Can Your Gums Grow Hair Answer: Yes! - a podcast by Paul Williams, DDS

Hi Everyone! I'm Dr. Williams and today we are on week 3 of the state at home order. Hopefully, everybody's been staying home and staying safe in the last few weeks. Since all of our minds have been focused on the coronavirus pandemic, I wanted to take a break today. I wanted to talk about a very unusual case in Dentistry. But before we begin make sure to hit subscribe and don't forget to click that little bell icon.Have you ever heard of the term oral hirsutism? Yeah, most of us have never heard that term before. So let me introduce you to what that is. In simple terms, it's when hair grows out of your gums. Yeah, that's right hair follicles growing out of your gums. It's an extremely rare condition with only a dozen documented cases. It was previously believed that only men suffered from this condition. This was until a 19-year-old lady reported that numerous hairs were growing out of her gums. Her story began when she visited the doctors at the University of Campania Luigi Vanvitelli in Italy and they discovered that she had several hairs growing from the back of her front teeth. From her initial exam, she presented with a large amount of hair growing on her neck and her chin. Now when the doctors looked intraorally they discovered numerous small eyelash-like follicles growing in between her teeth. The dentist removed these hairs and sent to the lab for evaluation the A year later, the lady came back and reported that she was now growing more here than ever. So I'm guessing it's like gray hair, where you pluck one and several more come back in its place. Well in her situation, she was now growing hair in her upper and lower gum tissue. The doctors diagnosed the patient with polycystic ovarian syndrome, a condition that results in abnormally high male hormones. Patients with this condition patients usually experienced unwanted hair growth usually in the chin and the chest. This is due to those abnormal hormone levels. The doctors prescribe the patient birth control pills and after four months of continual use, all of the hairs disappeared. However, six years later the patient reported back to the doctor stating that the hairs began to grow again when she stopped taking the oral contraceptives. Now, why did she stop taking the oral contraceptives? Well, she was trying to get pregnant. Unfortunately for her, there's no permanent cure to prevent her oral hairs from returning. However, if she continues her hormonal contraception, her symptoms would be addressed. Now I hope you were all able to learn something interesting from this video, and I hope I was able to take your mind off of everything happening in the world right now. Even if it was only temporarily. Please make sure to hit the like button and subscribe to this channel. And if you have any questions or comments, make sure to leave them in the section below. Thank you!

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