This Valentine’s month, show your smile some love by taking extra good care of your teeth and gums. Your oral health is a vital part of an attractive smile. And it’s not just those pearly whites that deserve your attention, your gums support your teeth so they deserve to be nurtured as carefully as your chompers. At Gorelik Dentistry, Dr. Julia Gorelik provides periodontal treatment for our patients seeking a healthy smile in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Gum disease

To prevent gum disease, our dentist cleans your teeth and gumline–by scaling–to keep the gum tissue from becoming inflamed from bacterial plaque and tartar build up. Scaling effectively removes plaque and tartar. Normally, healthy gum tissue fits snugly around each of your teeth to support them. If bacterial plaque and tartar build up around the gums and under the gums, pockets, or spaces, can form, resulting in gum tissue pulling away from the tooth. This is known as advanced gum disease.

Scaling and root planing

Scaling and root planning is a non-surgical procedure done to treat your advancing gum disease and is the first procedure dentists use to treat advancing gum disease. To prevent the condition from causing bone loss or teeth falling out, you will want to have periodontal treatment.

First, we carefully and completely scale all of the plaque, bacteria, and tartar from the tooth and surfaces of the tooth root. During root planing, we smooth out all of the rough surfaces on the roots. This helps prevent bacteria, plaque, and tartar from reattaching beneath the gumline so that your gums can heal and come closer to hug your teeth. You will be encouraged to follow up with periodic cleanings and monitoring of your gum tissue and any gum recession to make sure the pockets stay gone and the tissue stays healthy.

Periodontal treatment is a vital part of a healthy smile routine. We encourage you to schedule an appointment with Dr. Julia Gorelik if you have tender, swollen or bleeding gums. At Gorelik Holistic Dentistry in Charlotte, North Carolina, we look forward to helping you achieve and maintain your beautiful smile for years to come! We can be reached at 704-553-1627 today.