1500 Summer Street, Stamford, CT 06905
(203) 883-4433
1500 Summer Street, Stamford, CT 06905
(203) 883-4433
In the past, bleeding gums were something that people thought they had to live with. Most medical doctors looked past your gums when they checked your throat. Not so anymore.
To find out more about gum disease, we visited with Dr. Jerry Simon at Dental Care of Stamford, “The newest research has proven that bleeding gums are due to infection which can create problems throughout your entire body.”
Partner Dr. Greb Schwab says, “The dental practice of the twenty-frist century must have gum health as a primary focus. Our team of professionals use the newest aids to detec, monitor, and treat gum disease including DNA probes to identify the specific germs, high-tech antibiotics, and dental lasers.”
We all want a nice smile. Unsightly gum recession is something that you don't need to live with. Dr. Simon says, “A great smile also needs healthy and good looking gums.”
Gum disease can contribute to heart attacks and strokes. Dr. Raul Garcia, cardiologist at the Boston VA Hospital, has shown that the same germs found in dental plaque are also found in clogged arteries which can lead to heart attacks and strokes. In a 25 year study that followed 1,100 healthy patients, Dr. Garcia reported that patients with the worst gum disease had twice the number of heart attacks and theee times the number of strokes. Keeping your mouth healthy with regular dental cleaning visits, brushing and flossing may be one of the easiest ways to reduce your risk.
Research has proven that over 85% of mouth odor is due to bacterial by-products in your mouth, primarily sulfur compounds, the same germs that cause gum disease. The person with the mouth odor problem often stops being able to smell it, and their friends may not tell them, so they don't realize they have a problem.
Regular professional dental care and effective home care, especially with toothpaste and mouth rinse that contains chlorine dioxide, can break up these sulfur compounds and make your mouth healthier, as well as keep your breath fresh and “kissing sweet”.
Gum disease can cause complications in pregnancy. Preterm births and low weight babies occur in over 5% of pregnancies and lead to complications, costing over 5.7 billion dollars a year to treat.
Dr. Vern Katz, obsterician and maternal fetal medicine specialist at Sacred Heart Medical Center in Eugene Oregon, and Dr. Offenbacher, periodontist at North Carolina School of Dentistry, pulished a study showing that pregnant women who have periodontal disease are 7.5 times more likely to have preterm births than women with healthy gums. Controlling gum disease may be one of the most important identifiable risk factors.
Women who are pregnant are sometimes afraid to go to the dentist because of x-rays, but dentists don't take x-rays for pregnant women. In fact, women should consider regular dental care as an important part of their prenatal care.
Back to “Dentistry in the News”