Dietary Changes
When teeth are lost or become misaligned, certain foods can become difficult or painful to chew. This provokes many patients to alter their diet to include mostly softer foods that may or may not meet the body’s nutritional requirements. In such cases, illnesses like weight loss, indigestion, and constipation may arise and affect your overall well-being.
Changes in Speech
Tooth loss due to infected gums can also have a profound effect on the way you speak. Certain letter sounds that are formed by tongue-to-tooth contact may become difficult or impossible to pronounce. Patients with missing teeth often form a lisp that can impede others’ ability to understand what is being said. Additionally, the tongue may want to expand in order to fill the empty space left by missing teeth. Larger tongues are harder to control and may further impede speech patterns.
Head and Neck Pain
When teeth are lost because of infected gums, the remaining teeth will often begin to move and shift in order to fill the extra space. This can cause changes in your bite pattern that may lead to pain to in your head, neck and jaw.
Bone Loss
In areas where infected gums have caused tooth loss, the jaw bone will not receive the stimulation it needs to grow and will begin to break down and deteriorate. After a certain period of time, bone loss will become so severe that dental prosthetics will no longer be useful because there is no bone left to support them. This is why it is important to treat infected gums as early as possible to prevent tooth and bone loss. Please contact Dr. Dickson to discuss gum disease treatment in Midvale, UT before it is too late!
Dr. Thomas R. Dickson and Dr. Lyndi Jones, general dentists in Midvale, Utah, treat patients from Midvale, UT; Millcreek, UT; and Sandy, UT as well as the surrounding areas. Dr. Dickson and Dr. Jones provide advanced dental treatments including the LANAP Laser Treatment for gum disease, dental implants, All-on-4, root canals, sedation, and orthodontics. Call (801) 784-1999 to schedule your appointment or click here to request an appointment online.