Are your teeth looking longer than normal? Are your gums red and swollen? Are they shrinking and painful when you go to brush and floss? Chances are, your gums are receding. With how vital your gums are for your oral health and your teeth, it’s natural for people to worry and wonder if you can regrow your gums when you notice you have receding gums. There must be a way to fix your gums, right? While you can’t regrow your gums, it’s not an unsolvable problem! It is possible to slow down the progression of gum recession and to treat it.
What Happens When Your Gums Recede?
While your teeth are a crucial component of your mouth, your gums are equally important. Your gums are what hold your teeth in place and help to protect them. If your gums start to recede, this exposes the roots of your teeth to bacteria which can lead to tooth decay, and left untreated, tooth loss. As such, when people notice their gums are receding, you’ll naturally wonder if you can regrow your gums. You need to protect your teeth!
Sign Your Gums Are Receding
While sometimes, you can tell that your gums are receding, in other cases, like many dental issues, you likely won’t even notice. This is why regular dental appointments are so important, so that your dentist can catch any issues as they arise before they get the chance to grow into more serious problems that necessitate more drastic treatments than simply something like flossing more.
But just because your gums can recede without obvious symptoms, gum recession can also come with symptoms that you can notice. These include:
- Bad breath
- Loose teeth
- Red and swollen gums
- Shrinking gums
- Gums that bleed when you brush or floss
- Pain at your gum line
- Exposed tooth roots
- Teeth that look longer than normal
Why Gums Recede
If you’re wondering if you can regrow your gums, you’ll likely also be wondering why they even started receding in the first place. There are a lot of culprits behind gum recession. Some of which, you can’t do much about, but others are things that are within your control. It’s important to know the causes behind why gum recession happens so you can do your best to prevent it and the worry about if you can regrow your gums.
Causes of gum recession include:
- Genetics
- Hormonal changes
- Misaligned teeth
- Traumatic injuries
- Tobacco use
- Grinding and clenching your teeth
- Brushing and flossing too hard
- Poor oral hygiene
- Gum disease
Can You Regrow Your Gums?
Unfortunately, once your gums start receding, you cannot regrow your gums. But you’re in luck, because even though you can’t regrow your gums, there are treatments available for receding gums that are designed to restore and reattach your gum tissue.
Treatments For Receding Gums
So, you can’t regrow your gums… But it’s not hopeless. Just because your gums recede doesn’t mean they’ll be like that forever. Your treatment options will depend on the cause of your gum recession and how bad it is. Some treatments are pretty simple and easy while others are more involved.
Receding gums are often a result of gum disease, which can be helping through a deep cleaning. Also known as root planing and scaling, this is when your dentist cleans out bacteria from the pockets between your gums and your teeth, which removes the infection.
In more serious cases where gum recession is noticeable, you may need a gum graft. This involves surgery where tissue is taken from one part of your mouth, like the roof, and then placed where your gums have receded.
Preventing Receding Gums
The best way to prevent your gums from receding is through maintaining good oral hygiene. This includes going to your recommended dental exams every six months, flossing once a day, brushing your teeth twice a day, eating well and drinking plenty of water, and taking care of any dental problems that arise with your dentist.
Everyone has their own unique dental circumstances, so if you would like personalized advice on how you can prevent your gums from receding so that you don’t find yourself fretting about whether you can regrow your gums and how to fix receding gums, you should talk to your dentist. They’ll be able to best advise you on what you can do to maintain the health of your gums, to prevent them from receding, and if you are experiencing receding gums, what treatments they recommend for you.
Avenues Dentistry provides expert dental services, and even though we can’t make it so that you can regrow your gums, we can help you take care of them and give you advice and treatment when needed. If you need to schedule a dental exam or if you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact us today!