Gingivitis is the inflammation of the gingivae that can cause bleeding with swelling, redness, exudate, a change of normal contours, and, occasionally, discomfort. Diagnosis is based on inspection. Treatment involves professional teeth cleaning and intensified home dental hygiene. Advanced cases may require antibiotics or surgery. Normally, the gingivae are firm, tightly adapted to the teeth, and contoured to a point. Keratinized gingiva near the crowns is pink stippled tissue. This tissue should fill the entire space between the crowns.

The gingiva farther from the crowns, called alveolar mucosa, is nonkeratinized, highly vascular, red, movable, and continuous with the buccal mucosa. A tongue depressor should express no blood or pus from normal gingiva. Inflammation, or gingivitis, the most common gingival problem, may evolve into periodontitis. The most common cause of gingivitis is poor oral hygiene. Poor oral hygiene allows plaque to accumulate between the gingiva and the teeth; gingivitis does not occur in edentulous areas. Irritation from plaque deepens the normal crevice between the tooth and gingiva, creating gingival pockets. These pockets contain bacteria that may cause both gingivitis and root caries. Other local factors, such as malocclusion, dental calculus, food impaction, faulty dental restorations, and xerostomia, play a secondary role.

This ailment may be an early sign of a systemic disorder, especially those that affect the response to infection like diabetes, AIDS, vitamin deficiency and/or leukopenia, particularly if it occurs in patients with a minimal dental plaque. But there are ways to cure gingivitis, start by visiting your dentist.

Simple gingivitis treatment is called for when the first causes appear like deepening of the gums between the tooth and the gingiva, followed by redness, inflamed gingiva along one or more teeth, with swelling of the interdental papillae and easy bleeding. Pain is usually absent. It may resolve, remain superficial for years, or occasionally progress to periodontitis.

When Pericoronitis is acute, gingivitis symptoms become painful inflammations of the gingival flap over a partially erupted tooth, usually around the wisdom teeth. Infection is common, and an abscess may develop. Pericoronitis often recurs as food gets trapped beneath the flap. The gingival flap disappears when the tooth fully erupts.

Another type of gingivitis disease called Desquamative may occur just before or actually during menopause. It is characterized mainly by deep red and very painful gingival tissue that bleeds easily and constantly where even vesicles may precede desquamation. The gingivae in the mouth are soft because the keratinized cells that resist abrasion by food particles are not present.

During pregnancy swelling, especially of the interdental papillae, is very well likely to occur. Another type gingival growths often arise in the interdental papillae during the 1st trimester, may persist throughout pregnancy, and may or may not subside after delivery. Pregnancy gingivitis tumors are soft reddish masses that are, histologically, pyogenic granulomas.

Call Tremont Dental In Boston’s South End at 617.424.0606 to schedule an appointment today. Email us here: Contact Us.

– Tremont Dental Care In Boston Massachusetts