Sometimes people ask me why we do periodontal pocket measurements, or “gum numbers”, and what do those funny numbers mean anyway?

Periodically we measure how the gums attach to teeth. This is a good indicator of how healthy the gums and support systems for the teeth are. 

The line where the gums “stop” and the tooth shows is the gingival crest. The gums end here, but do not attach to the tooth at this point. There is a small groove or crevice, called a “sulcus” along the edge of the gums. (This is so you have a place to catch popcorn hulls!) The gums attach to the tooth at the bottom of this groove. In a healthy situation, this groove is two to three millimeters deep.

When plaque, which is leftover food junk, is left around the edges of the gums for even 24 hours, it starts to mineralize. That’s a fancy way of saying it turns into concrete. We call that “calculus” or “Tartar”. It is rough like the sidewalk, instead of smooth and glassy like tooth enamel should be. The gums don’t like that rough stuff, and to make matters worse, plaque builds up even faster because it sticks so well to the rough tartar. The gums get red and puffy, and it’s like they want to run away… the attachment moves deeper, which makes that groove deeper. A deeper groove means it is easier to get more stuff in there, and the condition continues to get worse.

To make things more complicated, the bone that supports the tooth wants a bit of distance between it and the gums’ attachment point. So if the attachment moves down the tooth, the bone dissolves away to maintain that distance. If this disease progresses far enough, there is too little bone support to keep the tooth, and the tooth comes out! Ouch!

So the “gum numbers” we take are to confirm that all is healthy with the tooth support system. We’d like to see all numbers in the one to three range. If there are deeper numbers, we call that area a pocket, and want to fix the problems before they get too large! We’re all about saving teeth!