What to Know about Healing from Gum Grafting?
Gum grafting is an important periodontal surgery that improves the stability and appearance of your teeth. It can also alleviate pain and sensitivity from gum recession. It is a moderately invasive surgery, and the healing phase is extremely important.
The Skill of Your Surgeon Affects Healing
Gum grafting is a surgical procedure that requires a high level of skill, so choosing the right periodontist is an important factor in your long-term success. The technique your surgeon uses has a direct impact on the amount of inflammation present after the surgery, and inflammation can slow down the healing process.
While gum grafting is relatively invasive, a highly skilled surgeon can perform it as minimally invasively as possible. Having a smaller surgical site, shorter incisions, etc… leads to faster healing. By choosing Empire Dental Specialty Group for your gum grafting, with its wonderful periodontists, you have already had a positive effect on any surgical healing!
Your Compliance with Post-Operative Instructions Affects Healing
When you have surgery anywhere in the body, your surgeon or a team member will provide you with very detailed instructions on caring for the surgical site afterwards. When followed strictly, these post-operative instructions are instrumental in creating the best environment for quick healing and long-term success.
These instructions will include specific items regarding your oral hygiene routine. You will need to use a super-soft surgical toothbrush in the site of the grafting, which you only use when the surgeon tells you. Some periodontists will actually have you NOT brush a surgical site for a certain period of time. You will probably receive a prescription mouthwash to use either through normal swishing or by applying directly to the surgery site with a clean Q-tip.
After gum grafting, you might also need to wear a small dental appliance to cover the surgical site. The important thing to understand is that you must follow your surgeon’s specific instructions to the letter for the fastest healing.
Your Overall Health Affects Healing
Did you know that you can have the best surgeon in the world and follow all of his or her instructions as closely as possible and still experience delayed healing? This is because your overall health plays a large role in the body’s healing process. We see this very commonly in our patients who suffer from diabetes or autoimmune disorders.
In order to promote a healing phase that is as fast and painless as possible, you must work to achieve your best overall health. For our diabetic patients, this means strictly controlling your blood sugar. For patients with food allergies or dietary restrictions, it means eliminating all ingredients that lead to flare-ups.
For every patient, it means drinking plenty of water and avoiding alcohol and caffeine so that you stay hydrated. You should also eat a healthy, balanced, low-carbohydrate diet because “sugars” feed inflammation. We recommend getting mild exercise and a little bit of sunshine every day as well.
More Questions about How to Heal Well?
Call Empire Dental Specialty Group to set up a consultation with our periodontal experts. We can answer any questions you have about gum surgeries at our Beavercreek or West Chester locations.
