Suffering From Loose Teeth? Check for a Furcation Defect

If you have been dealing with gingivitis, then your gums may be swollen and hurt when you floss. If gingivitis is left unchecked, it can develop into periodontitis or gum disease. One side effect of gum disease is a furcation defect, which causes loose or misaligned teeth. Read on to learn more about this condition and how to treat it.
What is Furcation Defect? A furcation defect is a periodontal infection that causes bone loss around the base of a tooth root's trunk.
Tooth roots are embedded in your jaw bone and keep your teeth in place. The root trunk is the area of the tooth where two or more of these roots join. Molars and premolars have multiple roots (e.g., bifurcation for two-rooted teeth or trifurcation for three-rooted teeth), so these are the teeth that may suffer from furcation defects.
As you lose bone in the area around root trunks, you might notice that your teeth can wiggle, or your teeth might become crooked and shift since there isn't adequate support.
How is a Furcation Defect Diagnosed? Your dentist can use either x-rays or periodontal probing to diagnose a furcation defect. Although, your dentist may use both methods to get a more accurate diagnosis.
In recent years, dentists have also used 3D cone beam computerized technology (CBCT) to detect these defects. You don't need to prepare for a cone beam scan; it's taken in a similar manner to other dental x-rays.
However, cone beam imaging is incredibly powerful compared to traditional x-rays. It produces multiple detailed cross sections of bone, soft tissue, and nerve paths, thus helping your dentist not only diagnose a furcation defect but dictate the best course of treatment.
How is a Furcation Defect Treated? Your treatment will depend on the severity of your bone loss around tooth root trunks. There are different scales that your dentist can use to classify the severity of your problem. For example, your dentist might use a probe-like instrument around the tooth root trunk to check for the depth of bone loss. After probing the area, he or she may then rate that bone loss on a scale of one to three, with one being mild bone loss and three being severe bone loss.
Treatment for Mild Cases If you have a mild bone loss, your doctor might recommend scaling and root planing (SRP). SRP is a deep cleaning below the gumline. This deep cleaning addresses the source of your furcation defect: your gum disease. Once your dentist completes a deep cleaning, then your gums will heal and your tooth root trunks will be protected from further infection.
Treatment for Moderate to Severe Cases If your dentist says that your furcation defect is moderate to severe, he or she might recommend a furcationplasty. A furcationplasty is a surgery where your dentist thickens the bone around your root trunks so that your teeth are better supported.
During this surgery, your dentist will remove any infected tooth structures. He or she would then re-shape the bone and gum tissue around your root trunks so that they would support your teeth better.
Besides a furcationplasty, your dentist might recommend a root resection surgery. During a root resection surgery, your dentist would remove any portions of the root trunk that were so infected that they were causing bone loss. Your dentist would then leave any remaining healthy root trunk so that your teeth could still be supported.
During any of these surgical procedures, your dentist might use guided tissue regeneration (GTR) membranes so that you can heal better. GTR membranes are similar to bone grafts or gum grafts as they encourage new bone growth and new gingival tissue growth.
Talk with the team at Jeffrey L. Erwin DDS today to better understand the best path for diagnosing and treating furcation defects.