms of treatment and how we treat periodontal disease. What is your best form of treatment for us to save your teeth or try to prevent some of that infection from spreading to the rest of your body, please call us at the number below, and I’ll be happy to answer all your questions.
