Each of us arrives on the path to greater oral health at our own unique place. For some of us, it’s a fateful trip to the dentist where we learn something is wrong. For others, it may be something as simple as finding blood on your floss.
Bleeding gums is super, super common. However, as we all know, just because something is common doesn’t mean it’s normal or healthy. We often like to discuss bleeding gums as our ‘poster child’ for brewing oral health trouble (mainly because it’s such a clear sign).
In other words, unlike many other signs of gum disease, it’s really obvious if your gums bleed when you floss or brush.
There’s no second guessing whether gums bleed (unlike with many other signs of trouble, such as swollen or darker color gum tissue). These less obvious signs just don’t easily provide us quick feedback about whether we have infection at that spot, but bleeding gums do.
That’s why we talk so much about bleeding gums. It gives us quick, “no questions asked” feedback about whether or not we have active infection.
The ‘Sad Statistics’ Speak for Themselves…
If you take the ‘official’ count for risk of advanced gum disease (aka periodontal disease), recent research suggests half of the adult population in the US has some form of periodontal disease. 1,2
However, our friends who are dentists working in the trenches suggest that these official numbers are way low.
Our friend and mentor, Dr. David Kennedy, has shared with us that his years of experience have suggested that greater than 90% of adults over 30 have some form of active gum infection. And a dismal 65% of 15 year olds already have gingivitis (early sign of gum disease as shown by bleeding gums).
So, whichever statistics you want to believe, we’re all faced with the thug bugs implicated with gum disease at some point in our lives.
Gums Bleed Because of Active Infection…
To understand why gum tissue bleeds when flossed, let’s dive into what’s really going on here.
We get exposed to certain types of microorganisms (we call them ‘thug bugs’) that are disease-causing bacteria. These thug bugs begin their organizational efforts along and under our gum line, in the space called the gum pocket (the space between the roots of each tooth and the surrounding gum tissue).
Within as little as 9 days after initial exposure, the thug bugs have irritated the gum tissue sufficiently to provoke a change. In an attempt to ‘shake off’ the irritant, the gum tissue sloughs off the protective outer layer of skin.
This is a natural and unfortunate fact. You see, not only does this sloughing not get rid of the thug bugs, but now the thug bugs have direct access to our bloodstream via the capillaries in our gum tissue (that’s no longer covered by the protective layer of skin in the gum pocket).
This is what causes gums to bleed when flossed or brushed. There’s an active infection in that area and the thug bugs are establishing themselves in that region.
“Why is Bleeding Gums Important to My Health?”
The reason why bleeding gums is a big deal is because the thug bugs now have access to the whole body via the bloodstream. Yes, unfortunately, these disease causing microorganisms can and do swim into the bloodstream to access the rest of the body.
Thug bugs in the bloodstream causes what is called a systemic inflammatory cascade.
As the name suggests, systemic inflammatory cascade creates a whole body chronic inflammatory response to the ‘invader’ that came in through the unguarded window via the bleeding gums.
It’s the chronic inflammation provoked by thug bugs that makes the connection between gum disease and an increased risk of:
- heart disease
- stroke
- cancer
- diabetes
- arthritis
- low-birth-weight babies
3 Simple Steps to Stop Bleeding Gums…
Ok, so now that we’ve identified the problem, here’s how to stop thug bugs from continuing to have access to your whole body.
Step 1: Know where you are.
The biggest obstacle with making positive change in our oral health is that most of us don’t know what’s going on in our mouths. We call this a ‘mental disconnect’ with our mouths.
It seems weird because we use our mouths so much everyday. But if you think about it, most of us know more about the relative health of our fingernails than our mouths (even though the health of our mouths plays a huge role in the health of the whole body).
So, step one is to know where you are on the path.
Only if we know ‘our current location’ can we hope to begin to chart a course to improve the situation.
Here are a few resources to help you accomplish this important first step.
OraWellness Mouth Map is a free discovery tool you can download for free from our site here. While a simple action, we cannot overemphasize the benefit this one simple step will provide you.
Here’s a link to an article that talks you through the process of filling out your OraWellness Mouth Map.
When filling out your OraWellness Mouth Map, you’ll want to pay particular attention to the number of spots in your mouth that bleed when flossed (called bleed points) and mark the location of your bleed points on your Mouth Map. You’ll be referring back to this mouth map in step 3.
If you want to take a deeper dive into this subject, we devoted a whole video session in our free video tutorial course, the 5 Steps to a Healthy Mouth, on awareness. Here’s a link to sign up to receive the free 5 steps course.
Step 2: Operation ‘Disrupt and Disorganize’
To effectively stop the thug bugs from colonizing your gum line, we simply need to consistently disturb the thug bugs. Dr. CC Bass called this process ‘disrupt and disorganize’ the thug bugs. He created a great brushing method and a specially designed toothbrush to accomplish this ‘disrupt and disorganize’ strategy.
The challenge is that infected areas tend to be a bit tender.
So, if we brush unconsciously like most of us do, we will tend to avoid the areas that need to be disrupted the most. Avoiding the areas of infection allow the thug bugs to establish an even deeper ‘base’ to do their dirty work.
This is why some people who have active infection find that their gums bleed more when they first start using the Bass Brushing Technique. They are actively disrupting and disorganizing the thug bugs and this active disruption of the thug bugs might bring a bit more blood.
The good news is within days the bleeding will diminish and stop if you persist with ‘operation disrupt and disorganize’ and be willing to consciously ‘massage and stimulate’ the areas that bleed.
Our popular video ‘How to Brush Your Teeth to Reduce Gum Disease’ tells the story of Dr. Bass and shows you the brushing technique that’s so effective to stop bleeding gums. For those of you who prefer to read rather than watch a video, here’s a link to an article on Dr. Bass and his technique.
Here’s a link to the awesome Dr. Bass brushes.
Another way you can effectively disrupt and disorganize thug bugs is by flossing.
If you’d like to learn a way to ‘super charge’ your disruption ability with floss, check out this video on “How to Use the OraWellness Blend”.
We wouldn’t be doing this subject justice if we didn’t give a mention to our Healthy Mouth Blend as a great ‘catch all’ solution to assist anyone looking to stop bleeding gums. Here’s a link to a small sampling of the thousands of testimonials we’ve received from happy customers how they have benefited from using the Healthy Mouth Blend.
Oil pulling is yet another excellent strategy that disrupts and disorganizes thug bugs in early stages of gum disease. Here’s a link to more info on oil pulling. And if you really want to take a deep dive into the topic of oil pulling, we invite you to download our Ultimate Oil Pulling Guidebook here.
One word of caution, if you have more advanced oral health issues with deeper gum pockets, you’ll need to take more proactive steps to effectively mitigate the destructive process.
Here’s a link to our HealThy Mouth System, which is specially designed to empower anyone with advancing gum issues with the tools, knowledge and feedback necessary to create massive positive change in their oral health.
Step 3: Check Your Progress
Ok, so you’ve done step 1 by making note of where you were. Then you took action by consistently disrupting and disorganizing the thug bugs.
In step 3, you simply want to see if the actions you’ve been taking are heading you in the right direction or not. To accomplish step 3, you simply fill out another OraWellness Mouth Map and see how many bleed points still exist in your mouth and compare how many bleed points you found in step 1 with the number of bleed points you find when you check your progress in step 3.
After completing your mouth map, give yourself a big pat on the back. You just stopped a major source of toxins from being dumped into your whole body!
As always, we hope this helps you navigate to greater oral health. Please share this article with loved ones who might benefit from learning how to make massive positive change in their oral health.
Helpful, Related Resources:
OraWellness Ultimate Oil Pulling Guidebook [free eBook]
OraWellness Mouth Map [free resource]
First Step to Dental Self Empowerment [article]
5 Steps to a Healthy Mouth [[free video series]]
How to Brush Your Teeth to Reduce Gum Disease [video tutorial]
How to Use the OraWellness Blend [video tutorial]
How oil pulling helps improve oral health and whole body wellness [article]
HealThy Mouth System [product solution]
Bass Toothbrushes [product solution]
HealThy Mouth Blend [product solution]
References:
Hi,
I have had a dental revision done over 5 years ago and I have had my gums bleeding in some spots since. The bleeding appears to be in between teeth when I floss or brush. I have seen 3 dentists and they have no idea why the bleeding. I does look to me that something happened during the dental revision to cause that. Any ideas?
Thank you!
Aloha Alina (what a pretty sound together :),
Thanks for reaching out.
Hmm, that’s a pretty odd one. So, the bleeding when flossing isn’t gingivitis?? That seems too obvious but I think we really ought to rule this out as bleeding when flossing most commonly occurs because of the inflammation of gum disease. So let’s start there. My suggestion is to make sure that you’re flossing mindfully and not causing any trauma to the gum tissue and floss regularly for 2 weeks and see if the bleeding stops.
Other than this, I really can’t comment on what it might be and whether it’s related to the dental revision. I’m sorry that we couldn’t be of more assistance in this case.
I’ve had bleeding gums for all my life, I use special mouth wash & my electric toothbrush, my top gums are pink my bottom ones and red & some pink. I don’t really floss, I use picks. Any suggestions! I’m nervous because I see the dentist this Thursday 🙁
How did it go with your dentist?
Will, you do have a point when you mentioned about gums bleeding because of active infection. This is something that got me worried when my daughter’s gums were bleeding. I ended up taking her to a dental hospital because the bleeding didn’t stop.
To the point information. After facing a lot of dental issues, specially gum bleeding, i started looking for dentist Mumbai . Now, i understand the importance and know what things i need to follow and what to avoid.
I’ve been doing a ton of research since being diagnosed with advance periodontal disease roughly a year ago. Since then I’ve had the root planing done and continue to see my periodiontist every 3 months. I have fairly deep pockets around my wisdom teeth and back molars. I started oil pulling and have seen significant results from that…including healing an abscess where I’m sure the dentist would have told me I needed a root canal. I feel like I’ve seen a great deal of improvement in the last six months. My perio wants to pull 3 wisdom teeth and four molars because of deep pockets and bone loss; he seems stuck on this despite the strides I’ve made. His opinion is that the bone won’t heal unless the teeth are pulled.
My question is whether I can reverse bone loss holistically with oil pulling and OraWellness? My guess is that if I heal my gums then the bone will be able to heal as well without pulling any teeth. For the record, my gums no longer bleed and feel much tighter. I have some teeth that are loose but they done feel as loose as they once did. Also, I have ZERO pain..all of which makes me wonder why I would want to have any teeth pulled at this stage of the game.
Do you have any insight into reversing bone loss?
Aloha Kathryn,
Thank you for reaching out to us. First off, we aren’t dentists so we can’t make any suggestions. When someone like you asks for our opinions, what I do is imagine that I’m in your shoes and share what comes to mind that I might choose in your position.
Regarding bone loss, I really don’t know if bone comes back up from where it was. What I do know is once we effectively stop the damage via caring for the issue at the base of the gum pockets, the teeth tighten back up in the jaw. 20 years ago when Susan was first diagnosed with advanced periodontal disease, she had several teeth that registered various levels of looseness (dentists can chart the level of looseness of teeth on periodontal depth charts). After caring for her own oral health (no surgery, root planing, etc) she had zero loose teeth (as tested by the same dentist who originally diagnosed her).
Since then, we have literally thousands of thrilled, happy healthy mouth system customers doing the same in their own mouths.
The path to increase bone density is to stop the damage in the mouth (applying tools like our healthy mouth system) while we increase mineral and fat soluble vitamins in our diet. It’s well known in medicine that vitamin K2 ‘activates’ calcium in the diet to have the ‘intelligence’ to plug into existing bone tissue to repair any DEmineralization that has occurred. Without sufficient K2 in the diet (which almost every modern person is deficient in these days), our bodies simply cannot repair lost bone tissue like from perio disease.
So, stop the damage in the mouth while we support the body to repair itself. It’s a pretty straight forward approach from my perspective.
I hope that helps! 🙂