Avoiding gum disease is a key part in maintaining a healthy life. However, since so many forms of bacteria can grow in you mouth you are always at risk for gingivitis or other gum diseases. Your mouth alone can carry more than 700 forms of bacteria. Oral diseases are linked to cardiovascular disease which makes it important to take care of your mouth and if you should develop one of these diseases, get treatment immediately. One of the best ways to treat these diseases is with laser dental surgery. These surgical methods have been becoming increasingly popular due to their ability to discard plaque bacteria during the process, reduce infections and speed up the entire process.
Prevention is Still Key
Obviously, the best thing you can do for yourself is to prevent these gum diseases from ever developing. This can be accomplished by brushing and flossing on a daily basis. Not only is brushing important, but how you brush matters. Stay away from cheap toothbrushes which can damage your enamel and need to be replaced far too frequently anyways. Most people should be buying soft bristled brushes – anything more can damage your root tissue, gums or wear off irreplaceable enamel. Use toothpaste that contains fluoride – this is probably the single most important thing they put in toothpaste these days and helps prevent tooth decay. Don’t know what to get? Ask your local dentist for advice.
Digging into Laser Dentistry
Now that we have that covered, let’s look at how you can get rid of gum diseases with advanced laser techniques. Tartar can build up along the line of the gum, which begins to eat away at your gums and only worsens from there. Diode dental lasers use heat to sterilize and cauterize the infected region. Changing the wavelength of a diode laser can accomplish various jobs. One end of the spectrum will act as a disinfectant, while the other can be used to make incisions. Lasers are extremely targeted and accurate, making it possible for dentists to only go after infected tissue, leaving your healthy tissues in tact.
And the benefits include…
The way these lasers work almost eliminates the possibility of infection entirely. Infections have been known to happen after standard oral treatments, however with lasers obliterating most of the bacteria in your mouth, post treatment infections are far less likely to occur.
Furthermore, with such extreme precision in cutting away your gum tissue, lasers can do jobs much quicker than any human could do. Most laser procedures are far less painful and take less time than other treatments. This means far less cotton balls soaking up all the blood in your mouth. Want more? Recovery time will be significantly less after a laser treatment as well.
Lasers and Teeth Whitening
Aside from gum disease, laser treatments can be used for cleaning and whitening purposes. Your daily cup of coffee or red wine can do work on the color of your teeth and using certain bleaching methods to get your teeth back to whiteness is not the most efficient or safe option. Soft tissue lasers can target the plaque, stains and any discoloration in your teeth giving you that pearly white smile you’ve always dreamed of. A single laser treatment can last years for some people.
Lasers are incredibly useful for many procedures (not all, unfortunately). How can you know if laser surgery is an option for you? Talk to your favorite local dentist, like Eastside Dentistry in order to be sure. You should also take into consideration that not all dentists are trained in laser treatment, so checking for their laser credentials is a good idea.
