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If your gums look red and puffy, if they’re tender, if they bleed after flossing, the worst thing you can do is just ignore it and hope it will get better. These are signs of gum disease.
As the infection deepens, so do the pockets around the teeth, becoming safe havens for harmful bacteria. Eventually, the infection starts to destroy the soft and hard tissues that hold your teeth in place. Early stage gum disease – gingivitis – gives way to periodontitis, and the teeth become wobbly in their sockets.
At this point, we may recommend extracting some of the most compromised teeth in hopes of saving more of the others, before they have a chance to fall out on their own.
Periodontitis raises your risk of many systemic health problems, too. Over a dozen conditions have already been linked with gum disease, including heart disease, stroke, diabetes, cognitive decline, chronic kidney disease, rheumatoid arthritis, depression, pregnancy complications, respiratory infections, and even some cancers.
In short, gum disease is serious business. It demands attention. Typically, that means nutritional and hygiene improvements at home and specialized treatment here in the dental office. The latter typically begins with a procedure called scaling and root planing – SRP for short – which most patients refer to as a “deep cleaning.”
SRP involves cleaning your teeth both above and below the gums with both hand tools and an ultrasonic scaler to remove calculus – hardened plaque – from the teeth. We also use ozone for additional disinfection and healing support, which science has consistently shown to be helpful as an adjunct to SRP.
As effective as SRP is, though, one thing that it can’t do is restore bone lost to the disease. There is something that can stimulate new bone growth, though: LANAP.
“LANAP” stands for laser assisted new attachment procedure in which we use an Nd:YAG laser to selectively target and remove diseased soft tissue while leaving healthy tissues intact. This helps stimulate growth of the supporting bone and the reattachment of gum tissue to the teeth – no cutting or grafting or stitching involved, and less post-op discomfort and faster healing for you.
In a 2023 study comparing SRP plus LANAP to SRP alone, LANAP led to better results all around. The periodontal pockets were shallower. There was less visible plaque. There was less bleeding upon probing. Levels of P. gingivalis – one of the main kinds of bacteria involved in gum disease – were significantly lower after LANAP, as well.
“This study,” concluded its authors,
provides evidence indicating that LANAP effectively reduces harmful bacteria, namely Porphyromonas gingivalis, inside the periodontal pockets, thus improving oral health. This minimally invasive method of treating periodontal disease provides a safe, more comfortable, and effective alternative to conventional periodontal surgery.
What’s more, new research suggests that LANAP might help improve some of the chronic conditions linked with periodontitis – diabetes, for example.
One study published last summer looked at blood glucose management in 75 patients randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups: SRP, SRP plus antibiotics, or LANAP. The research team then tracked patients A1c levels every 6 months for a year and a half.
In the final analysis, all three treatments appeared to improve blood glucose control, but unequally so. While glucose levels dropped from 8.3 to 7.4 with SRP alone (a 10.8% improvement), adding antibiotics to the mix lowered them from 8.4 to 7.2 (a 14.3% improvement.
But LANAP was best of all, lowering blood glucose levels from an average 8.5 to 7 for a total improvement of 17.6%.
“This study,” the authors wrote,
provides compelling evidence that the laser-assisted new attachment procedure (LANAP) significantly improves glycemic control in diabetic patients with chronic periodontitis compared to more traditional methods….
They suggested that this is likely because of the superior disinfection that LANAP offers.
LANAP’s effectiveness shows what biological dentistry is all about – working with your body’s natural healing power, not against it. By targeting only the diseased tissue while preserving what’s healthy, this laser therapy supports natural healing and may even help with whole-body health issues like diabetes.
Such a holistic approach is exactly what we think modern dental care should be.
