Gum infection

The infection of the gums, gingivitis, is one of the most common untreated infections. With infected eyes, or infected ears, people will be fast to visit a clinic. The reason is that eye and especially ear infections often are quite painful, or at least very disturbing.

But unlike the eyes and the ears, the mouth is an organ much more apt to live with pathogens, often without causing problems on a level with ear and eye infections. After all, as food-intake organ, the mouth is designed in a much broader sense to deal with infectious agents, as well as with wounds caused during chewing.

People often don't go to a dentist with gingivitis because it usually doesn't cause pain or systemic symptoms such as fever except when in an advanced stage. People may notice a foul smell emerging from the mouth, caused by pus and other effects of the gum infection. They may find their gums (gingiva) bleeding easily and may notice that their gums are red from inflammation. But they may consider these symptoms part of their physical constitution, just like shortsightedness, or baldness, or pimples, and not as a disease that requires the attention of a physician.

However, carrying along, for months and possibly for years, an infection that causes pus and permanently engages the immune system, is not conducive to optimal health, even before gingivitis develops into its more severe manifestation, periodontal disease. We speak of periodontal disease (periodontitis) instead of gingivitis when the inflammation goes beyond the gums and reaches the bone that hold the teeth (alveolar bone).