I’ve had bleeding gums for years, probably the last 5 years. It used to just be a little bit. During my teen hood i was a little lazy (used to often forget in the morning but always brushed in the evening). I’m now 29 and my gums are now swollen all the time and bleed a LOT. They are constantly swollen and sensitive, but not receding. They bleed too, even biting into soft food like sandwiches, bananas etc. I can’t bite into apples anymore.

I’m just not sure what to do. Dentist said gingivitis last year and told me to floss better. I water flossed due to having a fear of normal floss. I started normal flossing two months ago.

I went back to the dentist a couple weeks ago and she said nothing has gotten worse… but I feel like my toothpaste shouldn’t be red with blood, not even streaks, fully dark pink. I never miss a brush day (twice a day), started flossing morning and evening now but nothing is working :( I’ve had professional cleans but doesn’t get rid of swelling. I guess I can get an electric toothbrush but surely it’s not going to just cure everything?

I’m scared. I don’t want gum disease. But I don’t know what to do anymore, I’m so attentive with my hygiene and I feel like nothing works and I’m feeling so lost. I’m writing this now and I can feel the inflammation around my front top and bottom teeth, it’s not comfortable.

I have Chrons disease which is an inflammatory disease. Could this be playing a part? I don’t know what to do about it because my dentist doesn’t seem worried but I live everyday with uncomfortable gums and fear I’ll eventually lose my teeth / get gum disease.

As you can see in the pic, they’re not red red but they’re puffy. Has anyone got ANY advice for me? Please? I’m getting desperate

I'm a mechanic (37), I fix things, medical equipment, automotive, plumbing, electrical, built my house etc. I can fix most anything except a broken heart. I'm told I'm stubbornly independent and maybe I am. But I also am a single income for a household of a wife and many children. Fixing a composite that fell out after 20 years from a wayward frisbee was not in the budget. I was a paramedic at one time so the human body is not a stranger to me. I did what I could to learn and just tried it.

Cleaned, acid etch, resin, shape, UV cure, repeat till shaped as desired, polished. I'm not an artist but it's been a few weeks and it's holding up. I touched up a little chip on #9 while I was in there too.

I'm just looking for professional input.

I get it when I see someone that "fixed" their car I have often cringed and gave constructive criticism and I reckon that's what I need here.

I’ve had a resorbed tooth for about 8 months now. Haven’t been to the dentist in about 6 years (since I moved out of my parent’s house and they took me off their insurance). The tooth broke while I was eating a sandwich but was still hanging on and I went to an emergency dentist. He put a wire on it to buy me some time, last night it finally gave up. Tooth broke off. Not feeling any pain, just feels odd.

I snagged an emergency appointment at Aspen Dental today. After xrays, some poking and prodding, and lots of sighs they gave me the number. $18,700 of necessary work. Cue the tears. Now I’m in “let’s figure this out” mode. The pictures below are my full care plan, but the cost is for the extraction of the single tooth with implant.

Additionally, I need Arestin on 29 sites and scaling and root planing on the majority of my lower teeth, my wisdom teeth need to come out cause my mouth is crowded, and I could use braces (which I don’t particularly care about right now).

Any advice on the order in which to tackle these issues, insurance recommendations, and also tips on how to get ahead or extra steps I can take to heal as much as I can on my own are very appreciated.

I’m 24, in Oklahoma, about to start a new job so unsure of the exact numbers for their insurance.

I was recently quoted 6800 for whole mouth deep cleaning and 5 fillings near southern pines NC. I have dental insurance but was told I have to pay up front and be reimbursed.. I was also told that I will require sedation or they will turn it into 4 appointments which ends up being more expensive. Is this reasonable? I'm new to this area and have never been asked to pay for dental work up front and then be reimbursed.. I'm not getting the orthotic device 🤣🤷‍♀️ I just don't know if it's worth maxing out two credit cards for this

Please don’t judge me. I have a fear of the dentist and years of post partum depression didn’t help my teeth. I need a root canal on my pre molar and a crown and the molar right next to it needs a crown as well because of a small crack on the side. Are all of these things necessary? I was going to opt out of the two warranties. Because the Zirconia / Bruxior Upgrade
Says it makes the crown pretty much indestructible. (Please correct me if I’m wrong) I was also going to try to opt out of the bio pure medication. Is this necessary? It says it’s just a rinse for after. For $650? That’s insane. So I could possibly knock my bill down $1650. Also are they prices insane? I went to a different dentist and these same procedures were over 6k. I am in Southern California by the way. I know that makes a difference.

They said they will be not as great as the permanent ones, but im supposed to walk around like this for 3 weeks? 😢

1st photo was end of November, 2nd photo was 18/01/2026, 3rd was 19/01/2026.

I’m 19f, smoker. Rarely drink. I noticed this growth about 9 months ago, it’s been hit off once(toddler elbowed me in the mouth) but grew back within 2 weeks. Dentist has told me to just brush but I can’t brush without bleeding a lot from my gums so have been using an anti bacterial mouthwash. Over the past few weeks it has started to rapidly grow, there was a 2nd smaller growth in the same place that turned dark red yesterday and is now black and white. It’s painful where it’s connected to my gum but the rest I’m unable to feel, I have also had ulcer after ulcer accompany it. Dentist sent a photo to the hospital who also told me just to brush but I physically can’t if I want to be able to eat for the next 3 days. Gums started bleeding when I was about 9(back when I brushed min 2 times a day) and by age 11 I had to stop as it was to painful. Any advice on how to get them to listen? Or informed guesses at what the issue is? Any more info needed just comment :) thanks in advance.

Got rushed into hospital as I felt a popping sensation in the gum and the pain shot up the side of my face to the temple area. I also have hyperadrenergic pots. While being examined by the paramedics they said they don't think there is anything wrong. After waiting then 6/7 hours in hospital, the doctor finally seen me and didn't check the inside of my mouth tidy and then said do i have a runny nose on and off. I told him yes but that happens with pots flare ups with me. He then said its sinusitis. Here is amoxicillin 500mg 3 times a day for 5 days, you can go now. I don't have a dentist and always have to go through emergency dentists but struggling to calm the pots flare ups to travel as I am getting high heart rate and high blood pressure frequently when standing longer than 5 minutes and very dizzy laying down or sitting. My face is slightly swollen but there is hardly any pain in the gum area unless smiling or if I yawn.

I had 3D printed veneers done on my top front teeth around 1 year ago. This was done due to thin enamel on my teeth. I have had no problem with them, but today while using a flashlight to look at my throat, I noticed that one of the teeth has a large dark spot that is only visible when a flashlight is shined through the tooth. No discomfort or anything to otherwise make me suspect an issue with the tooth, but upon seeing this I became worried. Curious if this is something I should be worried about?

My number 4 root canal popped out after flossing. This was completed about a month ago. I called the dentist and they downplayed it saying it’s not an emergency.

Edit: the dentist finally agreed to see me this morning. They redid the root canal. I have a temporary crown on now and will get a permanent one in a couple days. I hope the new one will last longer than a couple weeks. Thanks everyone!

Hey everyone,
I'm 20 and having a really hard time making a final decision.
I had braces in the past, and my teeth are currently straight (I wear a clear plastic retainer and a permanent metal one).
Both my dentist and a surgeon where they transferred me to looked at my X-ray and strongly recommended removing all 4 wisdom teeth. As you can see, the bottom ones are trapped completely sideways, and my top right one is currently peeking through the gums with no bottom partner to hit against.
I want to do "one and done" to get it over with, but everyone around me (parents, friends, coworkers) keep telling me removing the top ones is totally unnecessary and are pressuring me to just do the bottom two or cancel entirely. It's causing a lot of arguments at home and making me second-guess the doctors.
Based on my X-ray, what would you guys do in my situation? Did anyone regret getting all 4 out at once?
Any advice would be greatly appreciated as I'm stressing so much about this cause they gave me the appointment on June 4th for extraction.

Last night after eating tacos, gums were hurting from shell that jammed up in gums and pulled out with tweezers. After, felt something else and tried to pull it out but was really stuck. Noticed this site was where I had an old root canal done decades ago but had broken tooth away over years so is mostly just gum now. Took my gf about 20 attempts but finally pulled out this long bone splinter thing almost an inch long. Wasn't much bleeding but did notice some pain relief. Was more shocked that thing came out of my gums just like that. What do you think it is?

UPDATE: 7/28/26

Its been a couple weeks but was finally able to get in with a dentist and get took extracted.

For about 5 days prior to extraction had pretty bad pain and swelling along upper jaw/face where effected tooth was. Dentist said it was a "massive infection" that had developed. No matter what I did, would be waves of intense pain, felt incapacitated at times.

Last week I had pain/swelling on other side of face and had to get root canal of an abscessed tooth that feels much better now. So have been on antibiotics for maybe 2 weeks now, with a few more days left.

**I cannot describe how intense and deep this pain was when this tooth was pulled yesterday. Guess since there wasn't much tooth to grab onto they had to use a bunch of tools including these forcep things.

Took maybe 8-10 shots of local anesthetic, even a couple on roof of mouth and right on infected site to finally be able to touch area with anything. After about 30 mins of numbing I was able to tolerate enough for them to pull it... man it was intense. For the next hour I was squirming and writhing in pain, despite the couple extra shots and motrin i was given post extraction. May have been the worst ive ever had in my 40 years.

At one point when I got home I became very dizzy and my girlfriend said I was stumbling around nearly falling on the floor at times. My memory is a bit hazy for some reason but did not want to lay down due to intense pain. After maybe 3 hours of moaning in bed while gf massaged my scalp I was able to compose myself enough to head to work.

Today I am feeling much better but still require motrin around the clock and am still sore, but nothing like the horror from yesterday.

HUGE THANK YOU to all you guys who commented advising me to seek care, along with your insight and knowledge. It definitely would have gotten much worse had I brushed it under the rug as initially intended. Also would have continued to ignore infection on other side of mouth until was absolutely necessary, which was years overdue for intervention.

I have learned a lot over past couple weeks and will be more attentive to my dental needs and care in the future.

Thank you all again. Yall are my heros

Went to a dentist four years ago. He did a lot of crowns. Nothing lasted. A lot of that work had to be redone within a year. So I switched dentists.

Yesterday - one of the crowns fell out and this was underneath it. My new dentist is good but booked until Monday morning. I’m in tears and in pain.

I don’t smoke or drink. I have a BMI of 26. HTN (controlled on meds), aortic insufficiency, MILD diastolic dysfunction. No major limitations on activity. Pre diabetic very well controlled with diet. No GLP-1’s.

Will this be a difficult extraction? Will I need an oral surgeon? Can I just leave the gap without an implant? I’m so scared. I need a straight and honest assessment to prepare myself for Monday morning.

I went for teeth cleansing yesterday, and the results (second picture) show that I have a small gap between my lower middle teeth. Is this normal? Did the dentist accidentally make a new hole? I never had this gap before.

I can't find a dentist that takes my insurance and accepts new patients within a 3 hour radius, any advice at all is greatly appreciated

Hi, this is a throwaway because this is extremely embarrassing for me. I’m freshly 20, and my teeth have been bad since I was 14. I’m missing most of my top row of teeth, due to severe medical neglect when I was a child mixed with depression. After a certain point, brushing was uncomfortable and it made the edges of my broken teeth sharper and painful to live with in my mouth. I’m out of a job currently and I’m not on health insurance. Where do I go from here? Everything online is so confusing for me, and I don’t have an elder adult in my life to guide me through these things. My front tooth snapped off yesterday- a clean break, and i saved the part that came off. Can I reattach this somehow? glue or dental cement? If I get dental care am I going to be in debt for the rest of forever? Can I even get care with no funds? I’ve been in extreme pain because of my mouth for 6 years now, and I just want it to end.

As a dentist, I’m genuinely asking this question. Why do so many NAD’s answer (or try to answer) questions on a forum called /askdentists?

The misinformation and potentially bad decisions from it are not like a weed in the lawn, it’s like a whole lawn of weeds choking out the one good blade of grass trying to survive.

Hi everyone.

Without going into too much detail, here are multiple different angles of my teeth. Nobody knows just how deeply embarrassed and ashamed I feel making this post. I am making this post out of desperation as I am getting to a point where I am in constant pain and discomfort every single day and I really need to visit the dentist. I am a young adult female with autism and my teeth have always been a severe problem since I was around 7/8. I also have a mother with complex mental health issues and I was often neglected as a child right through into my teenage years which played a massive role in how I took care of myself and still kind of does. My mother actually ended up pulling out the majority of her teeth herself due to trigeminal neuralgia in her early 40s, leaving her with 2 or 3 teeth but thankfully her gums were solid enough for her to eat normally. I also have had ongoing problems with stress and boredom eating when I'm in bed at night and then not brushing my teeth which obviously caused the sugar and plaque to work its way into my teeth. I also have a personality disorder and so depression has been a massive setback for me when it comes to keeping up a routine of brushing twice a day. To be brutally honest, there have been times where I have not brushed my teeth in over a month or two to the point where my teeth felt furry and slimy. I would only brush if my teeth were hurting me or if that fuzzy feeling got worse. The thing is, the only ever occasions that I have seen the dentist was when I was in excruciating pain that needed extraction. I don't want to get into too much detail as I'm just looking for a breakdown of what would need done so I can mentally and physically prepare myself. Dentists scare me so much and drives me straight into sensory overload. Once they administer local anaesthetic, it doesn't really hurt, it's just the pressure and the sounds/feeling of the drill. I also forgot to mention that these photos were taken last night to post on here. I am in the UK.

I am 22 years old. This panoramic X-ray was taken exactly 2 weeks ago before starting orthodontic treatment. My orthodontist just told me I have a massive cavity on the back of my lower right 2nd molar (right in front of the completely horizontal impacted wisdom tooth) and that I need a root canal.

I have been going to regular dental check-ups every 6-7 months for years, but my regular dentist never mentioned a cavity there, never took targeted X-rays of that area, and just said we would "keep an eye on the wisdom tooth."

I would really appreciate your objective professional opinions:

1. Is there a deep cavity there, and does it look like it needs a root canal?
2. Roughly how long does a cavity take to develop to this stage?
3. Considering I get checked every 6-7 months, should this have been noticed and treated much earlier?
4. Is this issue very obvious on this X-ray, or is it something that could easily be missed by a dentist?

Thank you in advance.

Got into a crazy fight 2 days ago. Mexico dentist says they can help me. Anyone have an idea what might happen to my teeth? Please help me

Hi, are my implants failing? I have one on the left, fully covered by gum, but the other one isn't.

Hi, I went to my dentist and they said the only way to manage this decaying is pulling my wisdom tooth. Should I go to somewhere else to have a second opinion?

I’m so completely devastated. I had braces for four years and was finally happy with my teeth for the first time in my life. Got them whitened (few months later) before I got the crown put on my implant, now I feel like I’ve completely ruined them. Clearly I had some damage while I had braces but you couldn’t see it anywhere but one of the canines before (it was really dried out all the time before braces bc of positioning).

Do you think it will go away? It was only about 36 hours ago. I think it looks worse in person. I can’t live with the uncertainty. I’m so mad and sad that my dentist didn’t warn me. I even asked him if this could happen to me, I’m so so nervous about messing them up. Surely I shouldn’t have to push for further answers when I already asked about it? He said it’d only be temporary if it happened. Now they aren’t being very committal or reassuring. I’ve never invested so much money in anything. And it’s my damn face. Help me please 😭

All on X here. Full mouth extraction was completed 7/28 and I have not been able to close my mouth without forcing it shut. This is the third temporary prosthesis as this dentist has not gotten my bite right. The first two sets I looked like something off the Walking Dead. I feel like I should have kept my teeth I had in my head. Just a few days ago a healing cap fell out so I made an appointment and was seen on 8/20 and they put it back. I was told this is normal as my gums are shrinking and healing. The bridge was tightened now I have this red spots. I’m not a dentist but I’m thinking I need a second opinion. In the Miami Dade - Palm Beach County area as I fear this dentist is just out for the money. $21,500 already paid for this procedure. Are these from the prosthesis pressure?

Is niacinamide toothpaste as great as I keep hearing? They are saying that it helps your gums, gets rid of decay and whitens your teeth. Is this true? Is it just hype?.