Periodontitis is the inflammation and infection of the ligament and alveolar bone supporting your teeth. It can have a significant effect on your overall health. A number of systemic diseases and conditions can also raise your potential risk for periodontitis.
Periodontal Medicine is a term used to describe how periodontitis impacts your general health. Periodontitis has been linked to over 50 systemic diseases and conditions like cardiovascular disease, cerebrovascular disease, diabetes, pre-term low birth weight babies, preeclampsia, respiratory infections and others including osteoporosis, cancer, rheumatoid arthritis, erectile dysfunction, Alzheimer's disease, gastrointestinal disease, prostatitis, and kidney disease.
Periodontal Medicine is important because periodontal disease is largely preventable and in many instances readily treatable. This provides many new opportunities for preventing and improving prognosis of several systemic pathologic conditions. It’s important to know which conditions in and around the mouth contribute to, and how they contribute to, the cumulative inflammatory burden on your body. Dentistry, for a number of reasons, is the ideal profession to identify and help manage many issues that contribute to inflammation and to systemic health.
We will assess your periodontal health and identify risk factors you may have. From this we will develop a specific home care routine for each person and a personalized schedule of maintenance to reduce and eliminate inflammation and thereby reduce your risk for systemic diseases and conditions. We refer to this a Personalized Periodontal Medicine.