What Are the Remedies for Gingivitis?

Gingivitis means inflammation of gums. And everyone has it, to various degrees, within a few hours from their cleaning. The main thing is to maintain a low level/manageable gingivitis. It’s important that you brush and floss regularly, use mouthwash and have cleaning done every 6 months (or at least annually) to prevent getting severe gingivitis.

Usually when one goes to the dentist and their gums look normal and ok, they don’t hear that they have gingivitis. You’d hear about it if the inflammation is bad where gums look red or puffy or there is bleeding when gums are being probed or cleaned. Sometimes, gingivitis or the inflammation in the gums involve more than just one’s gums but the bone supporting the teeth as well; in that case you’d hear that one has gum disease or periodontitis which literally means inflammation or disease of periodontium (gums+bones).

Depending on the degree of inflammation and the underlying cause, either more frequent professional cleaning or prescription for certain mouthwashes would be helpful in improving the situation, however, if it’s caused by a systemic disease, it’d only be addressed fully when the disease has been. Bleeding gums could be caused by hormonal changes such as pregnancy as well as blood disorders like anemia or dietary changes such as vitamin C intake.

As far as the home remedies for gingivitis go, brushing and flossing and using salt water rinse are the main factors. In some cases a change in diet might also be helpful. Keep in mind that it’s important that you seek professional opinion if your gums start bleeding as home remedies are only temporary reliefs until you get to see your dentist and determine the underlying issue(s).

Usually by the time you have periodontitis, regular cleaning wouldn’t do much anymore since the issue is more than just on the surface in a sense. Then a deep cleaning or a scaling and root planning is what’s recommended. Sometimes, depending on the severity of the situation, there might be need for localized antibiotics powder that’s deposited around certain teeth in the mouth or even an oral antibiotics that you’d take to help reduce the inflammation in the mouth by controlling the overall bacterial load in one’s mouth/body. There are even more severe cases where gums need to be completely opened up and reflected back to allow for their complete cleaning (open flap debridement).

To help have great gums, make sure that you brush and floss daily. And if you’re observing bleeding when brushing/flossing or inflammation in your gums with poor odor and/or sensitivity, you should have that checked out by a dentist!

Feel free to contact Soothing Dental if you believe that you might be experiencing the above symptoms before it becomes more serious.