Your local hygienist’s key aim is to prevent and treat gum disease, which is now one of the leading causes of tooth loss in adults. By including regular professional teeth cleaning in your oral routine, you can help to prevent gum disease and tooth decay.
Regular visits to your hygienist puts you in the best position for detecting any oral health problems before they become symptomatic or require treatment.
Hygienists are trained to thoroughly clean your teeth and gums. Even the best electric toothbrush can’t reach every part of your mouth, and a hygienist can get to those hard-to-reach places to provide a professional deep clean. While you will leave your Aherne Dental Clinic hygienist appointment with a fresher, cleaner smile, their job goes far beyond the superficial. A scale and polish will remove harmful plaque and deposits of tartar that, if left, can cause periodontal (gum) disease. By making a hygienist visit part of your dental care regime you can stay one step ahead and avoid becoming one of the 19 out of every 20 people who will suffer from gum disease during their life.
An appointment with your local Aherne Dental Clinic hygienist will involve an initial oral hygiene check up, followed by a ‘scaling’ procedure. This is where any build up of harmful plaque and tartar is carefully and gently removed from the surface of your teeth and around the gum line using scalers and curettes, which are specially designed tools to check scrape away soft deposits. Hand-held mirrors help your hygienist to spot those missed areas and pinpoint plaque build up. Following a good clean and analysis of overall gum health, they will give your teeth a shine and polish with a gentle, quiet air polisher to remove any superficial stains. In cases where there is decay, a hygienist may apply fluoride or an antibacterial gel.
Tooth fissures are tiny pits and grooves that appear on the surface of teeth and are extremely common, especially on the back teeth and molars. It is easy to miss these narrow fissures with normal brushing, meaning that bacteria can build up in the gaps and lead to deterioration of your tooth. Fissure sealants are a quick and comfortable preventative measure that can be applied by your hygienist to prevent tooth decay. Your hygienist will be able to advise you if this is a treatment they recommend for your teeth.
Prevention is better than cure, and identifying early signs of tooth decay or gum inflammation enables your practitioner to address the problem swiftly.
As well as a thorough scale and polish, your dental hygienist will also provide a complete check of your overall oral health. Your Aherne Dental Clinic hygienist will get to know you and provide you with tailored, individual advice on how to maintain the best oral health, from diet to dental care.
Contact Aherne Dental Clinic on 0214941810 today to book your next hygienist appointment.
Brushing teeth properly and consistently helps to remove most dental plaque, but brushing alone cannot remove plaque that is located in places that a toothbrush cannot reach - particularly between teeth. In addition to removing plaque, flossing also helps to remove debris that adheres to teeth and gums in between teeth, polish tooth surfaces and control bad breath. Flossing should take place at least once a day for two to three minutes each time to be most effective. The different types of dental floss include waxed and unwaxed, flavoured, unflavoured and wide and regular.
As a result of improved oral hygiene and fluoride, more people are keeping their own teeth into old age but in order to continue to maintain healthy teeth and gums, a regime of brushing and rinsing twice a day should be combined with inter dental brushing – cleaning between the teeth. Cleaning between your teeth is made possible by the use of dental floss, interdental brushes, single tuft toothbrushes, dental sticks, rubber tip stimulators, and irrigation devices.
A healthy tongue should be slightly moist, smooth, and pinkish in colour, but a white or yellow tongue is a strong indication of a breath problem. Although not common practice, cleaning your tongue on a regular basis can be the single most beneficial treatment for bad breath.
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