Inflamed gums are a painful experience that I hope no one has to endure. Normally red and swollen, inflamed gums are like the enemy you didn’t know you had. They affect you all day long by causing you pain multiple times a day whenever you try to eat or drink something. Luckily, avoiding the pain that comes with inflamed gums is easy. Here’s how.
What Causes Inflamed Gums
Not Brushing Your Teeth
If you don’t brush your teeth regularly, bacteria builds up on your teeth. Sometimes, this bacteria can be on your gums for extended periods of time, and it will cause your gums to become infected. This can result in your gums become red, swollen, and in extreme cases, they can bleed. So make sure you are brushing at least twice a day to get that bad bacteria out of your mouth and off your teeth and gums.
Make sure you are using proper brushing techniques when you brush your teeth. Make sure you choose a tooth brush with soft bristles and when you brush you brush in gentle circular motions to massage your teeth clean. If you use the back and forth method, you can damage your gums.
Brushing Your Teeth to Vigorously
If you brush your teeth too hard, you can damage the delicate tissues that make up your gums. You could be scratching your gums with the hard bristles, or you may accidentally hit your gums with the top of your toothbrush and scratch your gums. If this happens, you are more likely to get bad bacteria in your open cuts, and they can become infected. Cuts in your mouth take a lot longer to heal so make sure that you are brushing and flossing that you do so carefully.
Not Flossing Daily
Flossing is essential because you remove bacteria that you can’t remove with a standard tooth brush but flossing is also important because it helps you strengthen your gums. Make sure that you are flossing correctly and carefully sliding the floss in between your teeth and not jamming the floss into your gums. If you cut your soft gums with the floss, they will bleed and again have a better chance of allowing harmful bacteria into the open cut. When you start flossing your gums will probably bleed because your gums are not used to the flossing, but the bleeding should go away with time as your gums become stronger.
Other Causes of Inflamed gums
Some other causes of inflamed gums are stress, inadequate nutrition, puberty, hormonal fluctuations, substance abuse, and some medications.
How To Treat Inflamed Gums
Even if your gums are inflamed, and in pain you need to continue brushing and flossing to get rid of all the bacteria your mouth collected throughout the day. You want to brush and floss your teeth very gently and don’t touch your gums if possible. You can then rinse your mouth out with salt water to get rid of the extra bacteria.
You will want to drink lots of water throughout the day because the water will act as a cleanser for your mouth. Water will also help produce more saliva which helps to kill bacteria in your mouth.
Some things you want to avoid if you have swollen gums are strong mouthwashes, alcohol, and tobacco.
The Risk of Unhealthy Gums
If you have poor oral health habits throughout your life, you can eventually develop gum disease. There are two different types of gum disease, gingivitis and periodontitis disease. Both of these diseases are very painful and have a variety of different adverse effects on your overall health. Gum diseases could be completely avoided with proper oral care.