Gum disease treatment — Sterling, Virginia
Gums that bleed are telling you something
Bleeding when you brush is the earliest sign of gum disease, and it is also the stage that responds best to treatment. We measure where your gums actually are, then treat what the measurements show.
Six points
Charted around every single tooth
Below the gumline
Where a toothbrush cannot reach
In writing
The plan and the numbers, before you decide
Why gums bleed
Healthy gums do not bleed when you brush them, so bleeding means the tissue is inflamed. A film of bacteria sits where the gum meets the tooth, and it rebuilds itself every day.
Brushing clears that film from the surfaces you can reach, but it never reaches below the gumline, where the damage happens.
As the film stays, the gum pulls away from the tooth and a pocket opens between them. A healthy pocket measures one to three millimetres deep, and a toothbrush bristle reaches about two. Once a pocket passes four millimetres, you cannot clean the bottom of it at home, however well you brush.
The part that catches people out
Why it does not hurt until it is late
Gum disease destroys the bone holding your teeth in place, and bone carries no pain nerves, so the loss runs quietly. Most people feel nothing until a tooth loosens, and by then the bone that held it has already gone.
This is why we usually find gum disease at a checkup rather than hear about it from a patient. It is also why no pain tells you where the problem has reached, rather than whether you have one.
What we do about it
Three stages, in order. You see the numbers at every one of them.
The chart comes first
Dr. Tarek charts six points around every tooth and records each pocket depth. A healthy pocket measures one to three millimetres. That chart becomes the map, and without those numbers a treatment plan is a guess.
Scaling and root planing
We clean the film and hardened deposit off the root surface itself, down to the bottom of the pocket. We numb the area first. Once the root is clean, the gum can tighten back against the tooth and the pocket can shrink.
A shorter interval, on purpose
Bacteria rebuild in weeks rather than months, so treated gums need cleaning every three or four months instead of six. We tell you which interval your own chart supports, and why it is that one.
What this costs
Gum treatment is often a bigger plan than people expect, so we put the numbers in writing before anything moves. You get a written estimate after the charting, and we verify your benefits with your plan rather than reading them off your card. Treatment is normally phased by quadrant, so it arrives in stages rather than all at once.
If you have no insurance, the Membership Club has a periodontal tier at 750 dollars a year.
Where our scope ends
When we send you elsewhere
Dr. Tarek is a general dentist, and general dentists treat gum disease every day, but periodontics is a separate specialty with its own residency. When a case needs surgery or bone work beyond what we do here, we say so and refer you to a periodontist. You will hear that from us early, rather than after months of treatment that was never going to be enough.
Questions people ask about their gums
Where to start
Book a checkup and we will chart your gums
We chart your gums, show you the numbers, and tell you what they mean. If your gums are healthy, that is the whole visit. If they are not, you will leave knowing exactly where you stand.