Accompanying symptoms of a gingival pocket | Gum pocket

Accompanying symptoms of a gingival pocket

The most common symptoms of gingivitis and periodontitis are bleeding gums (the toothpaste foam when brushing teeth is discolored pink when rinsed), pain in the affected area and swollen gums. Patients also often complain of bad breath, which persists even after brushing teeth. Food remains, bacteria and their metabolic products are deposited in the gum pockets.

Since the pocket cannot clean itself, the bacteria multiply and cause an inflammation in the gum pocket. This in turn causes the gums to retract further, making the pocket even deeper. Without treatment, the gum pockets can reach the tip of the tooth root.

This allows bacteria to enter the root canal through this entry point and infect the nerves contained within. An inflamed tooth nerve causes very severe toothache in most patients, but there are also cases where this so-called root canal inflammation is not painful. The absence of pain is therefore not a clear sign of a healthy tooth.

In addition to the symptoms described above, it should also be mentioned that patients with untreated periodontitis have an approximately 30% higher risk of heart attacks than those with general cardiovascular diseases. Women of childbearing age may also have an increased risk of premature birth and miscarriage if not treated. It is quite possible that gum pockets cause pain. On the one hand, an inflammatory process takes place there, which is usually painful in itself, and on the other hand, the build-up of pressure can be felt by the pus that develops.

Diagnosis of gum pockets

A distinction is made between reversible gingival pockets (i.e. those that can be returned to their original healthy state) and irreversible pockets (those that cannot be returned to their original healthy state). For example, gum pockets that have formed during pregnancy due to hormonal changes usually recede after pregnancy, i.e. they are reversible. Irreversible damage, on the other hand, is characterized by involvement of the jawbone lying under the gums.

The bone lost through inflammation cannot form again, so the defect is irreversible. The term “pseudo-pocket” describes the phenomenon that a severely swollen gum gives the impression of a deep gum cleft even though there is no gum pocket at all.