Laser Therapy for gum disease:

As a periodontal specialty office, many patients are referred to us because of their history of gum disease.  In many cases the patients have already attempted to address their gum disease with regular dental hygiene care and in some cases “deep cleaning” otherwise known as scaling and root planing without achieving definitive results.  In the past, our only options were to either repeat those same treatments or recommend advanced and invasive surgical treatment.  Unfortunately, we found that our new patients were frustrated by these treatment options and often were hesitant to move forward with the care that they truly needed.

With laser periodontal therapy, we now have a new approach to help our patients with traditional gum disease.  Laser periodontal therapy with the Fotona Lightwalker is less invasive, better tolerated by our patients, usually does not involve scalpels or sutures, and is more frequently accepted by our new and existing patients.

Benefits:

There are numerous advantages to using laser therapy as opposed to the traditional methods:

Reduced Gum Recession and Post-operative Sensitivity:

Traditional gum surgery can cause a lot of gum recession that leads to exposed root surfaces that can be quite sensitive.  With laser periodontal therapy tissue loss is significantly reduced allow patients to retain and regenerate more of their hard and soft tissues.  As a result, patients have less post-operative discomfort and have an increased potential for developing more supportive and healthy tissue.

Comfort:

With laser treatment, there is reduced or no bleeding, minimized swelling, and no drill noise or vibration. The stress and anxiety often associated with dental work is therefore eliminated when you experience quick, effective, and essentially pain-free laser procedures. Also, postoperative sensitivity is greatly limited by laser dentistry, and recovery time is much quicker than with traditional methods. In fact, due to the less-invasive nature of the laser technique, the mouth begins to heal immediately after work is completed!

Elimination of Infection:

The Fotona laser’s high-energy light beam sterilizes tissue that it interacts with by actively killing oral bacteria and viruses.  For periodontal disease this is critical in halting the progression of gum disease and dramatically improves the health of the surrounding gum tissues following treatment. Typically we will notice that our patient’s gum tissue returns to a firm, healthy pink color soon after treatment.  This antiseptic property also significantly reduces the risk of bacterial infections and relapses. 

Tissue Biocompatibility:

Laser treatment with the Fotona system causes minimal tissue injury when compared to traditional gum surgery involving scalpels, hand instruments, and high speed burs which cause induce significant tissue damage.  By avoiding tissue damage during the procedure, patients treated with the laser system experience significantly less post-operative discomfort.  

Enhanced Tissue Recovery:

The Fotona laser system may also be utilized to enhance tissue recovery via biostimulation.  Interestingly, biostimulation can improve tissue blood flow, increase oxygenation, halt degredative inflammatory processes, and stimulate de novo energy formation at the cellular level!  All of these features lead to improved wound healing and more rapid recovery for our patients.