Treating Advanced Tooth Decay and Gum Disease Before Tooth Loss Occurs
Cavities and gum disease are common dental problems, and our team at Imagine Dental has years of experience treating both. However, putting off needed care gives these issues time to progress and become more damaging and complex. If you’re struggling with oral health problems, we proudly provide restorative dental treatments for families and gum disease treatment in Phoenix and Ahwatukee.
With timely care, many teeth can still be saved. This article gives you an overview of why it’s important to keep up with preventive dental care and what we can do to prevent tooth loss if you’re struggling with advanced tooth decay or gum disease.
Why People Put Off Dental Treatments
If you’ve ever delayed dental care even when you know something is not quite right, you’re not alone. Many people avoid the dentist until problems become too uncomfortable to ignore.
Some of the most common reasons people put off dental treatments include:
- Dental anxiety or previous bad experiences
- Concerns about the cost of dental care
- Difficulty finding time for appointments
In many cases, you may notice that your symptoms come and go and assume the problem will improve on its own.
Unfortunately, tooth decay and gum disease do not heal without professional treatment. Delaying dental visits allows these conditions to worsen, making your treatment more complex later on.
Early Care Saves You Time, Money, and Discomfort
One of the biggest benefits of early dental care is prevention. Regular dental visits frequently allow you to avoid these issues completely, or get treatment as early as possible. This ensures that any needed treatments will be as conservative, comfortable, and successful as possible. (Not to mention more affordable!)
If dental fear, finances, or scheduling are standing between you and a healthier smile, talk to us! Imagine Dental proudly provides sedation dentistry, affordable financing, and flexible scheduling to ensure you can get the care you need without stress.
It’s Never Too Late to Save Your Smile
If you’re already struggling with advanced tooth decay or gum disease, it does not automatically mean you will lose your teeth. These types of oral health problems can feel incredibly discouraging and overwhelming, but our team offers effective treatment options that can save your smile.
Understanding Advanced Tooth Decay
Cavities start small and get bigger over time. As a cavity grows, it destroys more of the structure of your tooth. Left untreated, tooth decay can reach the inner core of your tooth, called the pulp. The pulp contains the nerve and blood supply of your tooth.
If a cavity becomes very deep, the pulp can be exposed to bacteria. This can lead to intense pain, sensitivity, swelling, and even serious infections or abscess. In extreme cases, these infections can pass through the blood vessels to other areas of the body and become life-threatening emergencies.
The earlier we can treat a cavity, the more healthy tooth structure we’ll be able to save with a routine dental filling. If there is not enough stable tooth structure left, or the decay has caused other issues that make the tooth impossible to repair, we may need to remove it. However, there are several other options to treat large cavities before an extraction is necessary!
Treatments for Severe Tooth Decay
- Dental crowns: If a cavity is too large to place a filling, we can remove the unhealthy tooth structure and rebuild the tooth with a dental crown.
- Dental inlays and onlays: If your tooth does not need a full crown but needs something more durable than a filing, dental inlays and onlays offer a great middle ground. These are durable porcelain restorations that leave more natural tooth structure intact.
- Root canal treatment: If advanced tooth decay has affected the pulp, we can perform root canal treatment to remove the infection and seal the inside of your tooth to stabilize and save it.
How Gum Disease Can Lead to Tooth Loss
Gum disease starts as inflammation of the gums. Left untreated, this inflammation starts to affect the ligaments and bone sockets that hold the tooth in place. Over time, this can cause your teeth to become loose, shift out of position, and eventually fall out.
Advanced gum disease is one of the leading causes of tooth loss in adults. It can also increase your risks for serious health problems like heart disease, diabetes, pancreatitis, arthritis, reproductive health issues, and certain types of cancer.
Treating gum disease early allows us to reverse inflammation before it causes bone loss. Once bone loss happens, it can’t be reversed. However, we may be able to restore stability with advanced gum disease treatments.
Treatments for Advanced Gum Disease
- Scaling and root planing: Sometimes called deep cleaning, this is a treatment to remove deposits below the gum line and allow the gums to heal. In many cases, this stops gum disease from progressing further.
- Laser periodontal therapy: Laser technology can help to further eliminate bacteria below the gums and improve gum healing.
- Osseous surgery: For severe bone loss and advanced periodontitis, gum disease surgery ensures that the root surfaces are completely clean. In many cases, we may be able to place bone grafts to rebuild lost bone volume and restore stability.
What If Your Tooth Can’t Be Saved?
If tooth decay or advanced gum disease has made it impossible to save a tooth, removing it may be the best way to keep the problem from spreading and causing more damage and further tooth loss.
However, a complete smile is important. Each tooth that goes missing puts the rest of your teeth at risk, as well as making it harder to eat comfortably. Missing teeth can also affect the sound of your voice and seriously impact your confidence.
Once we’ve addressed the immediate issue and stabilized your oral health, we can rebuild your smile with dental bridges, dental implants, or dentures. We’ll keep your smile looking and feeling its best with ongoing care so you don’t have to experience the discomfort and stress of advanced tooth decay or gum disease again.
We’re Here to Save Your Smile!
Advanced tooth decay and gum disease can feel overwhelming, but our team at Imagine Dental is here to help. We proudly provide tooth fillings and crowns for families, as well as gum disease treatment, dental implants, and emergency dental care in Phoenix and Ahwatukee.
If you or a family member are experiencing symptoms or have been putting off care, now is the time to schedule an evaluation. Early treatment can protect your smile, improve comfort, and support long-term oral health for the whole family.
