Periodontal Health & Implants

Periodontal disease is an infection of the tissues that support your teeth. Some of the symptoms include:

• Bad breath that won’t go away
• Red or swollen gums
• Tender or bleeding gums
• Painful chewing
• Loose teeth
• Sensitive teeth

Uncontrolled gum disease can have some serious effects on your health – increasing your risk of heart disease, stroke, and high blood pressure. Pregnant women have a greater incidence of delivering preterm or low birth weight babies, and diabetics have greater difficulty controlling their blood sugar levels. Also, surgeons now require organ transplant patients to have a clean bill of periodontal health before receiving a transplant.

The best way to treat this bacterial disease is with meticulous plaque control and regular professional cleaning.

Together we’ll come up with a personalized treatment plan, taking your specific risk factors into account, including current health status, medications, lifestyle, and past medical history.

Dental implants are a standard part of advanced dentistry and are used to replace missing teeth. They are a safe and aesthetic alternative to traditional crown and bridgework with success rates above 95%. Prosthetic teeth placed onto implants look and feel like natural teeth while offering comfort, security, and confidence.

Dental implants are small titanium screws that are inserted into the jaw bone and act as anchors. After a period of healing, the native bone will integrate around the implant. This is known as osseointegration. Once the implant becomes osseointegrated, a replacement tooth is then secured onto the implant.

When a tooth is required to be extracted, we recommend a ridge preservations procedure to temporarily stabilize and preserve the existing bone. If this procedure is not performed at the time the tooth is removed, the bone can resorb creating insufficient space for a dental implant. This can result in more expensive, invasive, time consuming, and uncomfortable procedures in the future.

In periodontal literature a gummy smile is known as excess gingival display. This can occur for many different reasons but ultimately it results in the display of too much gums during a natural smile. In most cases this is accompanied by short looking teeth. In those cases it’s important to understand that the teeth are not actually short, they are just covered with gum tissue which give the appearance of short teeth. This condition can be corrected by several different methods including crown lengthening, gingivectomy, Botox, orthognathic surgery, or lip repositioning.

Tissue grafting uses a series of procedures to restore or prevent further deterioration of a receding gum line. Recession can be noticed when the root surfaces of a tooth become exposed. This can lead to uneven gum lines, sensitivity of the teeth, or an unaesthetic smile. There are several different types of tissue grafting procedures along with different surgical techniques. Our doctors are familiar and trained to choose the procedure and technique that is right for you.

In some cases tooth eruption can be delayed or incomplete which may change the arch form. When this occurs the tooth can be uncovered to facilitate its eruption into the arch.

Computer guided surgery utilizes 3D imaging to plan the placement of dental implants according to the end result. By visualizing the patient’s anatomy on a three dimensional level prior to the surgery we can plan and envision the final outcome before ever starting. This helps take the guess work out of positioning single or multiple implants during surgery. In most cases a tooth can also be made to replace the missing space that day.

Placing dental implants in the back of the upper jaw has limitations. One of these limitations is the proximity of the maxillary sinus to the jaw bone. When teeth are lost in this region, the bone will resorb or shrink over time. Consequently, the sinus expands to occupy the empty space that was previously filled with bone. This often results in insufficient bone to securely place the dental implant. In order to create space, the sinus must first be lifted to place additional bone for implant stability.

A frenum is a small fold of tissue that connects mobile tissue to a stationary point. There are two main locations for frenula. One is underneath the tongue called the lingual frenum and the other is on underneath the lips called the labial frenula. A strong lingual frenum can impede the movement of the tongue and impair speech. A strong labial frenum can interfere with orthodontic movement or other problems associated the gums.