Guided Tissue Regeneration

Gum Disease doesn't have to be terminal. Gum disease, or Pyorrhoea as it used to be called, is caused by bacterial plaque, which strips the gum and supporting bone from the teeth.

In the past, there haven’t been many solutions to bone loss, mobile teeth and final loss of teeth if there were deep gum pockets and recession.

Now with modern surgery and techniques, we can replace much of the missing bone and reduce the pockets so that the teeth become stable in the long term.

A new gel called Emdogain initiates a natural process that mimics tooth development, which encourages the bone to grow back around the tooth, and allows the gum to re-attach.

The key ingredient is Amelogemin, a natural protein that the body itself produces. This protein has an important function as a ‘building block’ in the creation of the teeth and their supporting periodontal tissues but it is only produced during the time our teeth are developing.

Missing bone can be replaced with artificial bone substitutes or grafts of the patients own bone. Another exciting new development that increases the success rate of this treatment is Gore-Tex membranes. When a bone defect is healing, there is intense competition between the slow growing bone forming cells and the faster growing gum forming cells to fill the void. If the membrane is carefully placed between the healing bone and the overlying gum it allows the more important bone forming cells to win this race to fill the space, providing solid support for the tooth. This firms up the teeth and ensures that all the pockets are cleanable and maintainable giving the teeth a new lease of life.

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