You brush and floss your teeth faithfully. Shouldn’t that be enough? The fact is, it’s not.

Your teeth play a huge part in your survival, from helping you chew the food you eat to helping you communicate. Because of that, your mouth is a unique environment that needs special care. Regular dental cleanings at Edgewood Dental Care can keep your mouth, teeth and gums healthy and strong.

Regular Brushing Is Not Enough

Regular brushing and flossing can remove most plaque. But plaque that is missed can harden and turn into tartar, which can then only be removed by your dentist’s office with special tools. Professional teeth cleaning removes the plaque and tartar that brushing and flossing doesn’t get. It’s not easy, even with the most thorough brushing, to get to those back molars and all the crevices between your teeth, especially if some of your teeth overlap.

Some plaque and tartar buildup is natural, but too much of it can lead to gum disease. The bacteria in plaque can produce acid that eats away at your tooth enamel. Repeated attacks cause that enamel to break down, which will result in a cavity.

Tartar buildup gives bacterial plaque a place to thrive in the area surrounding your teeth. This can cause periodontitis, which can attack the bone and ligaments around your teeth. Getting rid of periodontitis is a more time-intensive and costly endeavor. Why risk that when you can keep it at bay with regular cleanings that are reasonably priced and that most insurance plans cover?

It’s time to start thinking of your teeth in the same way you do the rest of your body.

Here are a few things regular dental cleanings can do for you:

  • Prevent cavities — Plaque can eat away at your tooth enamel. Cleanings can remove that plaque.
  • Give you a brighter smile — A dental cleaning can remove stains, giving you freshly polished teeth.
  • Stop tooth loss — Built-up plaque is a major cause of tooth loss in adults. When gum disease advances, plaque moves further down the tooth. When that happens, it can destroy supporting bone in your jaw, which causes teeth to become loose and fall out. Regular dental cleanings can reduce the chance of this happening to you.
  • Help your breath stay fresh — There are lots of nooks and crannies for food particles or plaque to accumulate. This can cause bad breath. During a cleaning, we will make sure all of the gunk is gone.
  • Save you money — You get your oil in your car changed on a regular basis to prevent permanent damage to its engine. That’s because it would be really expensive to replace an engine, right? Well, the same goes for your teeth. Regular cleanings can prevent more serious teeth issues that would cost a lot more money to fix.
  • Keep you healthy overall — Regular dental cleanings can help lower your risk for some diseases, like stroke and heart disease. We can detect many medical conditions, some of them life-threatening, in their early stages during a routine oral exam.

What You Can Expect During A Routine Cleaning

For most people, a dental cleaning is simple and painless. One of our dental hygienists will do a physical exam of your entire mouth. He or she will use a small mirror to check around your teeth and gums to look for any signs of gingivitis (inflamed gums, which are the early sign of periodontal disease).

If there are major problems suspected, the hygienist might call in one of the dentists to make sure it’s okay to proceed with the cleaning. One of the things a dental hygienist will do is a pocket reading. This is a check is the depth of the pocket around each tooth.

A pocket is the space between the gum and the tooth before it attaches. This pocket deepens in the presence of gum disease.

Your pocket depths will be measured at each cleaning and your gum health will be checked. The next time you get your teeth cleaned, those measurements will be compared to the last time to see if your gum health has remained the same or is getting worse.

If everything is good to go, the dental hygienist will use a scaler to get rid of plaque and tartar around the gum line and between the teeth. Then she’ll add a toothpaste to a high-powered electric brush and brush your teeth. The toothpaste has a gritty consistency that will gently scrub your teeth.

Then she will floss your teeth. Even though you might floss regularly, a dental hygienist is able to see your mouth better and can angle the floss in ways that get in between your teeth better. If you have bridges in your mouth, she will also be able to floss underneath them. After that, you will rinse your mouth.

Then you head out the door with a brighter, shinier smile!

At Edgewood Dental Care, we care about the health of your teeth. Keeping that perfect smile is a phone call or click away. To schedule an appointment for a dental cleaning, contact us today at 859-474-7830 or complete our online form.