Oral Wellness Assessment (Dental Cleaning)

Your hygiene visit is far more than just a “cleaning”. It is an overall oral wellness assessment.

We start with a review of your health history. Things such as systemic disease and medications affect oral health.
We take blood pressure. Even small elevations can increase risk of cardiovascular disease. Certain oral infections can also raise your risk of cardiovascular disease. These two combined can really wreak havoc on the vascular system.
Dental x-rays or CBCT are acquired if needed. It is always best to detect any manner of dental disease in its earliest stages.
We screen for oral cancer. In 2018, roughly one person per hour died from oral cancer.

The oral biofilm is microscopically examined. Together, the patient and hygienist view the slide and discuss any necessary changes that can be made to that biofilm. Certain bacteria strains in the mouth increase your risk of periodontal disease as well as systemic disease. If we can control biofilm in the mouth, we can control disease in the mouth as well as the rest of the body.
In some cases we do oral pH testing. When discussing how to establish a healthy biofilm, pH can be an important component. Most people don’t know what their oral pH is and how quickly it changes with what we eat, drink or rinse with.
Complete periodontal evaluation is conducted. It is important to get a baseline and continue to monitor gingival health.
The removal of biofilm and calculus is done with an ultrasonic scaler and hand scaling. 100% ozonated water is used in the ultrasonic scaler for optimal bacterial reduction.
Discussions are had!
Modifications are made!
Health restoration begins!

This is way more than picking $%@! off your teeth.