Good Ongoing Gum Health - Important And Achievable

Taking just a few small steps can help you to avoid gum disease.

As we have mentioned in previous blogs, having healthy gums is essential for anyone wishing to retain their natural teeth.

Whilst you may clean the enamel of the teeth well, avoiding decay; if you fail to keep your gums healthy, you are at risk of losing your teeth through long term damage to the bone structure which retains them.

Typically all that is needed to keep your gums in good health is regular, ongoing care, both at home, and at our Greenwich dental practice.

Care starts at home

Whilst regular care from the hygienist at the Confidental Clinic is essential to help keep your gums in good health (more of that later), the day-to-day care you undertake at home is also key. This falls into two categories; preventative and daily care.

Preventative - Whilst bacteria are always present in our mouth and can be maintained at a healthy level through regular cleaning, there are a few factors which lead to the level running out of control. Smokers, especially, run a higher risk of having gum disease than non smokers. Regular drinking too may increase the risk. Whether you drink and smoke or not though, it is important to make sure that you keep well hydrated. Bacteria thrive in a warm, dry environment such as a dry mouth, and staying hydrated helps to minimise that risk.

Care - This is the ‘nuts and bolts’ of good home care, the essential of which is brushing your teeth. Hopefully, you already do this regularly. If so, make sure to check that your brush is no more than three months old, and that, when you brush, you angle the brush so that it can reach under the gumline where much bacteria collects. We also strongly encourage patients to floss between their teeth. This is actually quite easy to do once you have got used to it and will remove a lot of food debris and bacteria from between the teeth where many problems originate.

Dental hygienist

Along with your daily care, you should also see our dental hygienist at least twice a year. For diabetic patients, you may need to do this more often due to a heightened risk of gum disease.

A visit to the hygienist is nothing to be feared, and indeed, some of our Greenwich dental patients do so more regularly than the usual six months due to the many benefits that it offers. The hygienist will discuss with you how you look after your gums and may suggest improvements that you can make. They will also give your teeth and gums a scale and polish. This is an entirely non invasive procedure which removes hardened bacteria and deposits (tartar) from the teeth and gumline. Your teeth will then be thoroughly cleaned using a high speed brush which not only removes bacteria from the teeth, but some degree of surface staining too. Although not as powerful as our cosmetic teeth whitening procedure, this is a useful way of keeping your teeth whiter than they would otherwise be.

As you can see, having a healthy set of gums is not difficult, or uncomfortable. If you would like to make sure that your gums are in great shape, we recommend that you make an appointment with Holly or Leanne, the dental hygienists at the Confidental Clinic in Greenwich.

Please call us today on 020 8858 1422.