6 Good Reasons To Have Your Teeth Cleaned Professionally
Antonia Kemp, dental hygienist at Mike Allen’s Dental Practice explains
It is not uncommon to find that many people don’t really fully understand the importance of seeing a dental hygienist on a regular basis. Whilst they do understand why they should see a dentist, this additional appointment can seem like an extra drain on both their time and finances.
This is unfortunate as your hygienist visits can, and should, be seen as an investment which will help to prevent a lot of problems further down the line, some of which will probably need dental surgery to restore your teeth once they have become damaged.
In order to help you to understand why you should have your teeth professionally cleaned by the hygienist, we have compiled a quick list of some of the best reasons.
Removal of tartar
Tartar is a collection of bacteria and minerals that build up on your teeth and the gum line. However well we clean our teeth, this build up is almost inevitable, especially in those hard to reach places. The rough surfaces provided by tartar allows even more bacteria to collect and increases the risk of gingivitis and periodontitis with all the issues that can entail including sore and bleeding gums, bad breath and potentially a loss of teeth as well.
Painless and beneficial
The procedure used to remove tartar is called a ‘scale and polish’ and is entirely non-invasive and usually done in a short visit. If you haven’t seen a hygienist before or for a long time, we may suggest that you book a longer appointment initially so that we can thoroughly clean your teeth and gums and get your mouth into a healthier condition.
The treatment typically takes part in 3 stages:
- The ‘scraping’ away of excess tartar
- The ‘shattering’ of the rest of the tartar using a sonic cleaning implement
- A final clean using a professional high speed brush
A combination of these three stages should help to leave you with healthy clean teeth.
A whiter smile!
Although our popular teeth whitening procedure is the most effective way of giving your smile a boost; if you have surface staining on your teeth, such as that which might be caused by tea consumption for example, a scale and polish will remove much of this and leave you with a cleaner, whiter smile. Unfortunately, it won’t affect any discolouration that has come from the darkening of the inner part of the tooth that tends to happen as we get older and you will need a cosmetic dental procedure to correct that.
Confidence boost
The whiter smile provided by this treatment will almost certainly help you to feel more confident in yourself and about your appearance. If you come into close contact with others, you will also be pleased to hear that by helping to prevent gum disease, one of the more unpleasant side effects of this, namely halitosis or bad breath, is less likely to be a problem. You can be more confident to hold conversations with others in the knowledge that they won’t be put off by smelly breath.
Detection of other issues
Although dentists will check for any possible issues such as soft tissue damage that could be a potential indicator of oral cancer during your routine dental examinations, it never hurts to have an additional check. Because the hygienist will inspect your mouth before cleaning, it adds an additional level of inspection for this type of problem.
A personalised service
At Mike Allen’s Dental Practice in Burton on Trent, we treat each patient as an individual and believe in offering personalised advice, as well as answering any questions that you may have. Our hygienist team may, for example, help you to choose the most appropriate toothpaste or mouthwash based upon their findings. For example, if you are prone to mouth sores, they may be able to recommend one that may help with that. They can also demonstrate how to use dental floss, a very beneficial addition to your tooth cleaning regime.
Affordability
A scale and polish is an inexpensive treatment whilst at the same time being extremely useful in the prevention of dental problems. Whilst you may save a few pounds if you don’t have this treatment, you could well end up paying more in the long run to have treatments for problems that a regular scale and polish may have prevented.
We hope that this advice convinces you of the importance of having your teeth professionally cleaned by a hygienist. This is usually done twice a year though patients with certain conditions that make them more prone to oral health problems will benefit from having this done more frequently. We are always happy to advise.
To make an appointment to see one of the hygienists at our Burton dental clinic, please call us on 01283 845345.