AESTHETIC PROCEDURES ON THE GUM

1. Gum overgrowth– Hyperplasia

Sometimes the gum next to the teeth overgrows – this phenomenon is called hyperplasia. The gum covers parts of the tooth that shouldn’t be covered. This bothers the patient aesthetically and disables proper cleaning. In addition to this the gum is frequently inflamed and bleeds during cleaning.

The reasons for gum overgrowth are various. Among the most common are:

• Breathing through the mouth that causes the saliva to dry and leaves the gums dry,
• A too short upper lip that doesn’t cover the gum and front teeth in the upper jaw and causes excessive drying of the gum,
• Fixed orthodontic braces,
• A changed hormone level (puberty, pregnancy),
• Systemic diseases (leucemia etc.),
• A longterm intake of a certain medicine (antiepileptics, calcium antagonists, some imunosupressive medicines),
• Not taking the biological width into account, when preparing the teeth for crowns,
• Functional overloading of the remaining teeth because of missing adjacent teeth,
• Inappropriate oral hygiene, when patients don’t clean their teeth precisely to the start of the gum,
• Untreated periodontal disease.

The excellent success of laser technology

The only really effective and successful method for gum removal is with a laser for hard and soft tissues Er:YAG. During the procedure we remove the gum, layer by layer, like erasing it. In addition to that the procedure is painless to most patients, that is why we frequently perform it without anaesthesia.

The procedure is safe, because the laser beam Er:YAG strongly absorbs itself in water, which is in the gum and consequently doesn’t penetrate deeply.

The recovery is quick

The little wound heals quickly, the healing period is at the maximum one to two weeks. The healing stages start with the gathering of a yellow substance that is called fibrin in the small wound (a fibrous sustance). Many people can mistake this substance for puss, but it is just part of the normal wound healing on the gum.

During healing time we recommend:

• Good oral hygiene,
• Intake of liquid food,which is less spicy, salty and hot than normally,
• Rinsing the mouth with water or unsweetened tea a couple of times per day.

Soon after the procedure you can rinse your mouth with a clorhexidine solution (Curasept) and/or use gels, that contain hyaluronic acid (Gengigel, Cikaflogo,…).

It is important to know that certain cases don’t allow a succesful healing, because the reasons fort this cannot be eliminated:

• When the patient’s medication cannot be replaced, because it is of life importance,
• when we cannot insure breathing through the nose for different reasons,
• when we need to finish the orthodontic treatment,
• because of pregnancy…

A case from our practice

The patient had been wearing fixed braces for a long time, had a short upper lip, which didn’t cover the upper front teeth during sleeping, had been breathing thorugh his mouth, that is why the gum started to ovegrow and fatten. The patient wasn’t bothered by the gum itself, he just wished that his teeth would look bigger.

The outcome that was wished for was reached, the patient’s teeth seemed much bigger than before.

Before

After

2. Gum pigmentation

Gum colouring can happen for different reasons:

• They are often inborn,
• Sometimes tey are a consequence of a longterm intake of certain medicines,
• Sometimes they show up after dental procedures.

Case from our practice

The patient was bothered by a brownish pigmentation on the upper jaw’s gum. The patient showed her gum a lot during speaking and smiling, that’s why the pigmentation was evident in all her photos.

She was seriously thinking about applying botox to not use her upper lip muscles that much in order to hide her gum during smiling and talking. Botox would have solved the problem for half a year, but she would have needed to reapply it every 6 months, because the effect wears off during this period.

Instead of this we performed gum peeling with our Lightwalker Er:YAG laser. The melanocytes were in the upper layer of the gum, that’s why their removal was extremely simple. We needed only one laser session, which took 5 to 10 minutes. The patient solved her problem permanently.

The thin layer of removed gum was quickly (in approximately 2 weeks) replaced by new, beautiful and healthy gum.

The wanted outcome was achieved. The brown pigmentation that was present is gone.

Before

After