Periodontology

Normal and very important Oral Hygiene is described on the page dedicated to the Oral Hygiene Centre. Here we report just some examples of treatments relating to bone and gum care.

Sometimes the simple removal of calculus is not sufficient to remove bacteria and their toxins from the teeth, so a light local anesthesia is required to be able to carefully clean places where it is not possible to go during normal cleaning. This Scaling and Root Planning treatment can be done in one or more times depending on the needs of the patient and the needs of each patient's clinical situation.

Sometimes even deep cleaning of the teeth is not enough when the bacteria have created damage to the bone around teeth, which can be highlighted with a probe and an x-ray. In those cases, to save the teeth and eliminate the infection, small bone surgery or muco-gingival surgery treatments are necessary, always with the same quantity of anesthetic needed to treat any cavity. This eliminates the problems and restores the part to health.

Sometimes the teeth look or are shorter than other people and it is not clear why. In simple words, in a large number of these cases, during growth the tooth remained covered by the gingival margin which was unable to find its natural position a little higher, and therefore also it covers the tooth by a few millimetres. In this case we talk about Passive Altered Eruption. This is not very aesthetically beautiful and the patients themselves see it in the mirror. This type of minor painless surgery, which is very gentle and not at all invasive, can help a lot to have a beautiful smile.

Other times they appear and are longer than neighboring teeth, and this is a result of a continuous and long-lasting incorrect way of brushing the teeth and a more delicate Gingival Biotype compared to other thicker and more resistant Biotypes. in these cases, gingival recessions are created which manifest themselves as teeth that are longer than normal, often with exposure of the roots, with dismetries of neighboring teeth which are shorter and normal. Even these cases are often not very nice to look at, and can also be dangerous due to the continuous retraction of the gum and underlying bone over time. Even in these cases, this type of surgery can be used to cover the exposed root and bring the gum levels back towards a beautiful, healthy, natural and harmonious smile.

Periodontal disease causes bone loss around the root of the tooth, it is as if sand were removed from around the pole of a beach umbrella, and this can happen all around or only in some parts. The more bone is lost, the more the mobility of the tooth increases, and the possibility of it falling out also increases.

Bone regeneration is a modern technique for reconstructing the bone lost around the teeth, in which after the initial cleaning and disinfection of the bone and gum present in the damaged area, a graft follows in the bone cavity left by the disease, filling the defect with the right amount of autologous bone (i.e. from the patient himself) or heterologous bone (usually bovine treated for this purpose, the same used in Orthopedic Surgeries), or with both mixed together, or with other substances obtained from the blood. After filling it with the bone, the defect is covered and protected with a thin membrane of biocompatible material which allows the underlying bone to heal, and the small wound closes awaiting healing. This may save the tooth.