What Is a Deep Dental Cleaning?
When you come in for a deep dental cleaning, our hygienist will numb your upper and lower jaw.
Typically, we’ll need two appointments for a deep cleaning – one to clean the left side of your
mouth and the other to clean the right. Breaking the cleaning up like this ensures patient comfort.
Using specialized instruments, our hygienist will remove tartar from around the teeth and to the
base of the gum pockets. Patients with gum disease have deeper gum pockets (four millimeters or
more), and it’s only with professional tools and expertise that someone can get to the base of the
pockets to clean them thoroughly.
In addition to various hand tools, we also use an ultrasonic scaler, which sprays water while it
cleans to keep the teeth cool. Our hygienist will also use tools to plane the root surfaces,
smoothing them out to help prevent further tartar build-up and promote gum healing and pocket
shrinking.