You might think good oral hygiene is about keeping your teeth clean, and you’d be right, but your gums shouldn’t take a back seat. Your gums play a bigger role in your oral health than you may realize — in fact, they affect your overall health.
Our gum experts at St. Tammany Periodontics & Implants take gum care seriously and urge our patients throughout Covington and Slidell, Louisiana, to do the same. Why? Bad things happen when you neglect your gums. Here’s what you should know.
Your gums contain nerves, blood, and collagen; they’re living tissues that need care like all other body parts.
Poor oral hygiene can cause gum problems, but that’s not the only culprit. Smoking, acid reflux, and nutritional deficiencies can also lead to gingivitis (early-stage gum disease) and periodontitis (advanced gum disease).
When gum disease sets in, you start noticing the telltale symptoms, such as:
Loose teeth can easily turn into lost teeth, instantly ramping up your oral health issues.
But gum disease doesn’t stop in your mouth. Here are several gum-disease-related problems that affect your whole body.
If you have periodontal disease, you're more likely to get heart disease because the bacteria that comes with gum disease can get into your bloodstream and cause plaque buildup in your arteries, making them narrower.
Plus, those same bacteria have a protein that promotes blood clots, which can lead to a heart attack. It can also clog the artery that delivers blood to your brain, putting you at risk for a stroke.
The bacteria involved with periodontal disease can travel through your veins, reach your lungs, and mess up your respiratory system.
And to make things worse, if you've already had breathing problems, your chances of experiencing further problems because of poor brushing habits are even higher. So, if you're slacking off on your oral hygiene, you're putting yourself at risk for pneumonia and other respiratory conditions.
Folks with diabetes, especially those who can’t or don’t control their blood sugar, often experience periodontitis. The condition affects your blood sugar, saliva output (bacteria thrive in a dry mouth), vulnerability to infections, and inflammatory response.
Gum disease can also increase your risk of developing Type 2 diabetes because any inflammation can elevate your blood sugar.
You’re probably noticing a pattern here. Bacteria from your gums can travel just about anywhere throughout your body. If they make it to your brain, the resulting inflammation could lead to cognitive problems like dementia.
You know prenatal care is critical to your baby’s health, but you might not realize that periodontitis can trigger an early delivery.
Hormonal changes can make oral care more challenging, but extra diligence pays off when you consider the research showing that women who deliver their babies prematurely have lower gum health scores (four times lower) and more plaque (eight times more) than women who carry their babies full term.
The American Association for Cancer Research discovered a clear connection between periodontitis and cancer. Specifically, gum disease may make you more susceptible to developing these types of cancers:
The study found that women with periodontitis are three times more likely to develop esophageal cancer than women with healthy gums.
Our St. Tammany Periodontitis & Implants team, led by Caesar Sweidan, DDS, and Laura Smith, DDS, can clear away gum disease before it leads to these health problems.
In addition to helping you establish a sound at-home gum care routine, we offer professional scaling and planing to deep-clean your tooth roots below the gumline using advanced laser technology.
If tooth removal becomes necessary, we perform the procedure with the future in mind, preparing the space for a dental implant replacement.
We also use regenerative medicine to accelerate healing and optimize bone renewal and restoration.
Don’t neglect your gums. Contact us at either location or request an appointment online.
