How to Prevent Gingivitis

Video Transcript

"Gingivitis is probably one of the most preventable dental diseases that we see on a daily basis. The reason being is that gingivitis is pretty much caused by poor oral hygiene. There are other variables that can cause gingivitis to occur such as drug induced gingivitis or hormone related gingivitis and certainly medical diseases can also cause gingivitis. But we find typically that the most common cause for gingivitis is improper brushing and flossing. So the question proposed is, "What can we do to prevent gingivitis?" It goes down to basically oral hygiene. So going to the dentist on a regular basis and getting your teeth cleaned can certainly help prevent this but certainly what you do at home is probably the most important to prevent gingivitis. Gingivitis, again, is basically inflammation and swelling of the gum tissue due to build up around the gums. There's also a bacterial component to that, but typically we find it's just from the mechanical build up of food and collection of debris and removing those debris and food alone can often remove a lot of the issues that we see that will contribute to gingivitis. And what we find like in this example or this diagram is the teeth are nice and healthy and the gums are pink and firm and they don't bleed. This is an example of what can occur if you do normal brushing and flossing and you have regular visits to the dentist. However, when we go and we don't work on our hygiene and we have a lot of build up, we find that we get more staining on the teeth, we also... the tissues become more red, a lot more flabby and certainly bleeds a lot more than normal. What can happen is if this further progresses, it actually turns into what we would call gingivitis. Gingivitis being very heavy tissue inflammation where the tissue is very red and it's swollen and it bleeds a lot easier than normal. This can easily be prevented again by simply doing daily brushing and flossing and regular checks to the dentist will eliminate most of the problems that are seen with gingivitis."