When plaque, inflammation, or bacteria are present in your month, your hygienist will conduct this type of “cleaning” to remove the build-up and tartar to help inflammation to heal and check bone loss accurately.

This procedure is a “preparation” for a deep cleaning.

When gums are bleeding, inflammation and bone loss are detected, and other symptoms are present (depending on the patient’s mouth condition), your hygienist will perform a Deep Cleaning or Scaling and Root Planning. Sometimes this “cleaning” is called “deep cleaning”.

This type of “cleaning” is done under local anesthesia and usually takes two appointments (Right Side and Left Side separately).  Tartar build-up from underneath the gums and bone line that you cannot clean at home is removed by your hygienist with the special tools as much as possible to start a healing process of bone loss.

The bone will never grow back, but our primary goal is to make the gums strong enough to re-attach to the tooth, to prevent further bone loss, and eventually to prevent loss of teeth dues to periodontal disease.

Such “cleaning” is done once every two years  and should be maintained with Periodontal Maintenance every 3-4 months.

If your hygienist and/or dentist determine that you have periodontal disease or inflammation (gingivitis) underneath your gums, you will be recommended to follow regular gum therapy such as Scaling and Root Planning with so called “periodontal maintenance”.

Such “cleaning” should be done every three to four months to fight bacteria and to control the inflammation. The cleaning experience is very similar to a Prophylaxis, but with shorter intervals of time. Active bacteria grows every ninety days and it cannot be 100% removed; however, it could be controlled by Perio- Maintenance every 3 months.