Periodontal Care - Comfort Dental at Rocky Point

Periodontal Care
Perio Maintenance
Maintenance or supportive periodontal therapy is an ongoing program designed to prevent periodontal disease from recurring in patients who have undergone periodontal treatment. This ongoing phase of treatment will allow your periodontist to assess your periodontal health and make sure infection stays under control. During maintenance therapy, your mouth is examined, new calculus and plaque are removed, and, if necessary your teeth are polished and your bite is checked.

Scaling & Root Planning
Periodontal procedures are available to regenerate the bone and gum tissue to their original function and cosmetic appearance.
Treatment methods depend upon the type of disease and how far the condition has progressed. Many times, the early stages of periodontal disease are best treated with non-surgical periodontal therapy. The first step is usually a thorough cleaning that may include scaling to remove plaque and tartar deposits beneath the gumline.

Subgingival Scaling: Cleaning the tooth below the gumline
The tooth roots may also be planed to smooth the root surface allowing the gum tissue to heal and reattach to the tooth. In some cases, the occlusion (bite) may require adjustment.

Root Planing: Smoothing the tooth root
This procedure is called root planning. Four to six weeks later, periodontal pockets are often eliminated due to gum shrinkage. Then the patient can personally maintain these areas with routine brushing and cleaning between the teeth.
Even in most severe cases of periodontal disease, non-surgical periodontal therapy most often precedes surgical therapy. This is done so that the overall tissue quality is improved prior to surgery and also limits the areas of required surgery.
Osseous Surgery
You cannot keep deep pockets clean and free of plaque just by personal oral hygiene alone. The spaces under your gums may be too deep for even your Periodontist or hygienist to keep clean. Therefore your doctor may decide that surgery is necessary to remove the plaque and calculus deposits beneath the gum line. We will then recontour the damaged bone, and then position the gum tissues even with the bone level to reduce the pockets, and minimize the spaces under the gums where disease-causing bacteria can hide.