Three primary types of dental cleaning are regularly undergone by the average person: personal, regular professional, and deep cleaning. Personal cleaning is typically performed with toothpaste, tooth brush, and dental floss at least once per day. Many dentists recommend performing personal cleaning after every meal, but studies show that a lot of people opt to clean their teeth once per day, usually in the morning. A regular professional cleaning is recommended every three to six months, depending on eating and smoking habits. Deep cleanings are reserved for people with gum disease or poor oral hygiene in general and are undergone on an as-needed basis.
The type of dental cleaning that people experience most often is personal self cleaning. This is performed by a person on his or her own teeth on a regular basis. While many different pieces of dental equipment can be used by the average person, the two most common are simply a tooth brush and dental floss. The tooth brush is typically used to clean teeth surfaces, and dentists usually recommend that circular strokes be used in order to avoid enamel damage. Floss is packaged as a spool of plastic string that can be pulled out and snapped off, and it is used to clean in between the teeth.
Regular professional maintenance is usually carried out by an oral hygienist, not a dentist, and it is typically recommended for it to take place every six months, though opinions vary. The purpose of regular professional maintenance is to clean areas that have been missed, are hard for a person who is self cleaning to reach, and to clean tartar that has hardened and is impossible for mundane methods to remove. Oral hygienists typically use a combination of tools, including floss, metal instruments, and water picks to carry out regular professional dental cleaning on patients.
Deep cleaning is a more involved dental cleaning that is usually given to people with excessive plaque buildup. A local anesthetic is used on the mouth, and then the teeth are cleaned slightly below the gum line. This kind of thorough cleaning is much more expensive and time-consuming than a regular cleaning. A dentist typically completes the cleaning over three to four visits, but the number of visits needed largely depends on how much cleaning the patient’s mouth is in need of. People who truly need a deep cleaning and neglect to get one are at risk for tooth loss, especially when their gums begin to separate from their teeth.