Get off the peri-go-round

Periodontal disease is a common affliction

f you’re over 30, you’re more likely to have periodontal disease (PD) than not. It’s that prevalent! It’s often painless, which means you might miss the signs to get help.

PD can devastate the mouth, causing bleeding gums, permanent bone loss, foul breath, loose teeth, and significant infection. It can ravage your body too, because dangerous PD pathogens cruise through the bloodstream, acting as a root cause of heart attack and stroke, along with significant links to 57 other ailments including dementia, chronic systemic inflammation, and erectile dysfunction.

If you’ve ever been treated for PD, you’ve likely had a traditional form of therapy that includes getting your teeth scraped to remove calcified plaque (scaling and root planing) and making an effort to improve your brushing and flossing.

It usually doesn’t eradicate the infection. You are likely to have recurring episodes over time. Bleeding gums are a tell-tale sign that you are back on the “peri-go-round.”

To treat PD more predictably, we must first identify the specific bug population at work along with the dose (the size of the population). We can send your saliva sample to a microbiology laboratory to identify which of the 11 most dangerous pathogens are present, and their concentrations. That helps specify which antibiotics are most effective against your particular bug pool.

Also critical is your “host immune response” to these bugs. Adopting a whole-body approach means we must evaluate such evidence-based factors as dry mouth, insulin resistance, hyperglycemia, obstructive sleep apnea, tobacco/cannabis, obesity, acid reflux, nutrient deficiencies, underlying fungal infections, chemical/food sensitivities, depression, and more. These are challenging to address but are necessary to achieve long-term PD stability.

Finally, effective home care accounts for about a third of the solution. Ask your hygienist to stain (disclose) your plaque to help you navigate every surface, in every pocket, with the right instruments for your bone loss. This might include a power brush, water jet, pointed brushes, triangular tooth pics, etc, and honing the skills necessary for success.

Digging for root cause and addressing these before the full mouth disinfection (scaling and root planing in the presence of the right antibiotics and chemo-therapeutic rinse) takes TIME. If your dental hygienist and dentist are willing to explore all these factors before scraping your teeth, please be patient. It just might be time to get off the peri-go-round and treat this dreadful disease once and for all!

Dr. Susan Maples is a dentist in Holt. She is also a speaker, health educator and author of Blabbermouth. Learn more at drsusanmaples.com. or call (517) 694.0353.