Why do you have black gums around your teeth?
Pale pink is the natural color of the gum tissues surrounding our teeth. Even though the gum color varies for each person, dark colored gums ruin your smile aesthetics because an optimal interrelation between teeth, gums, and other oral tissues is essential for a beautiful smile.
Mostly, hormonal changes make your gums turn a different color. On the other hand, gum discoloration is a sign of underlying bodily disorders.
For instance, the gums turn reddish with the body’s inflammatory process. Circulatory disorders cause blue-colored spots on gums. Such dark spots or discoloration in gums happen with a plethora of things that are described in this blog post.
Table of Contents
What causes black gums?
Here are the common conditions that turn your gums dark.
1) Melanin
Our body produces a natural pigment called melanin which gives our skin, hair, and eyes their color. Excess of melanin pigment in a body makes a person appear darker so as his/her gums also look black or brown.
If you have darker gums since birth, you don’t need to worry about that. In contrast, if you notice your pink-colored gums turn darker, it requires medical attention and may be incited any of the reasons we are going to see.
2) Addison’s disease
Addison’s disease is an atypical condition that affects the adrenal glands. As the role of adrenal glands is to secrete hormones for essential functionalities such as regulating the immune system, metabolism, blood pressure, etc, any attack on the adrenal glands will harm our body due to the shortage of hormone production.
Its symptoms are obvious and produce dark patches on gums, knees, elbows, palm lines, etc. Besides these, the sufferers encounter tiredness, frequent thirstiness, weakened muscles, etc.
3) Acute necrotizing ulcerative gingivitis
Acute necrotizing ulcerative gingivitis is a gum infectious condition and is caused by the overgrowth of bacteria in the mouth. It makes the gums appear black with the build-up of dead tissues over the gums. Along with gums with black or brown shade, it exhibits various symptoms include bleeding gums, drooling, and bad breath.
Fortunately, it is curable. The treatment involves removing the dead cells and tissues. Then the infected region is cleansed with antibiotics.
4) Amalgam tattoo
This is a benign condition and it happens in people who have restored their broken tooth (or teeth) with silver fillings, or metal crowns.
When the metal particles in the restorative appliances weaken and get dislodged, they may stuck or deposit underneath the oral tissues. It causes dark patches around those regions and it is known as silver amalgam tattoo. When the dislodged amalgam substances are lodged underneath the gums, the dark spots will appear over there also.
5) Peutz-Jeghers Syndrome
Peutz-Jeghers Syndrome is a genetic disorder and it involves developing harmless hamartomatous polyps in the gastrointestinal tract. Similarly, it also involves developing hyperpigmented macules on the oral tissues.
It is a rare but life-threatening condition and requires immediate medical attention.
6) Blue Nevus
It is a harmless condition and is defined as a kind of mole. It appears blue or black depending on the pigment that exists deeper inside the skin.
7) Eruption Hematoma
Eruption Hematoma commonly occurs in kids during permanent teeth eruption. It is a harmless condition so you don’t worry. Generally, a fluid-filled cyst develops in gums when an adult tooth begins to erupt. It appears black or purple due to the blood present in the cysts. The discoloration in gums goes on its own once the tooth fully erupts.
Bottom line
In most cases, Black or dark-colored gums appear as a sign of problematic oral conditions, bodily disorders as we discussed here. Meanwhile, it occurs as a consequence of some medications and poor oral habits like smoking.
Similar to teeth whitening treatments, dentists offer various gum depigmentation (gum bleaching) treatments to restore the gum’s natural pale pink color. If you like to know more about gum bleaching treatments, contact our dentists.
