Receding gums, as the name itself suggests, occurs when the gum tissue around your teeth wear away and the gums seem to recede backwards making a larger area of the surface of tooth more visible. When your gums recede, it gives rise to gaps between your teeth and gum line. This makes it easy for bacteria to build up and survive there.
The modern oral hygiene and dentistry have made receding gum treatment less of a problem than in generations past, even for older adults. It is now easier than ever to both prevent and treat gingival recession.
Keeping your gums healthy is the best way on how to stop receding gums. Brushing twice a day, flossing and keeping up with dental cleanings performed by a dental professional are usually all that is needed to keep gums from receding from the teeth.
However, it’s not that simple. Heredity can cause teeth to recede, despite even the best hygiene practices. You may grind your teeth or have a misalignment, making it easier for plaque and tartar to build up at the gum line, causing it to recede. Brushing to hard at the gum line can also cause gum recession to occur.
What Causes Receding Gums
It can be scary and painful to have receding gums, but this should not cause worry to you. There are several steps you can take at home that may serve as effective treatment for receding gums, depending on the severity of the problem. The first step for addressing an oral health matter is to consult your dentist to find out whether your oral health requires further measures.
Symptoms of receding gums
Although gum recession is very general dental problem, most of the people suffering from it doesn’t seem to notice it timely because the process is very slow and it occurs gradually. However, if your tooth has become sensitive, you should check for receding gums because this one of the very first signs of receding gums.
Also when you feel your tooth or teeth appear to be larger than earlier, immediately start treating your tooth as this is nothing but a receding gum problem. You can list the symptoms of receding gums as follows:
- Tooth sensitivity
- Tooth appearing larger than usual
- Pain or tooth ache
- bad breath
- swollen and red gums
- a bad taste in your mouth
- loose teeth
You may notice that your bite is different. You may also notice some pain or that your gums are especially tender. One of the major concerns with receding gums is that they become more susceptible to bacteria growth. This is why regular dental check-ups, and good and daily oral care is essential.
Causes of gum recession
Gum recession has many causes. The most serious is periodontal disease. Other causes include:
Overly aggressive brushing or flossing
It is great to be enthusiastic about oral care, but you should make sure that you’re brushing, not scrubbing! Never use a toothbrush that is not soft. Be gentle on your teeth, and remember that taking care of them isn’t supposed to hurt.
Genetics
Your gums’ characteristics are determined by your genetics, just as the rest of your body is. If one or both of your parents have gum recession, you’re at a higher risk for receding gums.
Abnormal tooth positioning
The abnormal tooth positioning is the irregular appearance of the teeth on the jaw bone apart from the normal arrangement. If your teeth are not in alignment to one another, gum recession can occur in this situation. It is important to know ways on how to stop receding gums to handle this condition.
You may experience gum recession if your teeth aren’t in quite the right alignment. Prominent tooth roots, misaligned teeth, or attachment muscles can force gum tissue out of place.
Grinding your teeth, or bruxism
This habit can be the cause of many dental maladies, not just gum recession, so let your dentist know right away if you think you are grinding your teeth. Teeth grinding can be treated easily and painlessly with a mouth guard and several other options.
If you grind your teeth while you sleep, you may also notice gum recession. Grinding and clenching can put excessive forces on your teeth. This can cause gum recession.
Trauma to gum tissue. The gum tissue may recede when a traumatic injury has occurred on a tooth or teeth.
Poor oral health. If your oral health habits are questionable, gum recession may be a result of periodontitis. Gum diseases, specifically speaking periodontal diseases meaning bacterial infections that occur in your gums. These infections damage the gum tissue and your teeth’s supporting bone leading to gum recession and then other problems.
Poor oral hygiene. If you do not brush or floss properly, you may end up building plaque on your teeth. This plaque then turns into calculus, also called tartar. Tartar is the hard substance between your teeth and may cause gum recession.
Other more causes may include the following:
- old age
- medical conditions, such as diabetes
- A sports injury or other trauma to the mouth can also lead to receding gums. For example, body piercing studs of the lip or tongue can rub against the gum tissue causing recession.
- Smoking also damages the gums. You’re at increased risk for gum recession if you chew tobacco or dip with a pouch of tobacco.
- Poor-fitting partial dentures can also cause gum problems
- Hormonal changes, especially in women, may also sometimes cause receding gums. The changes in hormones make the gums more sensitive and vulnerable.
- Piercing of your lips or tongue can also cause gum recession. This is because the jewelry that you wear after piercing may get rubbed against the gums. This may lead the gum tissue to wear away.
Can Receding Gums Grow Back
Gum infection (periodontitis) is a common condition that leads to receding gums. Gum deterioration occurs when chronic infection affects the tissues and bones around the teeth. The good news is that you can try to improve oral hygiene to stop gums from receding and there are other ways to stimulate its growth. More importantly, ask your dentist about gum health.
Gums are soft tissues that normally cover the bones holding the teeth in place as well as the roots of the teeth. Gums recede when they shrink and appear to be drawn back, resulting in the roots of the teeth becoming visible. This happens when gum infection is not treated, or when you brush your teeth aggressively.
In mild cases, natural remedies may help improve receding gums. While it’s not likely to reverse receding gums, you can do make things to prevent it from shrinking more. Severe cases must be seen and treated by a dentist for better results.
How to Reverse Receding Gums – Home Remedies
Maintain Proper Dental Hygiene
Brush your teeth using gentle, not aggressive strokes, and circular motion. Avoid pushing the gums upward but gently brush them along gum lines to remove bacteria that cause gingivitis. Use a small-headed toothbrush with a soft bristles.
Regular flossing is also recommended, since it effectively removes plaque between teeth and around gums. Dentists recommend flossing and brushing after every meal to prevent gum disease.
Eat More Fruits and Vegetables
Fruits and vegetables contain a lot of nutrients such as vitamin C, which is important to maintain gum health. Vitamin C reduces inflammation from gum disease and promotes gum regeneration. Eat fresh fruits, such as strawberries and pineapple, and vegetables, such as broccoli, cauliflower, and asparagus, which are vitamin-rich foods.
Use a Germicidal Mouth Rinse
Rinse your mouth with mouthwash containing a few drops of essential oils (peppermint, clove, or sage) for about one minute. When done regularly this can help control gum infection that causes receding gums. Water with hydrogen peroxide also works to reduce bacterial growth and promote dental health.
Drink Lots of Plain Water for Cleaning and Healing
You can also keep gums healthy by drinking plain water instead of sugary beverages. Use plain water to swish around the mouth after eating to remove particles of food that may be left between the teeth and gums. Repeat this procedure as often as you can to have a clean mouth and teeth and to promote healing of gums.
Do Gums Grow Back after Injury
If you do not contain receding gums, even the root of teeth may become exposed which can then cause pain making your teeth extremely sensitive. Not only this, due to the damage caused to the supporting tissue and bone structures of your teeth, you may eventually lose teeth. The receding gums whether to grow back or not usually depends on severity of the condition, although this reverse process is not usually compete up the usual state.
Medical Treatment for Receding Gums
When you notice your receding gums in time, a dentist may treat it with deep cleaning processes used for teeth such as tooth scaling and root planing. In these, the dentist will carefully remove the plaque and tartar that builds up on your teeth and root surfaces below the gum line. If however, you have got late in identifying your receding gums, the dentist may go for gum surgery to repair the damage caused by your receding gums.
These surgeries may include such procedures as pocket depth reduction, regeneration of lost bone and tissue of teeth and gums, soft tissue graft etc. However, if you do not want to go for these dental treatments, you may very well adopt certain home remedies that may treat your receding gums. But if your gums have some infection, you must first visit a dentist so that you may know how deep the bacteria have invaded.
Otherwise home remedies for receding gums are sufficient. You can even grow back receding gums with proper dental care and certain natural remedies.
How to Stop Receding Gums Fast
If left untreated, gum recession can cause tooth sensitivity and can also lead to further gum and bone loss. As the gums recede, the teeth will appear longer and gaps may form between them.
The exposed dentin may also cause tooth sensitivity to hot, cold or sweet food and beverages… If gum disease is the culprit, chronic bad breath may accompany the condition.
Treatments
The first step in treatment is to determine what factors are contributing to the recession, so they can be lessened or, if possible, eliminated. For instance, crooked teeth can be straightened, tobacco use curbed and better oral hygiene methods incorporated.
One possible treatment is to attach bonded resin restorations to the exposed areas of your teeth. In this procedure, your dentist adheres a tooth-colored plastic material to the affected area that can then be shaped and polished to match the surrounding teeth.
For significant gum loss, your dentist may recommend a gingival tissue graft. This procedure requires a periodontal surgeon to extract soft tissue from the roof of the mouth and transplant it to the area that has worn away. The newly-integrated tissue slows further gum recession and bone loss and protects the exposed root from decay.
Once those factors are addressed, different treatments can be used by your dental professional to enhance and restore the appearance to your gums:
Deep cleaning: Your dentist and dental hygienist may use special tools in order to remove the plaque and tartar build-up on the roots where the gums are receding, a procedure known as root planing.
Gum grafting: This involves taking the patient’s own healthy gum tissue from the palate or using a gum grafting material to replace the missing gum tissue. Your dentist may recommend you see a periodontist, a dental specialist who treats the gum tissue and supporting bone, for this surgical procedure.
Regeneration: In severe cases of gum recession, the bone may be destroyed. Recent advances in dentistry allow the periodontist to conduct a surgical procedure where a regenerative material is placed in the area of bone loss to help regenerate the bone and tissue. The gum tissue is then secured in that area where one or more teeth may have been involved.
Gum recession might occur very slowly, sometimes over a period of years. This can make it tough to spot if you don’t experience pain or sensitivity. However, if you notice that your teeth appear longer, or the spaces in between them appear bigger at the base, contact your dentist, as these may be signs that you need receding gums treatment.
Prevention
Prevent the advent or continuation of gum recession with proper oral care and regular visits to the dentist. Use an approved soft-bristled toothbrush and replace it every three to four months. Brush your teeth two to three times per day and floss at least once per day.
Place the toothbrush at a 45 degree angle from the tooth’s surface and use short, up and down strokes. If you already have some gum recession, position your toothbrush so that the sides of the bristles, rather than the ends, make contact with the tooth. This will help prevent further tissue destruction.
Can Receding Gums be reversed
Well I’m not sure what parts of your body grow back? If you cut off an arm for example it will not return. Gums can be healed quite easily. For instance I was having receding gums. Turns out hard is for dentures only, and otherwise all people should use soft.
Teeth do have the ability to heal from a cavity form. Once the cavity has hit a nerve though you will have to remove the tooth, or get a root canal otherwise you will suffer infection and nerve damage.
The misconception stems from the fact that most people do not realize the way diet affects teeth. Eating starches and sugars have a negative effect on teeth. Starches such as noodles and pasta are turned into sugars in the mouth by saliva.
Eating fats that contain vitamin K2, Vitamin D3 and calcium or taking those three in combination will help to heal the teeth, and indeed strengthen all bones. Another thing that is important is gelatin, and eating a bone broth made from beef is an amazing elixir for healing the teeth.
Drinking high amounts of sugars such as pops will leech calcium from the bones, and also destroys the teeth topically. This creates a double effect inside and out that leads to worse cavities.
I can say that in my life time as a child I had lots of cavities, but as an adult since I quit drinking soda and stopped eating starches, and have a healthier diet, I never get cavities anymore.
How to Fix Receding Gums from Brushing
If your receding gums are due to mild periodontitis, your dentist may treat you by performing deep cleaning of your teeth, which involves root planing and tooth scaling to remove tartar and plaque on the tooth surfaces and beneath your gum line. Antibiotics may be used to kill harmful bacteria.
Severe gum recession with bone loss and deep pockets may require surgery to repair damage. The following procedures may be used in treating gum recession:
Regeneration of Lost Bone
This procedure involves folding back gum tissue, removing bacteria and applying a material (a membrane, a tissue-stimulating protein or a graft tissue) used to regenerate gums and bone naturally. The gum is secured back over the root of your teeth.
Pocket Depth Reduction
This procedure involves folding back gum tissue, removing harmful bacteria from tooth pockets, and securing the gum back over tooth roots, to eliminate or reduce.
Soft Tissue Graft
This involves tissue grafting, that is, taking soft tissue from the roof of your mouth, which is sewn to the gum surrounding your exposed tooth root.
Your dentist will recommend the appropriate treatment, depending in the severity of your gum problem.
Mild gum recession may be able to be treated by your dentist by deep cleaning the affected area. During the deep cleaning also called tooth scaling and root planing plaque and tartar that has built up on the teeth and root surfaces below the gum line is carefully removed and the exposed root area is smoothed to make it more difficult for bacteria to attach itself. Antibiotics also may be given to get rid of any remaining harmful bacteria.
Noticing receding gums in time, may help a dentist to treat it with deep cleaning processes used for teeth such as tooth scaling and root planing. He will carefully remove the plaque and tartar that builds up on your teeth and root surfaces below the gum line.
If your gum recession cannot be treated with deep cleaning because of excess loss of bone and pockets that are too deep, gum surgery may be required to repair the damage caused by gum recession.
How Can I Prevent Gum Recession?
The best way to prevent gum recession is to take good care of your mouth. Brush and floss your teeth every day and see your dentist or periodontist at least twice a year, or as recommended.
If you have gum recession, your dentist may want to see you more often. Always use a soft-bristled toothbrush and ask your dentist to show you the proper way to brush your teeth. If a misaligned bite or teeth grinding is the cause of gum recession, talk to your dentist about how to correct the problem. Other ways to prevent gum recession include:
- Quit smoking if you smoke.
- Eat a well-balanced and healthy diet.
- Monitor changes that may occur in your mouth.
By taking good care of your teeth, you can have a healthy smile forever.
More references
- Receding gums treatment and prevention: http://www.colgate.com/en/us/oc/oral-health/conditions/gum-disease/article/receding-gums-treatment-and-prevention-0413
- Receding gums causes and treatment: http://www.livestrong.com/article/168934-receding-gums-causes-treatment/
- Can receding gums grow back: http://www.newhealthguide.org/Can-Receding-Gums-Grow-Back.html