Brushing your teeth after each meal is extremely important to maintain the care of your teeth.
Have you ever wonder what type of cleaning I am receiving?
Prophylaxis, Periodontal Maintenance, Scaling and Root Planing and Full Mouth Debridement, are the 4 type of cleanings we perform in our office. Whats the difference you ask??
Prophylaxis (or Prophy) is what most people think of when they refer to getting their teeth cleaned. A prophy is performed when a patient has healthy gums and no signs of periodontal disease. This cleaning is performed above the gum tissue.
Victoria receiving her first Prophy from Kim in our office.
Scaling and Root Planing (or Deep cleaning) is a treatment for patients that have been diagnosed with periodontal disease (gum disease). This involves numbing the gum tissue, and cleaning below the gums to allow for healing.
Periodontal Maintenance (or Perio Maintenance) is the routine cleaning of patients with periodontal disease. This treatment is performed for patients after receiving Scaling and Root Planing and the goal is to maintain the healing that has occurred after the deep cleaning. If a patient still has areas of disease, then more treatments may be necessary and we usually refer to a Specialist!
Full Mouth Debridement (or Gross Debridement) is a treatment for patients that have not been to the dentist in a long time and have a lot of calculus (or tartar) build-up. The goal of this treatment is to remove as much calculus as possible in order to access the teeth and provide a proper diagnosis.
Each cleaning treatment requires a different amount of time and sometimes numbing. We can not predict what type of cleaning you need until after an exam and x-rays are performed!
Ultra Sonic Cleaner cleans off all instruments.
The Autoclave sterilizes all instruments.
Follow your treatment plans to keep you teeth as healthy as they can be!
