Cleaning is the Least Important

The most important part of your dental check-up and cleaning visit is not the cleaning -- it's the check-up. Why? Because if you have gum disease, the typical cleaning that is performed twice yearly will have ZERO effect on it. Gum disease occurs when bacteria gets under the gumline beyond where your toothbrush (and beyond where even the hygienist) can reach. Truth is that getting your teeth cleaned twice yearly will neither eliminate the gum disease nor prevent its recurrence.

Life-Threatening Diseases Linked with Gum Disease

It turns out that the mouth is a significant source of inflammation when gum disease is present. Medical research has confirmed that inflammation in the body is a significant factor in many of the chronic diseases of aging such as heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and Alzheimer's disease. So gum disease, when left untreated, will increase your risk for being stricken with these serious and life-threatening diseases.

What's worse, gum disease is a silent disease meaning that you can have it and not even know it. Often only a dentist or hygienist can tell if you have gum disease. There are identifiable risk factors that make some people more susceptible to gum disease than others.

Thus, in this new age of dental medicine your regular dental visits should no longer be solely about cleaning teeth - they should be about checking for inflammation.

The Most Important Things Your Hygienist Should Do

1. Determine if there are any areas of gum inflammation in your mouth. If you do have gum inflammation, treatment should be rendered to eliminate it. Simply polishing the teeth will make the teeth feel good for a day or two, but will have no effect on reducing the inflammation.

2. Determine if you have any risk factors for gum disease.

3. Determine the method which will result in the most rapid elimination of your gum inflammation.

4. Determine the daily routine that will allow you to keep the gum disease under control

Once you have been treated for gum disease you will enter into the maintenance phase. Maintenance care is intended to keep your mouth inflammation free. We need to see you every 3-4 months to insure the inflammation does not return. We know it takes approximately three (3) months for the bacteria to reestablish itself under the gum-line. The severity of your case will determined the frequency of your visits.

Discuss gum disease with your hygienist at your next checkup.