Fig.1	Fig.2	Fig.3
Fig.4	Fig.5	Fig.6
		Fig.7

Dental Education Lecture: Stop Gum Bleeding with Laser

Mr. Zhu used to love coke so he has a lot problems with his teeth.  Today he comes to our office to repair broken silver filling (Fig.1 S).  Although the nerve has been removed from the tooth, he still has pain when he chews.  Please note a piece of tooth fragment underneath the silver filling (* in Fig.1).  The latter is in fact movable (Fig.2 *).  The gums are start to bleeding (Fig.2 arrow).  We should place a crown for such large a cavity, but Mr. Zhu cannot afford it.  So we are planning to place white filling.

When the silver filling and broken tooth piece are removed, the gums bleed heavily (Fig.3).  Bleeding makes it difficult to place white filling.  So we use laser to stop bleeding (Fig.4). The tooth looks much nicer after cleaning the cavity with hydrogen peroxide (Fig.5 *).  Then we place a band around the tooth (Fig.5 B) and finish white filling (Fig.6 W) smoothly and successfully.  Two to three weeks later, the gums next to the new filling look pretty normal (Fig.7 arrowheads).  The patient has no complaint at all with this tooth.

Xin Wei, DDS, PhD, MS 1st edition 05/20/2010, last revision 06/08/2010