https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lvmlrReRNfE

Ellerslie Dental | Gum Disease Facts

Hi and welcome back to Ellerslie dental the Tooth Doctor YouTube channel we are so glad that you’ve joined us. This is doctor Peter Yoo from The Tooth Doctor Ellerslie dental office and today we’re going to be talking about gum disease facts. So Martin H Fisher has said that if a patient cannot clean his teeth, no dentists can clean them for him.
So my kids, that’s funny. The CDC says that periodontal disease increases with age and that just over 70% of adults, 65 years and older have periodontal disease.
Okay. Yeah, that was pretty good. I thought I was like 80% and gum disease is one of the biggest threats to dental health with proper oral hygiene and visits to the dentist regularly, it can be prevented.
Of course. Right? Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. So let’s break it down.
What is gum disease exactly? Basically gum disease is when you have a cut on your skin. Okay, well if the area is, injured and your body is trying to clean that area by itself, right. You know, back in the day, we didn’t have Polysporin, we didn’t have sometimes antibiotics. So your body has own mechanism to try and fix that. So gum disease is actually it’s almost like counterintuitive. It’s, it’s when you, how plaque and tartar on your teeth. It’s a foreign object. Okay. Oh, here we go. When you get like a sliver, okay. It hurts what has hurt. Well, cause it’s something that’s not part of your body that’s inside of you and your body’s trying to get rid of it. Right? So when you have a sliver, sometimes it takes a while to go in and pull that piece up. So gum disease, when you have tartar and plaque that gets around your gums, your body doesn’t like it. So is that you’re trying to get rid of it or the only way you can is you have to brush it off, clean up. When your body actually does it starts attacking that area. It actually starts attacking your own gums. And that’s where your gums actually become sensitive and they start to bleed, and they hurt when you touch them. When you’re brushing. At our Ellerslie dental office we help a lot of patients with proper hygiene to prevent this problem.
So you kind of already broken it down, but do you have anything else to add to what causes periodontal disease?
So actually, so periodontal disease is bone disease. Oh, it’s different. Yes, very different. So gum disease is what you see the pink stuff, right? Periodontal disease is actually a disease that affects the bone, that supporting the teeth. So what would cause periodontal disease? Same thing. Plaque Tartar as, as, as it damages the gums. The gums are kind of like, it’s kind of like the Ziploc seal. Okay. So if you don’t take care of it, then the Ziploc seal opens up and then germs and stuff get inside the gums and then they get close to the bone and that’s her periodontal disease. Begins is bacteria gets close to the bone in your body. Again is trying to fight it off. But what that’s when the periodontal disease actually starts. Your body actually starts attacking, damaging the bone around itself. And that’s how you start losing teeth.
What are some symptoms of gum disease? At our Ellerslie dental office we see bleeding, swelling.
Sometimes like you’re going slow start. Um, we’ll call hyperplasia are basically just the gums okay. Uh, sometimes gum disease is evident by redness or swelling?
Sounds like it. What are the biggest dangers of periodontal disease?
The biggest danger is you lose your teeth, right? You’re going to basically not have good support. And then the ultimate result is that teeth will actually start shifting. I’ve seen some people in my Ellerslie dental clinic where they’ve had pregnancies and the teeth have actually kind of grown out of the bone and they have like what would call a snaggle tooth. Okay. Periodontal disease is also related to other health concerns relate to heart disease, diabetes. Your mouth is kind of entrance to, you know, good things and bad things, right? So if you’re not, honestly, you’re not taking care of your mouth, there can lead to other bacteria’s getting into your system, which can affect other parts of your body. Wow.
So who is susceptible to gum disease?
Everyone. Everyone is susceptible to gum disease. If you eat food, you’re susceptible. Okay. Makes Sense.
What are some of the risk factors that increase the likelihood of gum disease?
I see the types of foods that we eat add some nutrition, right? So is there, you know, we talk about having good balanced meals and having proper foods. Uh, sometimes it’s certain types of foods that you eat, you know, sticky foods, things like that that gets stuck between your teeth, increases your likelihood gum disease. And most poorly is the brushing, right? If you don’t clean the plaque off, you’re not brushing properly, twice a day, two minutes a day, then then your gum disease will increase.
Is there anything else that we can do to prevent gum disease with brushing twice a day, two minutes brushing?
All those things that you hear brushing twice a day, you know, it’s very important because the whole idea is that the plaque, when it sits onto your teeth, they actually mature. The bacteria actually matures. For instance, how, how long does it take for a person to become an adult. Usually people say 18, right? 18 years. Yeah. You know, that’s when you’re officially an adult well, bacteria, it’s one day. Okay. So bacteria goes to an adult term in 24 hours. So the reason we at Ellerslie dental recommend that you brush twice a day is to stop them from turning into adult germs and preventing that cycle. Yeah. Right. Wow. Okay. Well that’s why brushing once a day is not going on. Once a day, people get more plaque, uh, more risk of gum disease. You know, I tell patients at the Ellerslie dental Tooth Doctor, if you brush once a day, on average people, that approach, they had to get anywhere from four to like 10 cavities. People that brush twice a day. On average, it’s usually between one and five cavities, right? So it’s, um, it’s much less, uh, from cavities standpoint.
That’s motivating for sure. Is Surgery always necessary in gum disease cases?
You get some cases where you’ll get bone loss, you get some recession, and those are times when surgery is necessary in order to try and fix it. A lot of times, uh, we can do non-invasive. Okay. We don’t have to do actual surgery and any in the sense cutting. But if we go in and do some scaling and deep cleaning, uh, there are times when things will be healed, the bacteria is removed and the bone can heal. I’ve had a number of patients, at the Ellerslie dental tooth doctor clinic, actually some close friends of mine, one close friend had a tooth that was like loose is dangling and he’s like, I don’t want to lose that tooth or I’m going to have to wear a denture or get a bridge or something. Yeah. You know, and so that was a bit scary. And so I told the person, hey, we need to make sure we keep the area clean.
I actually did give him some freezing and we went and did a deep cleaning, clean out the germs that the buildup the tartar and told the Ellerslie dental patient. I’ll see you back in a month. Have a look. I want to see you back in another month, I had a lood and everything had healed back. The bone actually grew back about three or four millimeters. Again, not everybody don’t be like, don’t call me doctor. You said roll back bone. That’s not the case. But that was a situation where everything was healed. The bone actually harden around tooth and the tooth of solid again. Wow. And we did the proper treatment so that that person could keep the tooth and now they don’t have to wear a denture getting implants, things like that.
Yeah. That’s great. Is there any way to reverse periodontal disease?
Come to the two thoughts. Right? Hygiene maintenance is very important. We get patients come in every three months. I had a lady that came to see me about five years ago. She has crowded teeth, she had a bunch of loose teeth and I looked at her, I was like, oh my goodness, like there’s so many loose teeth. I told her, your first option is pull out all your teeth and get top denture bottom denture. And she’s like, no. I don’t want to do that. So I said, okay, well option two is we pull out some of your teeth and then we’ll make you a partial denture. Okay. So you keep some of your teeth. I was thinking, okay, she had about 30 cavities and you probably needs to take out about 10 to 15 of them and then we keep the rest and then make her partial dentures at Ellerslie dental.
And she’s like, okay, I want to do that. She went, so I was like, okay, I’m going to send you to the specialist, the periodontist, and they’re going to check her teeth and they’re going to assess and see what teeth are okay and what do you just are not saveable and we’ll have you come back and then we’ll take all those seats and then make your denture while she went to the specialist, they cleaned your teeth every three months, every three months on the dots. She went, three years later she came back to scene and the prescription that specialists like, okay, I want you to pull out these teeth. And I looked at, I was like, what? So she had all her teeth and a couple of wisdom teeth and the surgeon, the specialist said, just pull out those two wisdom teeth. That’s it. Wow.
And I was like, I don’t believe this. And I looked in her mouth, I was like, what happened? She’s like, I went to a specialist and got my teeth cleaned every three months. I’m like, they’re due diligently and now coming back, all her teeth were strong. The bone that healed properly, none of her teeth are loose and she gets to keep all her teeth. No dentures, no partial dentures. I didn’t know what to say. To me that was a dental miracle. And so there are ways to reverse issues. Uh, even my mother actually I had remember if she actually is passed away, but during the time she had tooth that had deep pockets, eight millimeters, had an infection. You see pus coming. Others are, it’d be graphic here, but it was loose and I was like, oh my goodness, I got to take this tooth out.
But she had, she was doing chemo at the time and so I called specialist and so am I, and what should I do? Or like don’t pull it out, wait until she’s done chemo and then pull it up because that’s when it’s safe for now. Put her on antibiotics, clean the area, shave the tooth, doesn’t hurt for her to bite on. And uh, then we’ll wait three months and then take it out. While I saw her six months later, I forgot, she forgot. So I saw said, oh my goodness, I have to take my mom’s tooth out. You know, I don’t want it going, getting really bad. Well, six months later I looked and I looked the tooth. I was like, what happened? No pocket, no pus. Tooth was solid. It was back to normal. So there are things that can be done to help reverse periodontal disease, gum disease with proper care, hygiene. Wow. So you’re a doctor. That’s, that’s our focus is again at Ellerslie dental, we want to save as many teeth as possible, for as long as possible for as cheap as possible.
I love it. Yeah. Great. That’s a great mission. So thank you so much for joining us and thanks for all those great facts about gum disease and periodontal disease. And don’t forget to subscribe to The Tooth Doctor Ellerslie dental Channel and give us a comment or a like. This was actually a great video. Lots of great information and miracles do happen. Thanks for joining us.