Visit the Dental Hygienist? It’s only a clean!
When people come and see our dental hygienist they often think that all they do is make the teeth look nice, cleaning off the hardened plaque (what we dentists call calculus) and polishing off any stains that have accumulated since the last visit.
Traditionally, from a dental professionals’s perspective, dental hygienists have cleaned teeth to help maintain the gums, reducing gum inflammation, and the teeth in the best condition possible.
We still do this, with more and more research there is a much bigger picture developing. The state of your mouth, and the health of your gums, can influence the rest of your body. So, if you have active gum disease, this can double your chances of having a heart attack, stroke and diabetes even after allowing for all other factors.
So, if you compare 2 people who have the same eating and exercise habits and the same lifestyle, if one of them has poor gum health they are twice as likely to have a heart attack as the other person.
When you come and visit our dental hygienist for the first time our aim is to help you help yourself. We will help you by cleaning your teeth and polishing away any stain, but our dental hygienist will also work with you to ensure that you are able to use the correct tools and techniques to enable you to clean every surface of every tooth every day, eliminating active gum disease.
Once we’ve got you up and running we will then work with you to ensure that you can keep your teeth and gums healthy for life, fitting in with our unique concept of “Total Oral Health For Life”.
So next time someone says it’s “just a cleaning with the hygienist” remember that it is much more than that, and that the rest of your health could depend on how well you look after your mouth.
