Your professional dental cleanings are one of the most important appointments you’ll schedule at our Suffolk County dentist’s office. Most people require a cleaning — or “prophylaxis” — every six months to keep their smiles healthy.
The purpose of cleaning visits is to help you prevent and avoid common oral health conditions such as gum disease or decay. With professional preventative care and great oral hygiene, you can potentially keep your smile healthy for the rest of your life. Preventive cleanings are the key tool when it comes to breaking the cycle of tooth loss.
Who is Cleaning My Teeth?
Each of our professional dental cleanings in Long Island is performed by a Registered Dental Hygienist (RDH). Similar to a Registered Nurse, an RDH has a two or four-year degree and professional license that requires rigorous board testing and professional development. Our hygienists play a key role in your preventative care and periodontal therapies, acting as your partner in oral health.
Dental hygienists are licensed to perform prophylaxis services, place dental sealants, screen for periodontal disease and oral cancer, develop soft tissue care plans, and more. They’re close partners with our Suffolk County dentists when it comes to not just cleaning teeth, but ensuring an optimal future for our patients’ smiles.
How to Safely Remove Plaque and Tartar Buildup
Our hygienist will use special instruments to safely lift away both soft and calcified buildup on your teeth. Plaque biofilm can collect both above and below the gumlines and needs to be removed routinely to prevent gum infections or bone loss. If you’re in the habit of not flossing each day, the plaque can begin to calcify into tartar (calculus) that cements itself to the tooth and tooth roots. The heavier the tartar buildup is, the greater the risk there is for tissue damage in that area.
Throughout your cleaning appointment, your hygienist will gently disrupt these bacterial deposits to return your mouth to a healthy state. Since buildup naturally occurs between your cleaning appointments, these intermittent visits consistently bring your teeth back to a baseline without plaque or tartar buildup, making it easier for you to maintain your oral health between checkups.
Ultrasonic vs. Manual Instrumentation
Depending on how much buildup you typically have, what your oral hygiene is like, and if there are any hard-to-reach areas throughout your mouth, your dental cleaning may include manual instrumentation or a powered ultrasonic cleaning.
Both types of cleanings are effective and gentle. However, the instruments can be interchanged depending on how much buildup there is on your teeth. Heavier deposits of tarter tend to be easier to lift with an ultrasonic scaler. Finely tuned scaling with a manual scaler or curette is typical for milder areas of buildup, but they are also essential for cleaning deeper pockets as well.
Your dental hygienist will select specific instruments to clean specific areas of specific teeth. Each angle and shape of the instrument is unique to the tooth surface that needs to be cleaned. Hence, you’ll likely notice that they change out instruments or seem to “hop” from one area to the next, as they utilize the toe of one curette on certain teeth before changing to the next instrument.
Will I Need X-rays?
We routinely take digital X-rays to assess your bone levels and screen for decay or other infections. Depending on the individual needs of the patient, we may order a set of bitewing X-rays once per year or every other dental cleaning appointment. Our hygienist will use your X-rays to locate areas of tartar buildup below your gums, pre-screen for gum disease, and make our Long Island dentists aware of any suspicious areas that may require further evaluation.
Without intermittent X-rays, it’s impossible to screen for tooth decay or bone loss. We use your images as baselines and measurements from one visit to the next so that potential issues can be intercepted as soon as possible. Particularly when it comes to tooth decay.
If you have any tartar that needs to be cleaned off, it will probably be visible on your X-rays. It almost looks like small spurs coming off the side of the teeth, just below the gumlines.
Periodontal Evaluation
One of the most important aspects of professional dental cleanings is removing bacteria from the sulcus or gum “pockets” around teeth. These spaces are the small pocket areas created where the gums attach at the root of the tooth up to the edge of the gumlines.
A typical healthy mouth will only have pockets up to 2-3mm deep, maximum. Your hygienist will use an extremely small measuring tool called a periodontal probe to measure the gum attachment levels around each tooth. Any pockets that are 4mm or deeper will need an additional level of attention and periodontal therapy. But probing is an integral aspect of your routine cleaning visits so that our hygienist knows which areas may require more attention than others.
About Dental Polishing (During a Cleaning)
A lot of people feel like the final step in their dental cleaning is what’s actually causing their mouth to feel clean. We’re talking about the polish, of course! Dental polishing helps remove light surface stains and any residual plaque leftover from the initial scaling.
Prophy polish is a slightly gritty-textured type of toothpaste that gently buffs off fine layers of stain. When used carefully and in specific areas throughout the mouth, it is extremely safe and effective. Once the hygienist completes this step, your teeth will typically feel extremely smooth and fresh (thanks to a minty flavor or something similar.)
The polish isn’t technically the “cleaning” portion of your appointment, but without this final touch, a lot of people just don’t feel like their mouth is completely clean. It’s the perfect way to end your checkup and give you a blank slate to work with until your next recall appointment.
Request a Cleaning Every Six Months
Are you due for a preventative dental cleaning? Contact Sachem Dental Group today to request your next appointment.