Periodontics Calgary
You’re sitting in your dentist’s chair when they tell you: “Your gums need more help than regular cleanings can provide.” Maybe your gums have pulled back so far you can see the roots of your teeth. Maybe you have deep pockets that won’t heal. Maybe you need a dental implant but there’s not enough bone. Whatever the reason, you’re now looking for periodontal services in Calgary that can actually fix the problem.
Dr. Brent MacDonald provides periodontal services at his Marlborough dental clinic, serving patients throughout Calgary and NE Calgary. With over 25 years of dental experience focusing on gum disease, dental implants, and the structures that support your teeth, Dr. MacDonald treats cases that require more than basic dental cleanings.
Understanding Periodontal Services
Periodontal services focus on your gums and the bone that holds your teeth in place. These services go beyond regular dental cleanings to address gum disease, bone loss, gum recession, and other problems affecting the foundation of your teeth.
General dental care handles your overall oral health: cleanings, fillings, crowns, and preventive care. When gum disease becomes more serious or you need surgical procedures for your gums and bone, that’s when you need periodontal services.
Dr. MacDonald’s practice provides:
- Gum disease treatment including surgical procedures
- Dental implant placement
- Bone grafting procedures
- Gum recession treatment and grafting
- Crown lengthening
- Periodontal maintenance care
Gum Disease Treatment
Gum disease is why most people need periodontal services. Maybe you’ve been getting regular cleanings and deep cleanings, but your gums still bleed. The pockets around your teeth keep getting deeper. Your teeth feel loose. Standard cleaning can’t get to the bacteria hiding at the bottom of those pockets.
When periodontal disease progresses, the infection creates deep pockets around your teeth – sometimes 6mm, 7mm, or deeper. Your bone breaks down. Regular dental treatment isn’t reaching the problem areas anymore.
Scaling and Root Planing
Dr. MacDonald starts with the least aggressive treatment that will work. Deep scaling and root planing removes bacteria and tartar from below the gum line and smooths the tooth roots so gums can reattach properly. For moderate gum disease, this often solves the problem without surgery.
This procedure goes deeper than regular cleaning. We clean each section of your mouth carefully, getting below the gum line where bacteria hide. The root smoothing helps your gums heal and reattach to your teeth.
Periodontal Surgery
When pockets stay deep even after scaling and root planing, surgery might be needed. Dr. MacDonald carefully folds back the gum tissue to access the roots of your teeth and the diseased bone. He removes bacteria and tartar from areas that can’t be reached any other way, smooths damaged bone, and repositions the gum tissue so it fits snugly around your teeth again.
The goal is simple: eliminate the pockets where bacteria hide so your gums can heal and stay healthy. Smaller pockets mean easier cleaning at home and less chance the disease comes back.
Some procedures use lasers to remove diseased tissue and bacteria while leaving healthy tissue alone. Recovery is often faster with less discomfort. Dr. MacDonald evaluates each patient to determine the right approach.
Periodontal Maintenance
After treatment, you’ll need ongoing care to keep gum disease from returning. Periodontal maintenance cleanings happen more frequently than regular cleanings – usually every three to four months. This isn’t optional. Once you’ve had periodontal disease, you’re always at higher risk for it coming back. Regular maintenance keeps bacteria under control and catches any problems early.
Gum Recession and Gum Grafting
Gum Grafting Procedures
Gum grafting covers exposed roots by taking tissue from one area (usually the roof of your mouth) and attaching it where your gums have receded. The grafted tissue integrates with your existing gums, providing coverage and protection for exposed roots. Different grafting techniques work for different situations. Free gingival grafts use a small piece of tissue from your palate and place it directly on the receded area. This works well when you need to increase the thickness of your gums. Connective tissue grafts take tissue from under the surface of your palate and tuck it under your existing gum tissue. This is the most common technique for covering exposed roots because it provides good results with predictable healing. Pedicle grafts use gum tissue from right next to the receded area instead of from your palate. This only works if you have enough healthy gum tissue nearby to move over. After gum grafting, you’ll have coverage over those exposed roots. Your teeth won’t be as sensitive. You’ll have protection against future problems. And your smile will look better too.Dental Implants
Single Tooth Implants
One missing tooth gets one implant. It’s straightforward and preserves your other teeth. Unlike a bridge, which requires grinding down the teeth on either side, an implant stands alone. You care for it just like a natural tooth – brushing and flossing normally.Multiple Implants
Several missing teeth might need several implants, or you might be able to use a few implants to support a bridge. Dr. MacDonald plans the best approach based on your situation, your bone health, and your goals.Implant-Supported Dentures
If you’re missing all your teeth on the top or bottom (or both), implants can anchor a denture so it doesn’t slip around. Some implant dentures snap in and out for cleaning. Others are permanently fixed. This option changes lives for people who’ve struggled with loose dentures that move when they eat or talk.Bone Grafting
You need bone to hold teeth and implants. But bone disappears when you lose a tooth, when you have gum disease, or because of certain medical conditions. When there’s not enough bone, Dr. MacDonald can rebuild it through bone grafting procedures.
Socket Preservation
When a tooth gets removed, the socket starts to lose bone almost immediately. Socket preservation puts bone graft material into the empty socket right after extraction. This maintains the bone so you have a good foundation for an implant later. Without socket preservation, you often lose so much bone that placing an implant becomes much harder.
Ridge Augmentation
When bone has already been lost and the ridge is too narrow or too short for an implant, ridge augmentation builds it back up. Bone graft material gets placed where you need more volume, and over several months, your body replaces it with your own new bone. This creates the width and height needed for successful implant placement.
Sinus Lifts
The upper back teeth sit right below your sinuses. When you lose those teeth, the sinus can expand down into the area where your tooth root used to be. There’s not enough room for an implant. A sinus lift pushes the sinus membrane up and fills the space with bone graft material, creating height for implant placement.
Bone grafting adds time to your treatment because bone needs months to regenerate. But it makes implants possible when they otherwise wouldn’t be. It’s an investment in a solution that can last decades.
Crown Lengthening
Functional Crown Lengthening
When decay or a break extends below the gum line, your dentist can’t put a crown on it. There’s not enough tooth showing. Crown lengthening exposes more tooth structure so a crown has something solid to attach to. This can save a tooth that would otherwise need to be pulled. The procedure involves carefully removing gum tissue and potentially some bone to expose healthy tooth structure. After healing, there’s enough tooth above the gum line for a crown to fit properly and last for years.Cosmetic Crown Lengthening
Some people show a lot of gum when they smile. Their teeth look short even though the teeth are actually normal size – they’re just covered by extra gum tissue. Cosmetic crown lengthening removes that excess tissue to show more tooth and create a more balanced smile. This procedure reshapes your gum line to improve the proportions of your smile. The results can make a big difference in how you feel about smiling in photos or in conversation.Regenerative Procedures
When gum disease destroys bone around your teeth, sometimes that bone can be grown back through regenerative procedures. This uses your body’s natural healing ability along with materials that encourage bone growth.
Guided Tissue Regeneration
A membrane gets placed between your gum and bone during periodontal surgery. This keeps fast-growing gum tissue from filling in the space while giving slow-growing bone cells time to regenerate. Over months, new bone forms where disease had destroyed it.
The membrane acts like a barrier, directing which types of cells can grow back into the damaged area. We want bone cells, not just gum tissue filling in the space.
Bone Grafts for Periodontal Defects
Sometimes adding bone graft material along with the membrane gives better results. The graft acts as a scaffold that your body’s bone cells grow into and eventually replace with your own bone. This can fill in areas where bone loss made teeth unstable.
These procedures don’t work in every case. Success depends on the extent of bone loss, your overall health, and how well you maintain your oral hygiene afterward. But when they do work, they can save teeth that would otherwise be lost.
Who Needs Periodontal Services in Calgary
You might need periodontal services if:
- Your gums bleed regularly and regular cleanings aren’t helping
- You have gum pockets deeper than 5mm
- Your gums have pulled back significantly from your teeth
- Your teeth are loose or shifting
- You need dental implants placed
- You’ve been told you don’t have enough bone for implants
- You have a gummy smile you want to fix
- You need a tooth saved that’s broken below the gum line
- You have a history of gum disease that keeps coming back
- Your dentist recommended more advanced gum treatment
People need periodontal services when regular dental treatment isn’t enough to address their gum and bone problems.
What to Expect at Your Appointment
Your first visit involves a complete evaluation. Dr. MacDonald examines your gums, measures pocket depths around every tooth, reviews X-rays to check bone levels, and talks with you about your concerns and goals.
He’ll explain what’s happening in your mouth in language that makes sense. If you need treatment, he’ll walk you through your options – what each procedure involves, what the recovery is like, what results you can expect. You’ll have time to ask questions and make informed decisions about your care.
Periodontal procedures are done with local anesthesia so you won’t feel pain during treatment. Sedation options are available for patients who are anxious. After treatment, you’ll get clear instructions about caring for your mouth while it heals.
Most procedures have manageable discomfort afterward – usually controlled with over-the-counter pain medication. You might need to eat soft foods for a few days. Dr. MacDonald and his team will check on your healing and make sure everything is progressing well.
Periodontal Health and Your Overall Health
Your mouth isn’t separate from the rest of your body. Research keeps showing connections between gum disease and other health problems – heart disease, diabetes, stroke, pregnancy complications, and more.
When gum disease is active, bacteria can enter your bloodstream through diseased gum tissue. That inflammation and those bacteria don’t just stay in your mouth. They affect your whole body.
Treating periodontal disease doesn’t just save your teeth. It reduces inflammation throughout your body. It eliminates a source of bacteria. It can make managing other health conditions easier.
If you have diabetes, treating your gum disease can help stabilize your blood sugar. If you have heart disease, reducing oral bacteria and inflammation helps protect your cardiovascular system. Your dentist and your other doctors should be on the same team, working together to keep you healthy.
About Dr. MacDonald's Marlborough Clinic
Dr. MacDonald has been treating patients in Calgary for over 25 years. His practice focuses on providing periodontal services – gum disease treatment, implants, and procedures involving the gums and bone that support your teeth.
The clinic is located in Marlborough in NE Calgary, easily accessible from Memorial Drive and just off the Trans-Canada Highway. Whether you’re coming from Pineridge, Rundle, Forest Lawn, Taradale, Temple, or anywhere else in Calgary, getting here is straightforward. The Marlborough C-Train station is nearby for those using public transit.
Patients appreciate that Dr. MacDonald takes time to explain things clearly. Periodontal treatment can feel overwhelming when you don’t understand it. He makes sure you know what’s happening and why, so you feel confident in your treatment decisions.
The clinic accepts patients who need periodontal services, whether you’ve been referred by another dentist or you’re contacting us directly because you know you need help with your gums.
Taking the Next Step
If you’re dealing with gum disease that hasn’t responded to regular treatment, need dental implants, or require other periodontal services, call Dr. MacDonald’s office at 403-273-6959 to schedule a consultation.
You can also visit drbrentmacdonald.ca to learn more about the services offered.
The clinic is open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday from 7:30 AM to 3:30 PM, and Wednesday from 9 AM to 5 PM.
Periodontal problems don’t fix themselves. They get worse over time. The sooner you get treatment, the more options you have and the better your long-term results will be. Whether you’re trying to save teeth affected by gum disease or planning for dental implants to replace missing teeth, proper periodontal care makes the difference.
Your gums and the bone supporting your teeth need proper attention. Dr. MacDonald’s practice in Marlborough provides the periodontal services Calgary patients need to maintain healthy gums and keep their teeth for life.
Our Periodontist Services in Calgary
Without gum disease treatment, the disease will only progress. Eventually, gingivitis can lead to permanent damage including tooth loss.
