People who are diligent with brushing and flossing may never need to see a periodontist, or gum specialist.
“We are trained to perform surgery on the gum and the bone around the teeth. Sometimes that is for teeth. Sometimes it’s for regeneration of gum or bone tissue. Sometimes it’s to solve problems that are caused by gum disease, which we call periodontal disease, and sometimes it’s to replace missing teeth with dental implants,” says Dr. Mehrdad Favagehi, a periodontist with Falls Church Periodontics & Dental Implant Surgery.
“The central part of our specialty is preserving the bone and the gum around teeth in order to save teeth,” he says, adding that 40 percent of Americans have some degree of periodontal disease.
Your regular dentist may send you to a periodontist when a deep dental cleaning fails to resolve your inflamed or infected gum problems. “In our office, we get the advanced cases. And those advanced cases are mostly the ones who have a problem other than just poor hygiene, and that’s your diabetics and smokers and patients with issues with inflammation,” he says.
“Periodontal disease is the No. 1 reason patients lose their teeth in the United States,” Favagehi says. “With proper brushing and flossing, many patients can prevent periodontal problems.”
Feature image santypan/stock.abobe.com
This story originally ran in our November issue. For more stories like this, subscribe to Northern Virginia Magazine.
