If you have this type of periodontal disease, you are at the stage where the infection has broken through the first line of defense, the gums, and has begun to attack the ligaments and bone supporting the teeth. This is the stage where bone loss occurs, causing the pocket, the space between the gum and the tooth, to deepen. Periodontitis, like gingivitis, occurs in different forms and can involve parts of, or all of, one tooth or many teeth at the same time. Like any disease of your body, it can be treated — if it’s detected I its early stages. However, if it isn’t treated you will eventually lose your teeth.
The diagnosis is make by your dentist. With the right knowledge, diligent home care, hygiene therapy, and guidance from your hygienist, you will be able to cure periodontitis, if it hasn’t progressed too far.
Simple Periodontitis — Although simple periodontitis can be found in teenagers, it is seen more often in people over thirty, and the most serious cases are found in people over fifty. But it is definitely not limited to any age group.
The disease is characterized by chronic gum inflammation, bone loss, and a deepening of the gum pocket that range from a little to a lot. In the advanced stages tooth movement will occur. the speed at which it advances is directly related to how well you take care of your gums, both the outside and the pockets. Simple periodontitis doesn’t always involve pain, but it’s usually associated with some, or all, of the following symptoms:
- Sensitivity to heat and cold, sugar, acidic foods, and possibly brushing. Sensitivity develops when you’ve had bone loss, because bone loss exposes the microscopic tubules in the dentin. These tubules run like pipes from the outside of the dentin into the pulp of the tooth, which contains the tooth’s nerves and blood vessels. When the tubules are exposed to acid, germs, air, and temperature changes, there irritants cause a pain response in the pulp.
- Acute and sudden pain or throbbing that is made worse by tapping on the affected tooth. This symptom points to more extensive bone loss and may also be associated with a deep abscess of the gum pocket or an infected nerve.
- Constant or periodic bleeding
- a dull, deep, almost pain like sensation that feels as if something is putting intense pressure on the root of the tooth. Most often this is the result of food or other substances that have been jammed into the gum pocket. It is often associated with a bad contact between two teeth hat allows food to be forced into the pocket. This feeling worsens the longer the irritant is left there.
- Toothache. Any rapidly moving decay can cause acute pain, but the toothache associated with periodontitis is usually of the throbbing variety. It’s an indication that decay has started in the root and has begun to irritate the tooth’s main nerve. Root decay is the only kind of decay associated with periodontitis.
Complex Periodontitis — The primary factors associated with complex periodontitis are the same as those found in the simple variety. However, they are complicated the stress and trauma resulting from forces exerted on the teeth and bone. Any abnormal and lone-term pressure that is placed on the bone by chewing improperly, clenching, or grinding can cause the bone to recede. Therefore, tooth movement is often seen at an early stage in complex periodontitis — earlier than in the simple from. Increased and irregular pressure is being placed on the teeth and bone because the bone is being attacked both by germs and by occlusal stress. Complex periodontitis usually progresses at a more rapid rate than the simple from.
Dentist often find that a bite problem is also associated with advanced bone loss. This is a lot like the chicken and the egg: which came first? In essence, an existing bad bite will make the existing periodontitis worse, and periodontitis will then make the bite problem worse. In other words, when you combine periodontitis and a severe bite problem, the destructive process are accelerated.