Dental Cleaning in Bartonville: What a Routine Visit Involves

Here's the question we get more than almost any other. Someone comes in expecting a routine visit and hears the words "deep cleaning," and their guard goes right up. Fair enough. So let's be plain about what separates the two.

A regular dental cleaning works above the gumline and just barely below it. Your gums are snug against the teeth, the pockets measure one to three millimeters, and the hygienist can reach everything. A deep cleaning, called scaling and root planing, goes under the gumline to clean the root surfaces. That's only needed when the gums have pulled away and tartar has settled down in those pockets where a brush can't go.

The measurement is what decides it. Not a hunch.

During your exam we probe around each tooth and record the depths. Four millimeters with bleeding starts the conversation. Five and six, with bone loss showing on the x-ray, and a routine cleaning won't fix the problem. Polishing the tops of teeth while infection sits three millimeters below does nobody any good.

But here's the other side, and we'll say it even though it costs us. Plenty of people come in convinced they need a deep cleaning because they skipped a few years. Heavy tartar, bleeding when they floss, breath that bothers them. And the numbers come back fine. In those cases you need a regular cleaning, maybe a longer appointment, and then you need to come back in a few months so we can see how the gums respond. That's it. Bleeding gums alone don't mean gum disease, they often mean the gums are irritated and out of practice.

If someone quotes you a deep cleaning without showing you pocket depths and x-rays, ask for them. You're allowed to. Our dentists here in Bartonville will walk you through the chart tooth by tooth, and if the answer is a regular cleaning, that's what you'll get.

If your last visit was six or seven months ago, your gums don't bleed when you brush, and nothing hurts, you're fine to schedule at your convenience. Stretch it to eight months if life got busy. That's normal. We'd rather you come in a little late than skip the year entirely because you felt guilty about it. Same goes if you just had a baby, just moved, or just started a new job. Book when you can breathe.

Waiting also makes sense in one other spot. If you're mid-treatment somewhere else, finish that first, then get your cleaning. Doubling up rarely helps anything.

But some things shouldn't sit. Bleeding is the big one. Gums that bleed every single time you brush aren't sensitive, they're inflamed, and inflammation left alone turns into bone loss you can't undo. That's the whole argument of this page in one sentence: the visit is cheap compared to what it prevents.

• Gums that bleed daily, or look puffy and dark red instead of pink
• Breath that comes back within an hour of brushing
• A tooth that's gotten loose, or feels like it shifted
• Gums pulling back so a tooth looks longer than it did
• Any pain that wakes you up or lingers past a few days

One more real-world note. Fall and early winter fill up fast around here, partly because folks in Bartonville and the surrounding Peoria County towns use up insurance benefits before they reset January 1. If you're aiming for December, call in October. Nine times out of ten the people who wait until Thanksgiving end up in February, and that's a longer gap than they wanted.

The hygienist stops, sets something down, and says she wants the dentist to take a look. That pause can feel heavier than it really is. Most of the time it's a small spot on an X-ray or a gum pocket that measured a millimeter deeper than last visit.

So what happens? Your hygienist finishes charting what she found. Then Dr. Cormier or Dr. Dean comes in, looks at the same images, and checks the tooth directly. You see the picture on the screen. Nobody talks about treatment until you've seen what they're seeing.

Nine times out of ten it's one of a short list.

• A small cavity between two back teeth that flossing can't reach
• Gum pockets deeper than three millimeters, usually along the lower front teeth
• A hairline crack in an old filling that's been there fifteen years
• Wear on the biting surfaces from grinding at night
• A tooth that's tender to tapping but looks fine on the surface

Each one has a different clock on it. A tiny cavity can wait a few months, deep gum pockets usually shouldn't. We'll tell you which is which, plainly, and we'll tell you if the honest answer is watch it and recheck in six months.

The office has an in-house mill, so a lot of follow-up work doesn't mean a second office across town. Same-day crowns get milled here. We do root canals in-house. That matters when you're already taking time off work.

And if you need time to think about it, take it. We'll write it down, hand you the plan, and it'll still be in your chart when you're ready. No one here is going to call you about it on a Tuesday night.