Diabetes can increase your risk of gum disease, the leading cause of receding gums. What’s worse is that once you have gum disease, it makes your diabetes worse, which in turn worsens gum disease.
It’s common for people with diabetes to suffer receding gums before they get their diabetes under control. But once your diabetes is under control, nonsurgical gum rejuvenation can be used to restore your gums to their former, healthy position.
How Diabetes Impacts Gum Disease
Diabetes doesn’t always worsen gum disease. If your diabetes is properly controlled, there is no risk of increased gum disease. But poorly controlled diabetes can increase the risk of serious gum disease threefold. This increase includes not just deeper periodontal pockets and more severe loss of attachment, but also more widespread damage to your gums.
We think that the primary mechanism that links diabetes to worse gum disease is an increase in systemic inflammation. Remember, the damage that comes from gum disease isn’t just caused by bacteria, but also by your body’s inflammation response to bacteria. With increased inflammation, that response does more damage than it would otherwise.
How Gum Disease Impacts Diabetes
What makes increased gum disease even worse is that it then makes it harder to control diabetes. People with poor gum disease are more likely to have diabetes that persists despite treatment.
And gum disease makes the effects of diabetes worse. In addition to increasing the risk of cardiovascular effects like hardening of the arteries, heart attack, and stroke, gum disease increases the risk of kidney problems. People with moderate gum disease are more than twice as likely to experience end stage renal disease (ESRD, a type of kidney failure). People with severe gum disease were nearly four times as likely to experience ESRD.
We’re not entirely certain of the mechanism by which gum disease worsens diabetes. However, we do know that gum disease affects blood sugar levels even in healthy individuals.
You Can Still Restore Your Gums
If you treat your gum disease it will help you get your diabetes under control, and if you get your diabetes under control, it’s likely that your gums will stabilize. At this point, you can assess the damage to your gums and decide whether you would benefit from nonsurgical gum rejuvenation.
If you would like an assessment of the state of your gums, please call (949) 551-5902 in Orange County to learn more about this exciting new receding gums treatment.
