Are your gums painful, red, puffy, or shrinking while you brush and floss your teeth? If yes, then your gums may be receding. Gum recession can happen for many reasons, including gum disease and using too much pressure while brushing.
What Are Receding Gums?
Receding gums occur when the gums pull away from your teeth, revealing more of each tooth's roots. This commonly happens when gum disease has advanced to severe levels. When your gums recede, they create small spaces or pockets, where plaque gets deposited, making a sticky film of bacteria. This causes further damage to the gums, leading to more gum recession. When this condition is left untreated, eventually it can lead to tooth loss.
Why Does Gum Recession Happen?
The gums can recede due to a variety of reasons, such as periodontal disease, brushing teeth incorrectly or rigidly, age, injury, teeth clenching, and smoking.
Also Read: What Is Gum Grafting? Know These Methods To Relieve Pain After This Surgery
Can Receding Gums Grow Back?
An important question is can the gums that have receded grow back or come to their initial place? The answer is no! This is because, in contrast to other forms of tissue, like the epithelial tissue of your skin, your gum tissue does not regenerate. It is because of this reason, your receding gums don't regrow or regenerate.
Identifying Signs of Gum Recession
The following are the most typical signs of gum recession that you can observe on your own. These are bleeding after using a toothbrush or floss, bad mouth breath, having swollen, red, and tender gums at the gum line, and teeth with exposed roots that are sensitive.
What You Can Do?
You can take certain steps to prevent further damage and decay of your gums and this can be done in a number of ways.
Treating Early Gum Recession
Once you identify the early signs of gum recession, the first step is to visit your dentist and get a deep cleaning procedure known as root planing and scaling. This procedure removes bacteria from the pockets between the gums and teeth, eliminating the infection, and helping in gum healing.
Also Read: Pale Gums: Watch Out For These 5 Health Conditions
Treatment Progressive Gum Recession
When your gums have reached an advanced stage of recession, then your dentist may suggest a gum graft to replace the lost tissue. Gum grafting is a surgical treatment that typically entails removing a tiny piece of tissue from one location in your mouth and transferring it to the gum area that needs it.
Conclusion
Gum recession is a common problem and can occur despite regular dental hygiene practices due to ageing and genetic makeup. There are numerous therapeutic methods that can help halt or slow down the process even if your gum tissue cannot grow back. These are based on your general dental health and the degree of recession you have. For this, you need to seek a dentist's assistance who will determine the best course of action to treat your gum disease.
