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Looking for current LANAP experiences and outcomes

S

SC_Girl

Junior member
Joined
Oct 31, 2016
Messages
6
Hi everyone. I'm super stoked to have found this forum and am hoping to get some more information regarding Lanap. All the threads I see here are a few years old and I'm sure the procedure has been tweaked a little since then and that maybe the technology has changed. A little about me and my history:

I am a 33 year old female who has been suffering from periodontitis for some time now. I had ZERO insurance and money was always tight, so I could never afford to see a dentist for 7 years (fear from my last dentist encounter kept me from just financially sucking it up and making an appointment). 7 years ago, I had a disease that attacked my gums and ended up putting me in the ER (due to a fever, chills, and not being able to eat or sleep because of the pain). The dentist I saw afterwards said that all I needed was a cleaning and after berating me in front of clients and staff members, he told me I should be good to go.

I brushed and flossed daily, but kinda gave up on the flossing when I was noticing no improvement in the appearance of my gums. When I got pregnant about a year and a half ago, things really took a turn for the worse and that's when I noticed that my teeth had started shifting. I now have very noticeable gaps between my front teeth and the teeth next to them and my bite is so imbalanced that it's affecting the way I eat and talk. It's pretty humiliating.

Now that I have dental insurance, I saw a dentist who referred me to a periodontist (as I expected). The periodontist said he doesn't see a need for any extractions and suggested LANAP on my entire mouth. This was much more appealing to me than him going into my mouth with a scalpel. I can only afford for half of my mouth to be done this year and will do the other half early next year when my benefits renew.

Does anyone have any current experiences with this surgery? I'm curious as to what the downtime is, the pain level, and specifically how long the blood clots will need to stay. I'm also curious to hearing about people who have done the surgery years ago. How are their gums and bone regeneration doing now? Do the little triangles between your teeth grow back? (Mine have been nonexistent on the top front row of my teeth since whatever attacked my gums 7 years ago.) Or does that require another surgery? Sorry for the long post, but I have so many questions...I really appreciate anyone who can give me advice or tell me about their experiences.
 
I don't personally do LANAP treatment but I work with a periodontist who does. I've had quite a few patients go through it with really impressive results. I've also seen a lot of case reports from other dentists with generally very positive results.

As far as recovery goes, your gums will be pretty sore for a couple of days. It is generally a far easier recovery process than traditional periodontal surgery.

Some people (but not all) get some amount of bone and gum tissue regrowth. This may help to partially close some of those dark triangles in between your teeth. If you do get some regeneration, it will take some time (over the course of several months to a year). Your periodontist can probably give you a better prognosis based on your specific situation.

Hope this helps!
 
I don't personally do LANAP treatment but I work with a periodontist who does. I've had quite a few patients go through it with really impressive results. I've also seen a lot of case reports from other dentists with generally very positive results.

As far as recovery goes, your gums will be pretty sore for a couple of days. It is generally a far easier recovery process than traditional periodontal surgery.

Some people (but not all) get some amount of bone and gum tissue regrowth. This may help to partially close some of those dark triangles in between your teeth. If you do get some regeneration, it will take some time (over the course of several months to a year). Your periodontist can probably give you a better prognosis based on your specific situation.

Hope this helps!

I agree
 
I apologize that I never responded to the previous post above. I thank you for your wisdom.

It's been over a year since I had the LANAP done (the left side was done in December 2016 and the right side done in February 2017). I had pocket depths of mostly 5s and 6s on my upper gumline (there were a couple 7s and 8s also) and 4s and 5s on my lower gumline. It was pretty bad.

THE EXPERIENCE:

  • DURING: I'm not sure if it's normal to knock someone out during the procedure, but I was given an IV sedative which made the entire process so much more bearable. I basically felt like I was sleeping the entire time and I was in and out in under an hour and a half.
  • PAIN: There was some definite soreness for about a day after, which dissipated on the second day and was almost completely gone by the third. I have a high tolerance for pain and I know that everyone is different...but the pain should be relieved with ibuprofen. It's not THAT bad.
  • EATING: I was pretty much on a liquid diet for the first few days and was able to eat very soft foods (yogurt, mashed potatoes, etc.) for the rest of the week. You don't want anything rubbing against your gumline or getting stuck in places it shouldn't get stuck. When I started eating more hearty meals, I could only chew on the side of my mouth that didn't get the treatment, and that was for a couple weeks (I didn't chew on the treated side for a month, just to be safe).
  • AFTERCARE: I was not allowed to brush the treated side of my mouth for 7 days (gross, I know). However, I was able to use mouthwash, which I had to kind of "roll" around in my mouth instead of swishing (you don't want to cause any suction that will break the blood clots holding the gums to your teeth as everything heals...so drinking out of straws is also a big no-no). After the first week, I went in for a check up and was given a very soft toothbrush to use along my gumline twice a day for 7 days (my periodontist called it "buffing"). After all that, I was able to use a soft toothbrush to actually brush normally (but gently), use floss and an interdental brush to get everything from between my teeth in which there were large spaces with black triangles (if you don't have these after the procedure, obviously you don't need to worry about this step). Mouthwash is very important since you want to kill any germs that may cause a relapse and we all know that brushing and flossing doesn't get everything. This procedure is not cheap, so be diligent in the aftercare!
  • HEALING: Your gums are not gonna look very pretty for about a week afterwards. Mine got a grey tinge to them (which I guess is normal as the body processes its own healing process...don't be alarmed if you don't have this, though). There's also gonna be some stringy dead stuff that sloughs off from time to time. If you've ever had a tattoo, the healing process is similar, so don't touch...let it come off naturally.

THE RESULTS:
A little over a year later, the results are, as my periodontist put it, impressive. All pocket depth are now 4 or below (mostly 2s and 3s) with the exception of the ones that used to be 7 and 8 (which are now at a 5 or 6). I'm not sure about bone regrowth but there was an upper molar all the way in the back that my periodontist thought might need to be extracted, regardless...it had suffered numerous abscesses and bone loss and was at about a 2+ mobility. A year later, he says it feels much more "snug" and he believes there is no need to remove it.

There was quite a bit of gum tissue that was removed in the process (because it was just dead tissue), so my gumline receded a bit more and the black triangles became more apparent, especially on my bottom teeth (they weren't there beforehand). I'm not sure what can be done to fix those aside from bonding/veneers...some of them are pretty bad and obvious. But the main priority is to shift everything back into place so that I can eat right, talk right, and smile comfortably. :) Yay for orthodontics at the age of 34. :( But my mouth feels so much better and the gums look pink and healthy!

Hoping that this helps some folks in making their decision. Please email me if you have questions. I would've loved to hear of others' personal experiences before going through this.
 
seng: Sending you a private message.
Hey, all three of my periodontist in New York recommended LANAP for my gum disease. I would like to know if anyone had bone regeneration after a year? I really want to know if it was truth....?
 
@SC_Girl overall would you recommend lanap? How much did yoir teeth shift? Did you orthodontic treatment due to the procedure? Did you wear a night guard or have splints?
 
@Sunshinedaydream, it really depends on how bad your gum disease is. Mine was pretty moderate but severe enough that regular ol' scaling and planing wouldn't have been much help.

My teeth shifted because of the bone loss I incurred from the gum disease. I had also had two upper molars removed when I was 17 because they were still baby teeth and I didn't have any adult teeth growing behind them...but those molars never got replaced with implants, so the teeth had room to shift laterally. I had a good 1/8 inch gap between my top front teeth which was super unsightly.

I had orthodontics due to the teeth shifting from the gum disease, not from the LANAP procedure itself. The orthodontics were to close the gaps and correct my bite.

No night guards or splints for me, but every situation is different.

To answer anyone's questions about bone regrowth, it's hard to say. I DID have bone regeneration, but my general dentist said that's most likely from the orthodontics (as the teeth were shifted back into their correct positions, new bone was laid down), so I can't say whether or not any of the bone regrowth was from the LANAP directly.

I will say that I fully recommend LANAP. It was expensive, but it stopped the disease in its tracks, allowed my gums to heal, and the recovery time is minimal (I was back to work the next day). My gums now look healthy and pink as opposed to red and swollen. You have to be super diligent about oral hygiene afterwards. Spending thousands of dollars is totally not worth it if you don't keep up with the strict aftercare and regular oral hygiene, as well as regular checkups/cleanings with your dentist and/or periodontist (I get a professional cleaning from my periodontist twice a year and also a regular dental cleaning twice a year), so it's made the investment soooo worth it.
 
Thank you for answering. How long after Lanap did you get braces? Was it invaslin or traditional braces? How long did you have to wear them?
 
@Sunshinedaydream I got the braces 16 months after the LANAP procedure. I could've gotten them a few months after, but was trying to hold off to save funds and to delay the whole idea of adult braces. Hahaha!

They were traditional braces. The gaps that needed to be closed were too large for Invisilign.

They were on for 38 months. Treatment was supposed to be shorter, but COVID messed the whole schedule up. It was originally supposed to be an 18 month treatment plan.

Hope that helps. Let me know if you have further questions!
 
@SC_Girl I am glad to hear your positive experience. I am faced to make this decision, and the traditional surgery sounds debilitating. Did the orthodontic work treat your black triangles or did you end up getting veneers or bonding?
 
@Sunshinedaydream, I did NOT want to do the traditional surgery. Just didn't seem worth it when it came down to recovery time, trauma, and missing work.

The orthodontics DID close the black triangles in most areas in my upper teeth, but did not on the bottom (my bottom teeth hadn't shifted so there was nothing to really move laterally to lessen the appearance of the triangles). But I'm okay with that since they don't really show when I smile or talk anyway.
 
@SC_Girl : How is your periodontal disease now? I'm about to schedule my appointment but scared at the same time. I would like to make sure it's worth the expense and helps long-term.
 
@Babee99 : It's been over six years since my LANAP procedure and I'm happy to say that my periodontal disease has not returned. It even stayed that way during a pregnancy, which destroys your immune system and makes quiet diseases like periodontitis flare to dangerous proportions, as it did to me during my first pregnancy.

If you have moderate to severe periodontitis and are incredibly phobic of people and instruments in your mouth, I highly advocate for this procedure. If I may ask, what exactly is it that has you scared? (You can feel free to DM me as well if you wish to answer that question and you are more comfortable doing it privately. Or you can DM me for whatever reason. I'm a wealth of information when it comes to this procedure.)
 
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