What is Periodontal Disease?

One-third of the American population is affected by periodontal disease, a chronic bacterial infection of the gums and bone that surrounds the teeth. Periodontal disease occurs when bacteria buildup on your teeth and gums, causes your gums to become red and swollen.

Left untreated, this inflammation eventually results in damage to the ligaments and bone that hold your teeth in place. This damage causes pockets to form around your teeth. As the disease progresses and the pockets deepen, your teeth can become loose and fall out. Periodontal disease may also exacerbate other serious health problems, such as cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, and diabetes.

Arestin Can Help

Fortunately, we now have a new, effective treatment that helps us control periodontal disease and its destructive effects. It’s called Arestin, and it’s used in conjunction with scaling and root planing (deep cleaning) to reduce the number of harmful bacteria in your periodontal pockets and restore the area to good health.

Arestin is an antibiotic in powder form. We painlessly insert the powder into your periodontal pockets, where it combines with moisture in your mouth and adheres immediately to the infected gum tissue. The individual powder particles, called microspheres, release a controlled, steady flow of the active ingredient minocycline, a potent antibiotic. This sustained-release process allows Arestin to fight your periodontal infection for at least 21 days.

When used together with scaling and root planing (deep cleaning), Arestin significantly reduces the depth of the infected pockets and helps to prevent the progression of periodontal disease. Arestin has also been shown to be effective even in the most difficult-to-treat cases of periodontal disease, such as those experienced by smokers or patients with cardiovascular disease. However, Arestin’s active ingredient is in the tetracycline family of antibiotics, so we won’t use it to treat your infection if you are allergic to tetracycline, or if you’re pregnant or nursing.

Periodontal disease is chronic, which means it can persist for a long time and may never be cured. It’s vital that we treat it aggressively to keep it under control. Arestin is an important part of your overall periodontal therapy program, which we have designed to prevent further destruction of bone and connective tissue, and to restore health to your gums.

If you have a history of periodontal disease we must monitor the health of the gums closely so that we can prevent a recurrence of this destructive infection.

Periodontal disease can never be cured; it can only be controlled. And if it isn’t carefully monitored and controlled, periodontal disease can eventually cause you to lose your teeth.

Treatment for Periodontal Disease

If we’ve diagnosed periodontal disease, we’ll usually recommend a form of periodontal therapy called scaling and root planing(deep cleaning) to remove the infection from beneath your gums. Following this treatment, we’ll have you come to see us every few months for ongoing care, which may include X-rays, re-evaluation of your periodontal health and the effectiveness of your home-care, removal of plaque above and below the gum line, and re-treatment with scaling and root planing if necessary. The frequent checkups are vital for controlling your periodontal disease.

Why Re-care is Important

Periodontal disease is site-specific. This means that you may experience a flare-up of the infection in just one periodontal pocket out of the possible total 192 that exist in your mouth. Bone and tissue loss may occur in only this isolated area, or it may be more widespread. If we aren’t checking regularly for this type of damage to your gums and bone, you might not notice that it’s occurring, and the destruction would continue unchecked.

Some bacteria do remain after treatment, and they may settle back into the pocket and once again begin the process of reproducing and destroying bone and soft tissue. In as few as 90 days, the bacteria can reach destructive levels once again. Because of episodic nature of periodontal disease, and in light of the fact that periodontal disease can re-establish itself in as few as 90 days, the typical 6-month re-care appointment just isn’t enough for those with a history of periodontal disease. Statistics confirm that re-evaluation at intervals of at least every 3 or 4 months is critical for periodontal patients. This helps us break the stronghold of bacteria in your gums, minimize the recurrence of the infection, and slow or eliminate its destructive effects.

Despite the death of a tooth, infection within deceased teeth can foster and grow, as a root canal infection.  If a tooth is dead, blood no longer flows to what was once the inner component of that tooth.  As a result, with the lack of any blood flow, there is no mode for which the deceased tooth can receive valued protective immune cells to destroy the occurrence of infection.

Progression of Root Canal Infection

Therefore, the infection develops within the dead tooth, and spreads its expansive ill bacterium to the surrounding bone.  Inflammation, in correlation with the infection, builds and creates a pressure that, in turn, forces the tooth upward from its socket.  The afflicted person then senses that the tooth is elevated upon biting.  Eventually, the escalated root canal infection can spread to other regions within the face, and, later, progress its ill effects to the skull.

Biology of a Root Canal Infection

As a root canal infection emerges within the dead tooth, the body’s biology launches its defenses to the oral areas that are adjacent to the tooth.  Ultimately, the developing bacterium brings the onset of inflammation to the afflicted tooth. Soon, the affected nerve related to the deceased tooth realizes pain.  To alleviate the pain, antibiotics can be administered, although such medications only mask the core of the problem, which is identified as the dead nerve.  The established root canal infection is fueled by dead nerve tissue, despite that the antibiotics have temporarily relieved the pain, though fail to cure the ailment.

Progressive Root Canal Infection

If the initial pain brought about by the eruption of a root canal infection has been resolved through administering antibiotics, the affected individual may believe that the problem has been resolved.  Such resolution is only temporary, as the root canal infection progresses.  Upon a re-occurrence of the afflicted tooth’s pain, the condition has obviously worsened to a heightened degree of severity, necessitating endodontic therapy immediately to eradicate the increasing problem.  Should the biology of the body and the root canal infection arrive at what could be considered as a middle ground, a condition clinically referred to as a dental abscess can form.  The complications that surrounds such an abscess can maintain itself within the jawbone of a patient for a long duration, as it continually feeds a combination of dead and live bacteria into the bloodstream, risking effects to overall bodily health.  In this elevated stage of root canal infection, only two remedies exist within the field of dentistry – root canal therapy or a dental extraction.

Dental Abscess as a Consequence of Root Canal Infection

A small ball of pus encompassed by a region of tissue that is inflamed within the oral cavity constitutes a dental abscess.  In relevance to root canal infection, this pus is an accumulation of liquefied dead and live bacteria, dead nerve tissue and white blood cells.  The dental pain that is realized by the patient is a result of the pressure of the ever-expanding pus ball, fortified by infection, and intensified through inflammation.