Routine Dental Exams and Cleanings: Are They Essential?

Routine Dental Exams and Cleanings: Are They Essential?

Aug 20, 2022

Is it time for your routine dental exams and cleanings? You might receive reminders from the dentist in Phoenix, AZ, and wonder whether these dental appointments are essential because you think you are diligent with your oral health and follow the recommendations of your dentist to the word. However, do you realize why dentists recommend this procedure twice a year?

You might think you received dental cleanings in Phoenix merely six months earlier and are not affected by any dental issues causing severe pain or anxiety requiring a dental professional’s help. However, do you know that most dental infections are notorious for developing silently in your mouth without displaying symptoms? If you don’t, you mustn’t overlook your dentist’s recommendations and eagerly look forward to meeting your dentist as part of the preventive maintenance of your oral health.

Besides maintaining excellent dental hygiene, when you are diligent with your dental appointments every six months, you help prevent silent infections like gingivitis, cavities, periodontal disease, et cetera. Therefore you must invest in these routine visits costing you some time and money to receive an examination and another cleaning even when no conditions exist in your mouth.

Infections in Your Oral Cavity do Not Advertise Themselves before Affecting You

Oral infections in your mouth never advertise themselves but develop without warning regardless of how well you maintain your dental health. For example, if you frequently indulge in a diet of sugary and starchy foods and fail to remove all plaque between your teeth, you quickly become a victim of enamel erosion from your mouth bacteria to develop micro-cavities expanding into severe dental problems that are expensive to restore.

The specks of dental plaque on your teeth or below the gum line harden into tartar within two days to cause conditions like gingivitis, the earliest stage of gum disease. When left untreated without routine exams, gingivitis progresses silently into periodontal disease and eventually periodontitis, a severe infection that doesn’t have a cure for the problem. Instead, it compels you to schedule more frequent appointments with the dentist to maintain the condition throughout your life.

Benefits of Routine Dental Exams and Cleanings

When you visit the Phoenix dentist for your dental prophylaxis, you enable yourself to have sparkling clean teeth and help prevent severe infections from progressing besides receiving a screening for oral cancer that starts as red or white patches in your mouth to eventually moves into a disease requiring expensive treatments from different medical professionals.

When you visit the Phoenix dentist for your appointment, the professional initially examines your teeth and gums, looking for signs of cavities and gum disease. They also look at all the parts of your mouth, neck, head, chin, and jaw, looking for unusual growths that might indicate oral cancer before handing you over to a dental hygienist for cleaning teeth.

Why Does Cleaning Teeth Matter?

You might think teeth cleaning shouldn’t matter because you use appropriate cleaning techniques and tools to maintain oral health. However, the dental hygienist is a trained professional qualified to detect issues that you might think are inconsequential.

When dental hygienists start working in your mouth, they use tiny instruments called scalers with a mirror to look for plaque and tartar buildup on, between, and below your teeth and gum line. Eliminating plaque and tartar from your mouth ensures you don’t become a victim of gum disease or cavities. However, you might not like the scraping sounds made by the scaler when removing tartar from your teeth or below the gum line. Unfortunately, if you have delayed dental appointments for too long, you must endure the scraping for a few minutes to have better dental health.

Removing plaque and tartar from your teeth doesn’t end the cleaning process because the hygienist continues to polish your teeth using gritty toothpaste and an electric toothbrush to remove any excess plaque between your teeth from the earlier cleaning. Finally, you also receive a flossing demonstration when the professional use dental floss to get deep between your teeth and to find sensitive areas that might bleed.

At the end of the cleaning process, you receive a fluoride treatment helpful against battling tooth decay for several months. After completing the exam and the cleaning, the dentist discusses potential issues in your mouth that need care, offering advice on the preventive measures you must adopt to maintain optimal dental health. In addition, you receive advice on making dietary changes or alterations to your oral hygiene routine if necessary to keep yourself free from unnecessary complications that might need intensive treatments later.

Besides helping you maintain oral health in optimal shape, routine dental exams and cleanings also help fatten your wallet by preventing unnecessary expenditure on infections developing in your mouth without warning.

Encanto Family Dental Care suggests routine cleanings and checkups for everyone, including children, at twice yearly intervals depending on their oral health. If you haven’t scheduled your appointment for this preventive measure, kindly do not hesitate to contact this practice today for the dental prevention you need.

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