Periodontal maintenance
Once you have completed your initial periodontal therapy, you will be placed in our periodontal maintenance program. It is important to remember that WE CANNOT CURE GUM DISEASE. The best we can do is stop it from progressing. Maintenance is the key to success. Therefore, compliance with diligent home care and ongoing periodontal maintenance is of paramount importance. Otherwise, periodontal disease can become active again, and patients may lose more bone around their teeth.
After the initial phase of removing the tartar and providing home care instructions, your gums will heal, and bleeding should cease.
Over time, a few spots may accumulate plaque again if cleaning at home is not ideal. In most patients, four to six monthly maintenance is ideal. At maintenance appointments, you will be seen by our specially trained dental hygienists, who will remove any reforming plaque and tartar and provide additional advice on improving brushing. From time to time, the periodontist will remeasure and re-evaluate the need for further periodontal treatment.
Frequently Asked Questions!
Does gum maintenance hurt?
Periodontal maintenance isn’t usually painful. Some patients may experience mild discomfort during the cleaning process. Your dental hygienist can use numbing agents or adjust the cleaning technique to make you are more comfortable.
How often do I need periodontal maintenance?
Periodontal maintenance appointment frequency is different from one to one and depends on many factors, including your susceptibility to gum disease (periodontal disease), risk factors for gum disease progression, like smoking and diabetes, and your ability to perform good oral hygiene at home. The frequency of Periodontal maintenance appointments can vary between being provided every 3 months to being provided every 9 months, depending on the above-mentioned factors. At these appointments the gum health will be carefully checked to ensure that everything is ok and plaque and calculus that is difficult to remove daily at home will be removed from above and below the gum line.
Will I ever have healthy gums again?
Gum disease is incurable but manageable with the appropriate treatment. In concept, it is very similar to people who have high blood pressure or diabetes, where they have to take the medications regularly to stay on top of their health problem. With gum disease, we don’t have medications to control it, hence, regular periodontal maintenance is crucial to keep the gums as healthy as possible and prevent further periodontal disease progression.
Can I perform periodontal maintenance at home?
Daily home care, including good oral hygiene and some lifestyle changes, is crucial to keeping your gums healthy after periodontal treatment. These oral hygiene habits aim to disrupt the bacteria, allowing the gums to stay healthy around the teeth. Proper brushing and flossing should be part of these habits. However, some plaque and tartar (calculus) will always reform, and they are difficult to remove. Therefore, regular periodontal maintenance visits are essential to keep your gums healthy in the long term.
Is periodontal maintenance worth it?
In short yes. Periodontal maintenance aims at keeping the gum tissues healthy and prevents the progression of gum disease. By undergoing regular periodontal maintenance, you are keeping your gums and teeth in a very healthy shape and reducing the risk of gum disease progression. Untreated periodontal disease is one of the leading causes of tooth loss in adults.
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EMS Airflow technique
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