QUESTION: Hi – would your calcium therapy be of any help to someone who has gum recession due to thin gum tissue and grinding. The dentist tells me there is nothing i can do – it has been holding steady for years, but in the past six months I am rapidly loosing my gums (although my teeth still are white and healthy) my teeth are becoming very long and i am told by some people (not dentists) that it is actually osteporosis and the first place the body takes from is the jaw/teeth – ANY SUGGESTIONS?? Thanks in advance. ~ DB
ANSWER: DB, Receding gums is commonly caused by a traumatic bite that makes grinding more problematic. Grinding the teeth is a natural tension-relieving mechanism, so the bite has to be very precise, powerful and comfortable. Most of the time the trauma is caused by dental work in the mouth, especially excessive dental restorations. So, we dentists give up and say we can’t do anything about it. Such a traumatic bite is easy to fix and not costly, without replacing hardly any of it. That is, it is good dental work that needs a little adjusting to fit your natural bite.
Thin, pink gums are healthy and recession is not a good indicator of osteoporosis. Yes, calcium deficiencies like osteo are connected to bone loss in the mouth, but before that there are too many other things that could cause it, like scaring people with comments like you have experienced.
Regards, Mark DDS