Gum disease: spiritual meaning and emotional causes

What gum disease is

Gum disease is inflammation of the tissues that hold the teeth in place. It is caused by plaque, a sticky film of bacteria that builds up along the gum line. In its early stage, gingivitis, the gums become red, swollen and bleed easily when you brush. If it is not treated, it can become periodontitis: the gums pull away from the teeth, the bone that supports them is slowly lost, and teeth can become loose and eventually fall out. Bad breath and a bad taste are common.

Gum disease is very common in adults. Smoking, diabetes, pregnancy, some medicines, a weakened immune system and not cleaning between the teeth all raise the risk. Gingivitis can usually be reversed with good brushing, cleaning between the teeth and a professional clean. Periodontitis needs regular treatment by a dentist or hygienist to stop it getting worse. Bleeding gums with bruising or other bleeding elsewhere need a doctor.

The emotional meaning of gum disease

The gums support the teeth, and the strength of the teeth depends a great deal on them. Since the teeth stand for decisions, the gums are read as the ground under your decisions: your confidence that you can stand by them.

Stuck in the past

Spiritually, sore gums are read as feeling caught with a person or a situation because you insist on staying in the past. Instead of climbing the next step, you would rather go back. Indecision is everywhere. You doubt because you wonder whether you can bear your decisions and what they will bring.

Gum pain may be linked to a decision you should have taken long ago and keep postponing, out of fear of what it could change; or to a decision you have taken but are not carrying out. You are in a passive state of fear, insecurity and uncertainty about the future. Your words feel as if they carry no weight, and you are often angry with yourself.

Limits and the need for love

You may feel left to fend for yourself, struggling to define your limits and what you can tolerate. Then, like a small volcano, emotions held back for a long time erupt. There can be an intense inner pain about the emotional nourishment you need and feel you lack. Sensitive gums that sometimes swell are read as great emotional sensitivity and vulnerability: you need a lot of love and feel you are not receiving it, or fear losing it. You may feel unsure of your own limits and of your ability to tell what is good for you. If you blame yourself for things you have said or done, the gums are read as feeling it too.

An abscess on the gum

When there is a break in affection, especially with your mother or your children, and you store up sorrow and disappointment while feeling guilty about what is happening, a gum abscess is read as the wish to expel that inner suffering once and for all. An abscess still needs a dentist.

Gingivitis: fear around a decision

An infection of the gums is read as fear. It may be fear about a decision you took and regret, or one you keep questioning, or about your inability to decide at all. It may also be fear of someone else, a manager, a partner, a religion, whose decisions affect you directly and over which you have no control. Someone acted too fast and it irritates you. Frustration and discontent can lead to confrontations that may not be needed.

When the gums become inflamed, they are read as distress and a poor ability to defend yourself, with weariness, melancholy and fear. The invitation is to channel that fear and express it.

Bleeding gums

Bleeding gums are read as insecurity, a doubt about a decision to take, and a loss of joy in expressing yourself. Are you right to doubt, or to regret? You may find it hard to hold your position and stay firm. You may feel your freedom is restricted, feel powerless, and hold others responsible for how you feel.

In gingivitis the bleeding is read as sadness at not being able to express yourself, either because you are not allowed to or because you stop yourself, feeling that what you say does not matter and no one will listen. When a decision tears you in two, the bleeding is read as joy draining out of it.

Receding gums

Because the gums are the foundation the teeth rest on, gum disease can come with anger and sadness at the feeling that your foundations are collapsing, leaving you powerless in front of events or other people. You may stamp on the spot and criticise instead of looking at how to move forward and leave the past behind.

When the gums pull back and the teeth loosen, the sense of powerlessness is read as strongest. Reality no longer holds and your inner strength is shaken. In a striking image, the gums are bathed in the tears of the teeth, your emotions. You keep asking whether you made the right decisions and find it hard to stand by your choices. You doubt yourself so much, and want so badly to be accepted, that you become flexible and understanding to the extreme while putting your own needs aside.

Receding gums are also read as the fear of being found out in a secret that was never told, one that has gnawed at you over the years. Like a chameleon, you may adjust so much to others to be loved and accepted that you lose yourself and have no limits left. The invitation is to mark out your own space and free yourself from what has been eating at you.

Upper or lower gum

• The upper gum is read as masculine energy and the father, and also as your work and your role in society.
• The lower gum is read as feminine energy and the mother, and also as your whole emotional side.

A gentler way to hold it

Gum disease is a bacterial infection and needs a dentist or hygienist. The emotional perspective asks how steady the ground under your decisions feels.

• Take a moment of silence. Give yourself time alone to gather your strength.
• Name the postponed decision. Write down the one you have been avoiding, or the one you took and have not acted on.
• Assert yourself. The gums support the teeth, and the teeth are decisions: trust yourself in the ones you make.
• Draw your limits. Decide what you will and will not tolerate, even with people you love.
• Speak, even if you think it will not count. Your words carry weight when you give them some.
• See change as growth. Each important change can be a step towards the goals you have set yourself. Look reality in the face, let the past go, and trust what is coming.