Periodontics

FLOSS, FLOSS, FLOSS, FLOSS, FLOSS.

Have I mentioned flossing yet? If you go into any, and I mean ANY dental office in this country or any other country or planet, for that matter, and ask them if they have EVER had a patient who flossed properly everyday and lost their teeth anyway their answer would be a simple "no" (or "nyet" or "nein",etc). Period.

Have I mentioned flossing yet?

• I have peridontal disease. I've been told I need 7 on top and 7 on bottom pulled.Only one tooth is really loose and bothers me. The r...
  
  
• Do you know about this? A tiny white sore (It Hurt like a cold sore) appeared on the lip/gum connective flap. Not gradually but overn...
  
  

I have peridontal disease. I've been told I need 7 on top and 7 on bottom pulled.Only one tooth is really loose and bothers me. The rest seem to be pretty solid to me. Am I foolish to try to save them by getting the root planning and scaling and just removing the one that bothers me? I want to save my teeth and give it a try before having to go with dentures or partial dentures.Any advise would be appreciated. Thanks. Linda
Get the root planing and scaling first. DO NOT HAVE 14 TEETH REMOVED!!!! Do you want me to repeat that? DO NOT ....You get the message. Have the one taken out and then take a deep breath...and try to save the rest. If your dentist is not partial to this get another opinion. I have seen many many many patients come back from the brink of losing their teeth. You can begin by flossing them like there's no tomorrow, which there may not be if you don't put some serious effort into this. I am old school when it comes to keeping the teeth you were born with. I restore implants and all that but they do not compare with natural teeth. Period. Soooooo.....right after you read this I fully expect you to floss your teeth--I personally like the tape, which is a thicker kind of floss. I want you to right back to me and let me know what you decided.

Do you know about this? A tiny white sore (It Hurt like a cold sore) appeared on the lip/gum connective flap. Not gradually but overnight or two nights. I treated it many times with all my usual cold sore remedies including lysine powder dumped on it overnight like a pinch of snuff (for a week) which pretty much disappeared it, but a few days later it would come back. It settled down until I could sometimes imagine it was gone. 18 months later (Today), at a cleaning / checkup my dentist pointed out the eroding gum at the tooth above the flap. He referred me to an oral surgeon for a treatment to cut the flap connection; on the theory it was pulling the gum down from the tooth, and for grafting flesh from my palet to the gum to replace the eroded gum. I pointed out I had a history off rejecting grafts and building keloid. He said keloid was what was expected to build and cover the exposed tooth. I spoke of the sore which is visible in the picture precisely at the bottom of the eroded V, and slightly to the (my) left of the flap. I felt that if the flap was exerting pressure on the gum and pulling material away from the tooth it would do so directly above, not off to the side. The erosion was not present before the sore started just after the last cleaning checkup. I delayed the next cleaning checkup until I figured I'd done everything I could to cure the sore. They are concurrent. Do You have any suggestions about diagnosing this? My immediate ideas include: The sore dissolves the gum away by eating it, poisonous waste, inhibition of maintenance or nutrition to the gum, some manner of necrotization. Perhaps the sore is some form of cancer - it does not go away. What cancer is there that does not get bigger? It does not spread laterally, just cuts a groove below itself. Do you have any ideas? HERE Can't print the pic. The groove is 1/4 inch below the gumline.
It sounds like you may have had a frenum attachment that was too extensive. You don't say which tooth was affected. I'm assuming it is a lower front tooth? The sore could be from bacteria getting into the "sulcus" of the tooth, which is the shallow moat around each tooth resulting from the gum attachment to the root. The reason for the graft would be to repair the attachment. Oral cancer doesn't go away. It gets bigger.