 Hello everybody. Andrea here. I have been a dental professional for 17 years. I've seen many many patients and I currently have my own mobile dental hygiene practice. What I want to talk to you guys about today is something that comes up almost every day, and that is what is gum recession so I'm going to talk to you guys about what it looks like. What are some of the non severe cases what happens when it can get pretty bad how you can avoid it how you can prevent it. And what do you do once you have a gum recession, can you get the gum back. Do you need invasive surgery, all of that you guys so I'm going to talk about that now. So this is basically what gum recession is it's when the gum is not as high up along the tooth as it should be. So the gum should be high up against the tooth here is your tooth here underneath is the part that you cannot see inside the mouth or you shouldn't be able to see because that is no longer the crown of your tooth. That is now your root surface, but then once the gum becomes lower notice how this side is much lower than this side. That is a gum recession so the gum is starting to shrink down for the bottom of your teeth it's going to shrink down on the top teeth it's kind of like it. It shrinks down but it kind of looks like it shrinking up with that makes sense because the top and the bottom so let me show you guys some pictures of what it could look like. I have to mention that some of these photos, you'll see plaque, you'll see deposits on the teeth, you'll see gum recession gum issues so if you're a little bit you're you don't want to look at yucky teeth pictures, then you might not want to watch the rest of the video. Okay, so moving on here. This is I would say a more severe case of gum recession. Notice how these yellow parts of the teeth are now showing. So these parts that is actually your root surface they should be covered by your gum tissue. This is a picture because if you look at this tooth here. Notice how there's no yellow part showing the root surface of the tooth is covered, but you're starting to see some gingival inflammation so that means that the gum is becoming irritated. When the gum starts to become irritated and look like this that's not a good sign. That means there's too much plaque too much charter it's time to have the teeth cleaned because the gums are becoming irritated when you go in for your teeth cleaning. We don't just simply clean the teeth we look at the mouth as a whole to make things as healthy as possible and it is possible to have clean teeth, but your gums around the teeth are unhealthy that is possible so we keep an eye on that. So this I would say is a case of this person's gums are not healthy. They are going to start to shrink away from the tooth and eventually look like this, if the teeth aren't cleaned. They don't have gingival recession on this to the yet, but then on this to the yes they do so do you guys see the difference. So what do you do once this happens. If you reach the tooth and and the gum. In this case where they're just simply in inflamed, they need to be clean, the gums are puffy, then it's time to book in a teeth cleaning that will make all the difference. They need to take away that plaque and tartar there's likely plaque and tartar also underneath the gum line that is why the gum has become inflamed, and a dental hygienist is the only person who can clean that for you because your toothbrush, even if you try to get in there, you can't get underneath the gums very well. If you say to yourself well I'm not going to worry about it I'm going to book a cleaning in six months it might be almost too late at that point. It's never too late to have your teeth cleaned, but your gum recession could look like this very fast depending on how quick. Your gingival inflammation is so does that make sense so far you guys so at this point it is very easy to stop gingival recession from happening once it gets to this point. If you do not bring the gum back, unless you have gum surgery so what gum surgery is is they take some of your gum tissue or tissue inside the mouth. They typically take it from the roof of the mouth and they put it over here to cover up that area, but it's not perfect it might not cover it up perfectly. Who wants gum surgery, nobody it's not a nice thing to have so unless you're extremely cold sensitive you're in pain you can't eat properly. That would be what you would want to do is to have gum surgery, but if you're not cold sensitive you're not in pain, you can manage it just doesn't look very good then I would avoid gum surgery but you can talk to your dental hygienists more specifically and they will let you know when I see a patient like this, where the gum has obviously shrunk back, I let them know I say did you know you have something called gingival recession. Often patients say to me no I have never heard of this, what is this so then I let them know what I like to do is actually put something over. This is the tooth area here called a, a desensitizer so that will actually help to protect this root surface from getting a cavity. It will help to protect the root surface in general kind of like a good hair conditioner for your hair. It's going to protect your hair it's not perfect, but it's going to help to keep the outside elements off so that's what I like to do, and I like to do that for all of those surfaces that are now exposed, and that can help against cold sensitivity because typically if the root surfaces are exposed they're exposed to the environment when they're not supposed to be, they might be more cold sensitive and if you suffer from sensitivity, it could be because this is happening inside your mouth, maybe not to this extreme, but what you need to do is book an appointment with your dental hygienist, and they will likely put a desensitizer over those areas for you so that's what you need to do. But I also say we don't want those areas to get worse. If you are brushing too hard, it can get worse because you can actually brush away those gum areas, you can, I've seen it so don't brush too hard. But on the other side of things, if you're not brushing twice a day, constantly adding that protective coating of a toothpaste that can make things worse as well, so there's a very fine line. You need to brush twice a day or it's going to get worse. There's going to be more plaque, more tartar that makes it worse, but if you brush too hard and even too often, it can make it worse as well. So please talk to your dental hygienist, they can look inside your mouth to let you know for sure. So the next picture here, so this is again, just kind of showing where the gum is quite irritated, look at all of this plaque here so this white yellow plaque is making things irritated. I want to avoid that. Keep the teeth clean and have your teeth cleaned often, at least every six months, and don't brush too hard. This is a more extreme case that I wanted to show you guys again. So notice these teeth here are pretty good, like they're not too bad. There's some slight gingival recession I would say on this tooth and this tooth where this should be covered up by the gum, like this tooth here. But look at this you guys, this is bad. This is not a good case where see how all of this is covered by plaque, where look at this. The gums don't like it, they are shrinking away, not a good case. But let me say to you guys, it's never too late to get your teeth cleaned, okay? So it's never too late. If it's been 10 years and maybe your teeth look like this, do not be thinking, oh, I'm not going to get my teeth cleaned because the dental hygienist is going to yell at me, my teeth are going to look horrible. No, we will not do that. We are just happy to see you. We will do whatever we can to get the teeth cleaned. It's never too late. Even if you're in a lot of pain, cold sensitive, it's never too late. I love to see any and all patients. So you guys, I hope that helped to explain gum recession. Let me know if you guys have any questions. It's never too late. That's the best thing that I can say to you. But also it is very easy to prevent gum recession in the first place by brushing twice a day, having your teeth cleaned every six months and maybe using a different toothpaste, Teddy. Sorry guys, my dog. Teddy, Teddy. This is working from home. Sorry guys. I'm going to go. Bye for now. Let me know if you guys have any questions. Thank you. Bye for now.