Are your gums swollen? Isn’t it painful to eat with swollen gums? The pain might end up driving you crazy, especially if you can’t help but obsess over it with your tongue, touching it over and over until you aggravate whatever injury or infection it’s suffering from. If it’s just a canker sore or mouth sore, it’s best to leave the wound alone and gargle with anti-bacterial mouthwash to lessen the swelling or inflammation.
Definition
The presence of swollen gums is typically a symptom of gum disease, which is the inflammation of the gum line that can get bad enough to aggravate the bone that supports and surrounds your teeth. Here are the stages of gum disease from weakest to most severe.
- Gingivitis: This disease is a common gum or gingiva problem and a mild form of periodontal disease that results in irritation, swelling, and redness of the gums.
- Periodontitis: This disease is a more serious form of gingivitis that extends the harm of swollen gums to damage of the soft tissue and destruction of the bone supports of your teeth themselves.
- Advanced Periodontitis: This is the most severe form of periodontitis that affects the gums and the surrounding tissue, resulting in massive gum infection and actual dental bone support loss.
Signs and Symptoms
You could have swollen gums and not be aware of it because it might end up mostly painless for the most part, so take good care to take note of the following symptoms.
- Loose teeth
- Bleeding, tender, red, or swollen gums
- Visible pus surrounding the gums and teeth
- Receding gums or gums that move away from the tooth
- Persistent bad taste or halitosis (bad breath) from your mouth
Swollen gums are as common as canker sores and can be caused by many different things. If you’re dealing with swelling gums that last longer than a few days, it’s important that you contact your dentist. While waiting for an appointment, there are few things you can do to alleviate the gravity and severity of your discomfort and swelling.
Consider Possible Causes and Treatments
To treat your gum swelling or inflammation, you should first consider the root cause of it so that you can deal with the actual reason why you’re suffering from the disease in the first place.
- Gingivitis: If you’re suffering from gingivitis-caused gum swelling, then you should step up when it comes to dental hygiene. Brush your teeth more and floss often. Gargle with mouthwash as well.
- Poor Nutrition: You may also not be getting proper nutrition or have Vitamin C deficiency if your gums tend to swell and whatnot. To treat this particular malady, you need to get Vitamin C supplementation or stock up on eating more fruits and vegetables. Don’t be exclusively carnivorous.
- Brand Switch: If you’ve switched toothpaste brands, you might end up with swollen gums due to your reaction to one or more of the ingredients of the new brand. This is particularly ironic when you switch from a regular brand to one for sensitive teeth (you should find one for sensitive gums as well).
- Medications: If you’ve recently taken medications, your gums might swell as a side effect of the drug. Talk to your dentist and/or doctor regarding these adverse effects to find alternatives for the drug.
Because of the many causes of gum inflammation, you should discuss the symptoms with your dentist so that you can find a way to deal with the disease before it gets worse. Get a proper diagnosis today to deal with your dilemma post-haste.
Thantakit International Dental Center is Thailand’s longest established dental center. Situated in Bangkok, our clinic is renowned across the world as a destination for world-class dentistry, with most of our patients flying to us from Australia.
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