poll of the symptom: bleeding gums

[stoop411]

Been vaping and off analogs since October 4th, I have noticed a slight amount of blood in the mornings when I brush. Would love to get some concrete evidence that its not from vaping and more from quitting smoking and gums healing.

[Kismayaz]

My gums don't bleed when I brush. It's like they bleed overnight while I sleep. When I wake up in the morning, I spit out lots of blood, and rinse out my mouth with water. Then, just to make sure it's not my lungs I try to cough something up, and it's just clear. After I rinse my mouth out, and then brush there's no more blood the rest of the day and up until the next morning when my mouth is full of it once again. I'm gonna try rinsing my mouth out before I go to bed and see if that helps, but I've been vaping exclusively for more than 3 months, and it's getting annoying...

[kno]

bleeding gums? WTF? ive been e-smoking exclusively for a month and i can't imagine somehting like that!

[kno]

sounds like you guys all have gingivitis or periodontal disease...

[Wench]

Been vaping about 6 months now, no bleeding gum issues here.

[jj2]

I really liked the last option---couldn't mark it though, I still got my own choppers.

Gums got, and still do, get tender now and then, but never have bled.

[Madame Psychosis]

bleeding gums is very common in the whole population. and people who still smoke on this forum are disproportionately rare, compared to exclusive vapers, so you can't tell if vaping causes more bleeding gums than cigarettes, statistically.
this poll won't tell you anything about correlation of vaping and bleeding gums, unfortunately. it's "anecdata".

[kojo-dosa]

Bleeding gums indicate inflammation, inflammation of the gums are called gingivitis. Now, if gingivitis is concurrent with loss of supporting alveolar bone, then it is called periodontitis.

Anyone can get gingivitis as long as one does not brush his/her teeth for more than 10-20 days. (especially for dental students, Loe et al.1965) But not everyone gets periodontitis. This depends on your immune system's reaction to the source of inflammation, usually or most of the time, due to bacteria.

Now there has been lot of research on smoking and periodontitis, and it is considered a risk factor for periodontitis. But the major problems with these studies is that smokers also tended to have higher levels of plaque than non-smokers.

The most quoted paper on "smoking and periodontitis" is Bergstorm (Sweden 1986) and it claimed two things. First, it claimed that plaque accumulation was similar in smoker and non-smokers (meaning in the other studies, smoking was not the cause of more increased level of plaque, oral hygiene was: This is more of behavioral issue, not biological).

Secondly, more interestingly, it also claimed that smokers tended to have lower levels of bleeding. (The paper claimed that nicotine (or the tobacco smoke) causes vasoconstriction, which slowed or decreased blood flow to the site of inflammation.) This has an important effect, it decreases bleeding, but it also decreases immune response and healing. There are several other papers that back this theory: Smoking causes impaired healing in orthopedic surgery, plastic surgery, dental implant surgery, and all aspect of periodontal therapy including non-surgical treatments.

Now, that we got the backround out of the way,
so the reason why one bleeds after quitting tobacco smoke and starting on electronic vapor can be many fold. It could depend on personal oral hygiene care, it could be that bacterial level has increased, it could be that vasoconstriction effect of tobacco smoke is decreasing and your normal bleeding response is beginning to show (this is if another chemical was the major vasoconstrictor in the tobacco smoke, and now we restricted it/them), however if nicotine could still be the major vasoconstrictor and could be that your usage of the electronic cigarette based vapor has lower dose of nicotine than your former analog usage. <-- anything is all speculative.

So this is what I would suggest if you have bleeding gums: brush well, especially around your gum/tooth margin with a SOFT bristle, and floss. Use listerine, or any other OTC mouth rinse you prefer and keep biofilm plaque off your teeth and gums for 10-14 days. If you still have bleeding gum issue after that, you should find a periodontist (or a general dentist because you usually need a referral) and find out exactly why. It could be the initial stages of periodontitis.

hope that helps...

[kojo-dosa]

I was reading one of the reply ahead of me, and it said something like "increase blood flow means no periodontitis" <-- This may or may not be true. Increased blood flow and increased immune reaction could also result in periodontitis, this is because when one starts to lose supporting bone around a tooth, it is initiated by your own immune cells and ultimately by osteoclastic activity. Any who, the best way to know for sure is to get rid of oral plaque and see how your body (gums) responds to the change.

One more side note, I've also read something about dry nose and dry mouth symptoms on this forum. From dental/periodontal point of view, this is not good. it's bad. Dry mouth (referred to xerostomia) could increase your risk of dental caries (cavaties) and increased sensitivity of gums and oral mucosa. Saliva is what lubricates your mucosa and kills off some bacteria, and also allows food to go down smoothly. This is all I'm going to write for now.

[Madame Psychosis]

Very interesting details kojo-dosa! Thanks.

The dry mouth issue that many have is indeed concerning. Friends who are on medications that cause dry mouth have told me horror stories about how many caries they get -- I guess we non-dentists don't realize how much good saliva does!

(Out of habit, I chew sugarless gum when I'm not vaping and drink a lot of liquids, so I've largely only noticed very dry lips as a side effect.)