Dental Hygiene

Here at Metro Smiles, we will help you to establish a dental hygiene routine that will keep your teeth healthy and white.While at our office, we will make sure that you receive the highest level of service and ensure that our dental work is of the highest quality.

Your teeth are not the only important part of your mouth. Your gums are essential to your oral hygiene as well. Upon your new patient visit, we will perio chart you to establish which dental hygiene cleaning is best for you. By performing this probing, we will be able to monitor your gums for any form of periodontal disease. If found, our hygienist can provide periodontal cleanings (i.e. deep cleaning) and antibiotic treatments, such as Arestin, to get your mouth back to a healthy state. Our gums are the foundation of our oral health, so they must remain healthy to provide life for our teeth. If periodontal disease is left untreated, it will cause bone loss and eventually the loss of all dentition (teeth).

A deep cleaning, which consists of scaling and root planing, is a strategy to return your gums to a healthy state, a regular teeth cleaning helps you to maintain your oral health.During a deep cleaning, our Certified Dental Hygienist will apply ultrasonic irrigation strategy together with root planing and scaling to clean between the gums and the teeth down to the roots to eliminate periodontal disease. It is a necessary procedure when your gums have either started to recede or the roots of your teeth have hard mineral deposits (tartar) on them, which indicates the presence of periodontal disease or gingivitis. Depending upon your periodontal charting, Arestin, which is an antibiotic used along with scaling and root planing, may be recommended to reduce the pocket depth and help to rejuvenate tissue structure back along side the tooth.

Depending on the severity of the disease, we recommend that you initially start with a deep cleaning and continue with periodontal maintenance (Regular Cleanings) every 3-4 months so that we may control and monitor the re-growth of bacteria.

A regular healthy mouth cleaning (i.e. prophylaxis) which is polishing of the teeth, takes about 30-40 minutes, while a deep cleaning usually takes 1½ -2 hours depending on how many quadrants are being treated in one visit.