Why Are My Gums Still Bleeding After a Deep Cleaning? The 3 Windows — and the 10% Rule Dentists Use to Call It Healed
Last updated: 9 September 2026
Quick answer
Some bleeding after a deep cleaning (scaling and root planing) is expected — the Cleveland Clinic lists it as a normal effect of the procedure, alongside a couple of days of tenderness and a month or two of temperature sensitivity. What matters is which window you are in. Days 0–3: spotting when you brush is the instruments' work under the gum settling down. Days 4–14: bleeding should be steadily fading as the gum line gets, and stays, clean — the NHS periodontal team at Leicester tells patients that with good cleaning, bleeding should stop within two weeks. The re-evaluation visit: after an adequate healing period your dentist re-measures every pocket, and the definition of a healed mouth is numeric — under the 2017 World Workshop classification, a stable, successfully treated mouth has fewer than 10% of measured sites bleeding and no pocket of 4 mm or more that bleeds.
So if you are still bleeding at week three or later, it is not a mystery: either the gum line is not being kept clean enough at those sites, or a few pockets still hold deposits the first round did not fully reach, and the European guideline answer to that is a repeat of instrumentation at those sites, not a shrug. Day to day, this is also where gum-line products that stay put rather than rinsing off — a water-free lipid concentrate such as Dental Pro 7 — get used, once your dentist is happy for you to be back to normal brushing; more on where that fits, and where it does not, further down.
Call your dentist, don't wait, if: bleeding doesn't stop, pain isn't improving with the medication they recommended, or there is severe swelling — those are the Cleveland Clinic's three call-the-office signs after a deep cleaning.
First, what a deep cleaning actually did under your gums
A routine cleaning works above the gum line. Scaling and root planing works below it. The Cleveland Clinic describes it plainly: scaling removes plaque and tartar above and below the gumline, and root planing smooths the root surfaces so deposits are less able to reattach. It is done with local anaesthetic, using hand scalers or ultrasonic instruments, takes one to two hours, and is often split across two visits. NHS periodontal teams describe the same procedure under the name root surface debridement — up to two hours, usually over two visits, usually with local anaesthetic, per University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust.
That is why the first few days feel different from a normal scale and polish. An instrument has been working inside the pocket between gum and root — tissue that was already inflamed, and therefore already prone to bleed. The Cleveland Clinic's own list of what to expect afterwards reads: some bleeding (normal), gums that "might feel a bit sore for a couple of days," teeth that may feel "a little wiggly" until the gums tighten back up, sensitivity to hot and cold that "should go away in a month or two," and — if the gums were swollen beforehand — a little more root showing as the swelling goes down. We cover that last one in detail in why teeth look longer after a deep cleaning.
It also explains the point of the exercise. The American Dental Association's 2015 clinical practice guideline reviewed the evidence and voted in favor of scaling and root planing as the initial treatment for chronic periodontitis, judging that it "showed a moderate benefit" and that the benefits outweigh the potential adverse effects. The American Academy of Periodontology adds the honest footnote most patients never hear: "Many patients do not require additional treatment after scaling and root planing. However, the majority of patients will require ongoing maintenance therapy to sustain periodontal health."
The three windows — what's normal, what isn't, and what to do
Most pages on this question give you a single number ("a few days") and stop. That is unhelpful, because bleeding at day two and bleeding at week five are different events with different explanations. Here is the timeline, with the source for every figure.
| Window | What's normal | What isn't | What to do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 0–1 (numb, then sore) | Anaesthetic wearing off over a few hours; some bleeding when you brush; soreness that OTC pain relief manages (Cleveland Clinic) | Bleeding that doesn't stop; severe swelling (Cleveland Clinic's call-the-dentist signs) | Follow the written instructions you were given. Be careful eating and drinking while numb — you can bite your lip or cheek, and hot food can burn a numb mouth (Leicester NHS) |
| Days 2–3 | Tenderness ("a couple of days" — Cleveland Clinic); pink toothpaste; teeth that feel slightly wiggly | Pain getting worse rather than better; pain not improving with medication | Keep brushing — gently, soft bristles, but do not skip the gum line. Eat what doesn't hurt (Cleveland Clinic) |
| Days 4–14 | Bleeding reducing day on day as the gum line is kept clean; sensitivity to hot/cold | Bleeding that is the same or worse at day 14 despite thorough cleaning — Leicester NHS: with good cleaning "the bleeding should stop within 2 weeks" | Gum-line-first brushing twice a day; interdental brushes daily, sized to fit (Leicester NHS; EFP guideline). Start the bleeding-site log below |
| Weeks 2–6 | Little or no bleeding on brushing; sensitivity fading (a month or two — Cleveland Clinic) | The same one or two sites bleeding every time; a bad taste or pus; a gum that is swelling again | Keep the re-evaluation appointment. Bring your log. Do not skip it because things "seem fine" |
| Re-evaluation ("after an adequate healing period" — EFP) | Dentist re-probes every pocket. Success = fewer than 10% of sites bleeding and no bleeding pocket of 4 mm or more (2017 World Workshop; EFP) | Pockets of 4–5 mm that still bleed, or any pocket of 6 mm or more | Per the EFP guideline: 4–5 mm bleeding pockets get repeat instrumentation; 6 mm+ pockets may need access-flap surgery — but not until home cleaning is good |
| Maintenance | Supportive periodontal care every 3 to 12 months by risk (EFP); "usually every 3 months" (Leicester NHS) | Bleeding returning at previously stable sites | This is a for-life arrangement, not a course of treatment that ends |
Sources: Cleveland Clinic "Tooth Scaling and Root Planing" (2024); University Hospitals of Leicester NHS Trust "Gum disease" (leaflet 400, v4, Nov 2025); EFP S3-level clinical practice guideline (Sanz et al. 2020); Chapple et al., 2017 World Workshop consensus (2018). The window boundaries are our synthesis of those authorities, not a clinical staging system.
Window one (days 0–3): it's the procedure, not the disease
Bleeding here is almost always mechanical. The tissue lining a periodontal pocket is inflamed and fragile, and it has just had calculus scraped off the root beside it. The Cleveland Clinic's "risks" section leads with it: "It's normal to have some bleeding after a deep dental cleaning. But let your dentist know if you have excessive bleeding that doesn't stop." Read that second sentence as the threshold — bleeding when you brush is one thing; bleeding that continues on its own, or a mouthful of blood, is another, and is the reason the office gave you a number to call.
The most common mistake in this window is the well-meant one: brushing everywhere except the sore, bleeding gum line, to "let it heal." That leaves plaque exactly where it does the most damage. Brush it — softly, but brush it.
Window two (days 4–14): this is the window that tells you the most
From about day four, bleeding should be doing one thing: falling. The reason is the same one that governs bleeding gums in general. As the Leicester NHS periodontal team puts it, "Bleeding gums is a sign that your gums are not clean enough. If you clean your gums well, the bleeding should stop within 2 weeks." That two-week rule is echoed on the other side of the Atlantic by the Cleveland Clinic's bleeding-gums page, which repeats three times that bleeding gums that "don't improve within two weeks" warrant a dental appointment.
Why two weeks? Because gum inflammation is fast in both directions. In the classic experimental-gingivitis model, healthy volunteers who stopped cleaning developed gingivitis within roughly ten to 21 days; StatPearls summarises the recovery half of that model as gingivitis being "a reversible process within 7 to 10 days after the reestablishment of oral hygiene measures." The tissue at the gum line, in other words, responds within days to whether plaque is present. If yours is still bleeding at day 14, the honest first question is not "what's wrong with me?" but "is this site actually getting clean?"
Window three (re-evaluation): where "healed" becomes a number
The European Federation of Periodontology's S3-level guideline (Sanz et al., Journal of Clinical Periodontology 2020) lays out periodontitis treatment in four steps. Step 2 is your deep cleaning — "subgingival instrumentation" — and the guideline is explicit that it "should be re-evaluated after an adequate healing period." The endpoints it sets for that re-evaluation are: no periodontal pockets of 5 mm or more with bleeding on probing, and no deep pockets of 6 mm or more. Hit those, and you move to Step 4, supportive periodontal care. Miss them, and Step 3 applies: for "moderately deep residual pockets (4–5 mm), non-surgical subgingival instrumentation should be repeated," while pockets of 6 mm or more may need access-flap surgery.
The guideline does not fix a number of weeks for "adequate healing" — that is a clinical judgement — but the biology it is waiting on is well described. StatPearls' periodontal-disease review (updated May 2025) explains that after non-surgical treatment "probing depths reduce as healing occurs with the formation of a long junctional epithelium" — the gum re-attaching along the cleaned root — and that "a follow-up evaluation determines the extent of disease resolution." Research protocols summarised by the EFP have re-evaluated at six weeks after full-mouth instrumentation, which gives you a sense of the order of magnitude; your own appointment may be earlier or later.
The 10% rule: how your dentist decides whether you're healed
Here is the part almost no consumer article explains, and it is the single most useful thing to understand before your re-evaluation. Your dentist is not eyeballing your gums. They are probing six points around every tooth — three on the cheek side, three on the tongue side — and recording two things at each: how deep the pocket is, and whether it bleeds. The 2017 World Workshop on the Classification of Periodontal and Peri-Implant Diseases, in the consensus report led by Chapple and colleagues (J Clin Periodontol 2018), turned that into a definition. Its case definition of gingival health is fewer than 10% bleeding sites with probing depths of 3 mm or less; localised gingivitis is 10–30% bleeding sites; generalised gingivitis is over 30%. And for someone who has had periodontitis and been treated, "periodontal stability" is defined as "minimal (<10% of sites) BOP, no probing depths of 4mm or greater that bleed on probing, optimal improvement in other clinical parameters and lack of progressive periodontal destruction."
| What the chart says | What it means (2017 World Workshop / StatPearls 2025) | What happens next |
|---|---|---|
| Stable | All pockets 4 mm or less, no 4 mm site bleeds, fewer than 10% of sites bleed | Supportive care every 3–12 months (EFP) |
| In remission (gingival inflammation in a treated patient) | All pockets 4 mm or less, no 4 mm site bleeds, but more than 10% of sites bleed at shallow depths | Chapple et al.: such sites "may not require root-surface debridement" but "oral-hygiene reinforcement and plaque removal" — i.e., the fix is at home, plus close monitoring |
| Unstable | Any pocket of 5 mm or more, or bleeding at any site 4 mm or deeper | EFP Step 3: repeat instrumentation (4–5 mm) or surgical access (6 mm+) |
Two details in that consensus report are worth carrying into your appointment. First, perfection is not the target: the authors note that "a patient with periodontal health may exhibit one or two sites with some evidence of clinical gingival inflammation," and that "localized mild and delayed bleeding to probe at isolated sites is ubiquitous, but may fall within the spectrum of 'clinical health.'" One bleeding site does not mean the deep cleaning failed. Second, the X-ray is not the judge here: "Radiographs cannot be used to diagnose gingivitis." Bleeding is assessed with a probe, which is why the re-evaluation is a hands-on visit, not a film.
One more fact that reframes the whole question: as Chapple put it in the EFP's summary of the workshop, "once periodontitis is diagnosed, a patient remains a periodontitis patient for life," and the consensus report itself says a treated, stable patient "remains at increased risk of recurrent periodontitis and accordingly must be closely monitored." The deep cleaning is the start of a maintenance relationship, not a course you finish.
Six reasons gums keep bleeding after a deep cleaning
1. The gum line isn't staying clean (by far the most common)
A deep cleaning removes what was there. It does nothing about what arrives tomorrow. The Cleveland Clinic's closing note on the procedure is blunt: only a professional can remove the tartar that causes periodontal disease, "but daily brushing and flossing can keep your teeth and gums healthy." The Leicester NHS leaflet is blunter still: keeping the mouth clean "is the most important factor when treating gum disease," you should brush for three minutes twice a day, and "when you brush your teeth you must also brush the edges of your gums." If the bleeding sites are the ones your brush skims past, that is your answer. Our gumline-first routine is in how to brush with gum disease.
2. A few pockets still hold deposits the first pass didn't fully reach
This is what the re-evaluation exists to find. Deep, curved or furcated root surfaces are hard to clean blind, which is why the EFP guideline builds in a Step 3. It is also why "still bleeding at a couple of sites" at re-evaluation is a routine finding with a routine response — repeat instrumentation at those sites — rather than a sign the whole treatment failed. The Leicester leaflet describes the same logic in patient terms: "If pocketing remains after root surface debridement gum (periodontal) surgery may be done," with the crucial condition that "periodontal surgery is not normally considered unless oral hygiene is excellent." The EFP puts it as a rule: "Surgery should not be performed in patients not achieving adequate levels of self-performed oral hygiene." Home cleaning is not the optional part.
3. Technique is injuring the gum rather than cleaning it
Snapping floss down into a papilla, sawing with it, or scrubbing hard with a stiff brush will make a healing gum bleed regardless of how clean it is. The ADA's flossing guidance is to guide floss between the teeth "using a gentle, rubbing motion" and "never snap the floss into the gums." The Cleveland Clinic's guidance on bleeding while flossing, written with periodontist Sasha Ross, DMD, says the same about brushing: a 45-degree angle, soft bristles, replace them when frayed. The tell is pain and bleeding that arrive during cleaning at otherwise healthy-looking sites, rather than swollen, red tissue that bleeds at a touch.
4. You smoke — or you just stopped
Smoking cuts both ways here, and neither is good. The American Academy of Periodontology explains that nicotine and other tobacco chemicals "can hide the symptoms commonly associated with periodontal disease, such as bleeding gums," while also reducing "the delivery of oxygen and nutrients to the gum tissues" and making treatment results less predictable. The Chapple consensus report says smoking "can mask clinical signs of gingivitis, such as bleeding on probing, despite a significant underlying pathological inflammatory cell infiltrate." StatPearls puts the treatment penalty simply: "smoking diminishes the effectiveness of periodontal treatment," and the Leicester NHS team tells patients that if they smoke, gum disease "is unlikely to get completely better, even if you have excellent oral hygiene."
The flip side catches recent quitters out. In a small clinical study of 27 people on a quit-smoking programme, Nair and colleagues (J Clin Periodontol 2003) reported bleeding on probing rising from 16% of sites to 32% over four to six weeks of abstinence, despite improving hygiene — the mask coming off, not the disease getting worse. If you quit around the time of your deep cleaning, an apparent increase in bleeding may be exactly that. We cover it in why gums bleed after quitting smoking.
5. Hormones are amplifying the response to a small amount of plaque
Progesterone and oestrogen increase blood flow to the gums and change how they react to plaque, which is why bleeding can spike in the days before a period, in pregnancy and at puberty. Dr Ross's line is that hormones "can also cause changes in blood vessels and in your body's immune response that cause bleeding gums regardless of the amount of bacteria and plaque present." The Chapple report lists sex-steroid hormones among the recognised "modifying factors" that generate "more than expected inflammation, in response to relatively small levels of plaque." If your post-cleaning bleeding tracks your cycle, see are my bleeding gums hormonal — or gum disease?
6. Something systemic is making you bleed more easily
This is the reason to mention persistent bleeding to a doctor as well as a dentist. The Cleveland Clinic's bleeding-gums page lists blood-thinning medication, vitamin K and vitamin C deficiency, thrombocytopenia, haemophilia and von Willebrand disease, pernicious anaemia and leukaemia among non-dental causes. The World Workshop consensus adds hyperglycaemia (in people with or without diabetes), scurvy — which weakens capillary walls and produces "a consequent propensity to enhanced gingival bleeding" — and haematological conditions, whose signature is "gingival bleeding that is inconsistent with levels of dental plaque biofilm accumulation." That last phrase is the clinical red flag: gums that are clean by every measure and still bleed heavily need a blood test, not a better toothbrush.
The 14-day bleeding-site log (do this before your re-evaluation)
Turning up and saying "they still bleed a bit" gets you a general look. Turning up with "lower left, between the two back molars, every evening for the last five days, and nowhere else" gets a probe put exactly where it is needed. The log takes thirty seconds a night.
- Start on day 4 — earlier than that, you are logging the procedure, not your gums.
- Brush gum-line first, then clean between the teeth with the interdental brushes your hygienist sized for you. The Leicester NHS advice is brushes that "fit snugly," and you will "likely need a selection" of sizes across the mouth. The EFP maintenance guidance is that toothbrushing "should be supplemented by the use of interdental brushes," with floss "not suggested as a first choice" for periodontal maintenance patients. If a gap is too tight for any brush, floss it — gently, C-shaped, no snapping.
- Spit, don't rinse. The NHS gum-disease page tells you to "spit after brushing, do not rinse," and not to use mouthwash straight after brushing.
- Note which sites bled — tooth position and whether it was the brush or the interdental brush that triggered it. Six zones (upper right, front, left; lower left, front, right) is precise enough.
- Score the bleeding: 0 none, 1 pink on the brush, 2 visible blood. Same time each night.
- Read the trend at day 14. Scores falling across the mouth toward 0 is window two doing its job. A site stuck at 2 for the whole fortnight, while everything else has settled, is a site that either isn't getting clean or still holds something under the gum — and either way it is the site your dentist should probe first.
- Take the log to the re-evaluation and ask for the probing depth and bleeding result at each site you flagged. You are entitled to the numbers.
Why the log matters: the bleeding-on-probing score your dentist records is literally a count of bleeding sites. StatPearls' periodontitis review reports the classic finding (Lang et al., 1986) that sites which bleed during maintenance carry roughly three times the risk of attachment loss of sites that don't. Persistent bleeding sites are the ones worth finding early.
What helps at home in each window — and what doesn't
Days 0–3
Your dentist's written instructions come first; the Cleveland Clinic notes they will be "specific to your situation." Beyond that: soft brush, gentle pressure, don't avoid the gum line; over-the-counter pain relief for soreness; eat and drink whatever doesn't hurt. If your teeth are sensitive to cold after scaling, the Leicester NHS tip is to rub a small amount of fluoride toothpaste onto the sensitive root surfaces with a finger, spit out the excess and not rinse — repeated over months, "a barrier will form and your teeth will become harder and less sensitive."
Days 4–14
This is where the outcome is decided, and it is decided by the gum line getting cleaned twice a day, every day, including the sites that bleed. Interdental brushes daily. Spit, don't rinse. Start the log. If you smoke, this is the fortnight to stop — the EFP guideline lists tobacco-cessation interventions as a recommended part of Step 1 of periodontal treatment, not an optional extra.
Weeks 2–6
Keep the re-evaluation appointment even if bleeding has stopped. "Stopped bleeding on brushing" and "no pocket of 4 mm or more bleeds on probing" are not the same test, and only the second one counts. The Cleveland Clinic's hope for the procedure is that "ideally, you'll need scaling and root planing only once" — but that is conditional on regular cleanings and good daily care thereafter.
What doesn't help
Rinsing harder. The NHS advice is the opposite: don't use mouthwash immediately after brushing, because it washes off what the toothpaste left behind. Skipping the sore sites. Waiting for the bleeding to stop before you clean the area. And, in the other direction, scrubbing a healing gum with a hard brush because it "must be plaque" — technique injuries bleed too.
When to call the dentist — and when to call a doctor
The Cleveland Clinic's post-procedure list is short and worth memorising: bleeding that doesn't stop; pain that doesn't get better with medication; severe swelling. Add to that a bad taste or pus from a site, a gum that is swelling up again after settling, or a tooth that is getting looser rather than firmer — the Cleveland Clinic expects post-cleaning wobbliness to "go away once your gums tighten back up," so the opposite trend needs a look. And if your gums are clean, the log says the bleeding is everywhere rather than at specific sites, and it is heavy or spontaneous, ask your GP about the systemic causes above.
Where a gum-line lipid concentrate fits after a deep cleaning — and where it doesn't
Be precise about the role, because this is a case where the honest answer includes a limit. Nothing you apply at home removes calculus from a root surface, closes a 6 mm pocket or replaces the re-evaluation. The deep cleaning did the removing; your dentist does the measuring. What a daily product can do is change the conditions at the gum line between those visits, and support the look and feel of the gum tissue while you keep it clean — which, per every authority above, is the part that decides whether the bleeding stops.
Dental Pro 7 is a 100% water-free botanical lipid concentrate built on a design principle we call Lipid-Lock: because it contains no water, it clings to the gum line and stays in contact for hours rather than being flushed away in seconds the way a water-based paste or rinse is. For a mouth whose whole recovery hinges on the gum line, contact time is the point. It blends eleven botanical lipids — immortelle helichrysum, pomegranate seed, black cumin seed, Indian myrrh, wild clove, white thyme and eucalyptus among the actives, a peppermint–spearmint–wild-mint freshness trinity, and a grapeseed, sunflower and vitamin E base — and supports the appearance of firmer, pinker, healthier-looking gums and a mouth that looks and feels cleaner and fresher.
When to start: once your dentist is happy for you to return to normal twice-daily brushing — if you were given specific post-procedure instructions or a prescribed rinse, follow those first and ask before changing your routine. How to use it: four drops on a dry toothbrush in place of toothpaste, brush gently for about two minutes with the bristles angled into the gum line, then spit — do not rinse with water. Rinsing washes the lipid layer straight off and defeats the design. It is a companion to interdental brushes, not a substitute for them.
Because the formula is anhydrous it is preservative-free by design — no water, no fillers, no SLS or foaming agents, no fluoride, no parabens; vegan and non-GMO. It naturally contains eugenol, limonene and linalool from its botanicals, and it is made in a facility that handles nut oils. If you have been asked to use fluoride for post-scaling sensitivity, keep doing that as directed; the two routines are not in competition.
- Rating: Dental Pro 7 is rated 4.9 out of 5 from 293 reviews, with over 500,000 bottles sold.
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- What it is for: supporting the appearance of a cleaner, fresher mouth and firmer, pinker, healthier-looking gums. It is a cosmetic complement to brushing, interdental cleaning and professional periodontal care — not a substitute for any of them, and not a periodontal treatment.
Explore Dental Pro 7. Companion reading: can you reduce gum pocket depth naturally?, interdental brushes vs floss for gum pockets, and will a loose tooth from gum disease tighten back up?
Frequently asked questions
Is it normal for gums to bleed after a deep cleaning? Yes. The Cleveland Clinic lists some bleeding as a normal effect of scaling and root planing, along with a couple of days of tenderness. What is not normal is bleeding that doesn't stop, which is one of its three reasons to call your dentist.
How long should gums bleed after scaling and root planing? Spotting on brushing in the first few days is the procedure. From there, bleeding should fall day on day as the gum line is kept clean; the NHS periodontal team at Leicester tells patients that with good cleaning it should stop within two weeks. Bleeding that is unchanged at day 14 is worth reporting rather than waiting out.
Why are my gums still bleeding three weeks after a deep cleaning? The two commonest explanations are that the bleeding sites are not being cleaned thoroughly at the gum line and between the teeth, or that a few pockets still hold deposits the first instrumentation did not fully reach. The re-evaluation visit is designed to tell those apart, and the European guideline response to residual bleeding 4–5 mm pockets is repeat instrumentation at those sites.
What does "less than 10% bleeding on probing" mean? Your dentist probes six points around each tooth and records whether each one bleeds. Under the 2017 World Workshop classification, a treated, stable mouth has fewer than 10% of those sites bleeding and no pocket of 4 mm or more that bleeds. One or two isolated bleeding sites can still fall within clinical health.
Should I stop brushing the areas that bleed? No. Bleeding gums are, in the NHS's words, "a sign that your gums are not clean enough." Brush the gum line gently with a soft brush and clean between the teeth daily; avoiding the site leaves plaque exactly where it causes bleeding.
Will I need another deep cleaning? The Cleveland Clinic's aim is that you need it only once, and the AAP notes many patients need no further treatment — but "the majority of patients will require ongoing maintenance therapy." Once periodontitis has been diagnosed you remain a periodontitis patient for life, with supportive care every 3 to 12 months depending on your risk.
Can a topical product make gums stop bleeding faster after a deep cleaning? No product replaces cleaning the gum line, and no product should be expected to shorten the recovery. Our formula is cosmetic: it supports the look and feel of the gums while you do the cleaning that actually decides the outcome.
The bottom line
Bleeding after a deep cleaning is expected in the first few days, should be falling by the end of the first week, and should be close to gone by two weeks if the gum line is being kept clean. Beyond that, the question is answered by numbers, not impressions: at re-evaluation, a healed mouth has fewer than 10% of sites bleeding and no bleeding pocket of 4 mm or more, and the sites that miss that bar get cleaned again. Keep the log, keep the appointment, clean the sites that bleed rather than avoiding them, stop smoking if you smoke — and treat the maintenance visits as the long-term deal they are.
For the wider picture, see why do my gums bleed?, how long it takes gums to stop bleeding once you start flossing, and how gum disease is treated.
This article is for general information and describes cosmetic products by appearance and feel; it is not medical or dental advice. Bleeding that does not stop, worsening pain, swelling, pus or a loosening tooth after periodontal treatment should be assessed by your dentist, and heavy or unexplained bleeding by a doctor.