Saturday, 9 January 2016

How Healing Periodontal Pocket Is Done

By Douglas Hamilton


It takes thorough commitment to be able to treat periodontal disease of pockets completely and sufficiently. The treatment process usually has two main goals. Goal number one is reducing and controlling bacterial colonies beneath gums. Goal number two is to remove factors that lead to vulnerability. Both goals can be achieved sufficiently at home only if the disease has not advanced to serious stages. However, healing periodontal pocket becomes a complicated process if the disease is in advanced stages.

In early stages of the disease, only the gum is affected, while the bone remains largely unaltered. The depth of pockets is very shallow, only extending to 5 millimeters at most. Scaling and root planing, also referred to as deep cleanings is the most commonly used process in this case. The process aims at removing all formed calculus in the gums.

When the pockets are noticed to be tender when performing scaling and root planing, gums may need to be numbed to avoid discomfort. One should not feel any pain after the process is finished. After this process, it becomes the responsibility of the patient to prevent future formation of plaque and re-occurrence of this problem by brushing and flossing daily. As the gums heal, they snug back up around the root.

Bone tissue is usually lost in moderate and advanced cases of pockets. Moderate pockets are slightly deeper and can reach seven millimeters in depth. The great depth involved makes cleaning the bottom of the pocket difficult because it cannot be accessed using scaling and root planing method. Therefore, flap surgery is the only preferable option. Flap surgery enables sufficient access to calculus which allows thorough cleaning to be done.

Flap surgery involves making an incision between the gum and tooth. After making the incision, the gum gets peeled back from the neck of the tooth. With such access, the surgeon can sufficiently clean the deeply-seated calculus and debride the tooth involved. All the altered tissue can be returned to former position when the surgery is finished. This minimizes cosmetic change.

The inability of the gum to reconnect to the tooth when the incision has been done is one of this problems of flap surgery. That makes pockets to persist even after removing the infection and calculus. Frequent hygienist cleanings are therefore necessary in order to prevent future reoccurrence of this problem. It is also possible to reposition gums in order to remove pockets during surgical procedure.

In some cases, surgery may be inapplicable or pockets may be too deep or advanced. It is hard to treat advanced pockets and available treatment can never eliminate them fully. The only solution in such cases is to minimize the pockets and eliminate chances of reoccurrence of the pockets.

Sometimes periodontal disease and pockets are considered chronic diseases that cannot be cured or eliminated completely. Susceptibility continues to exist and the cause of plaque and infection are always present in the mouth. Daily vigilance and dental hygiene are the best approaches to avoiding and healing the diseases.




About the Author:



No comments:

Post a Comment