Anyone that still has some of their original teeth in their mouth benefits from a dental cleaning received during a visit to a general dentist in Long Island. A concerted effort at good dental health is a combination of both cultivating and maintaining good oral care habits at home and professional care. Make no mistake, if you are brushing at least twice and day, and using dental floss, or some other aid, such as a Waterpik, these habits are delivering fluoride to your mouth every day and helping to keep food particles from clinging.
But this daily regimen needs to be complemented with a visit to a general dentist in Long Island for a check-up and a cleaning, and here’s why.
The Check-Up Is Essential
The first half of a check-up and cleaning, the check-up, is a vital piece of “touching base” with your dentist. Ide-ally, a check-up and cleaning should be scheduled, at a minimum, every six months. Depending on the condi-tion of your teeth and gums, more may be required, such as shortly after a dental procedure, like getting dental implants, to ensure everything is recovering smoothly.
The check-up, however, is critical because your regular, general dentist has complete records of your dental health, as well as the x-rays to conduct accurate comparisons. Your dentist knows whether or not you’re show-ing signs of gingivitis, or whether the gum disease you were previously diagnosed with is retreating.
Gum Disease Treatment
A professional dental cleaning can be very effective in helping to fight off gum disease. Gum disease itself is often caused by plaque and other particles that get lodged in the mouth and allow bacteria to germinate. By removing these embedded particles, which may not always be easily removed by either brushing or flossing, a professional dental cleaning gives the mouth the chance to fight back and overcome the infection.
Deep Cleaning
A toothbrush is an excellent, but gentle source of keeping teeth and gums clean. Dental floss is also important, but as a fiber, it can only do much when scraping against the teeth and gums. The tools that an experienced hygienist or general dentist in Long Island uses, however, are incredibly effective in the hands of a professional. These tools are able to dig deeper, and, when precisely applied, scrape or remove even the toughest plaque accumulations. In the case of a mouth that has been denied regular dental check-ups and cleanings, sometimes plaque can no longer be dealt with by a toothbrush, or even flossing.
Stain Removal
A thorough dental cleaning can remove some of the stains that can discolor and take away from the whiteness of your teeth, giving you back a more appealing, natural smile. Different substances can leave different stains and thus require different types of cleaning and treatment. Coffee and wine stains, for example, are not identi-cal to the types of stains left by tobacco. While off-the-shelf stain removal solutions exist, they are not as thorough or as effective as what you’d get with a professional.
