Teeth Cleanings

What Happens During a Tooth Cleaning?

When you go to a dentist for a tooth cleaning, the dentist will clean your teeth, scrape off hard food deposits, perform a gum evaluation and possible polish your teeth.

What causes Painful Cleaning?

Painful cleaning is not a result of the dentist or hygienist not being concerned, or not having gentle hands. It is a result of the process itself.

If you get your teeth thoroughly clean, and your home care includes proper brushing and flossing there may be no hard food deposits building up on your teeth. If you have hard food deposits on your teeth, your dentist will have to use tools that may be painful. The tools most commonly used to remove hard deposits from teeth are: hand scalers and ultrasonic scalers. The scalers are used to scrape the particles off the teeth. The pain shouldn't last too long.

If you do not want to experience any pain during your cleaning, you can request that you dentist use a local anesthetic. The local anesthetic could allow the cleaning to be more thorough and painless.

Painless Cleanings

In most cases, there will be some pain during a tooth cleaning. However, painless cleanings can occur if you do not have hard food deposits on your teeth.

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