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Our hygienists are trained to perform deeper cleanings when necessary. This type of tooth cleaning is called scaling and/or root planing. If a patient presents to our office with periodontal pocketing around the teeth due to unresolved infection of the gums, our hygienists can clean out these pockets, removing the infection and helping get the patient back on the road to oral health and comfort.

This procedure can take anywhere from 1 to 4 visits, depending on the severity of the disease. However, usually if the probing depths are deeper than about 5-6mm, the patient will be refered to a periodontist for evaluation and treatment. When patients are deep scaled in our office, the hygienist will start with one quadrant of the mouth and deep clean it. If there is alot of calculus to remove, more visits to our office may be necessary in order to finish cleaning the whole mouth. Once all calculus is removed, the patient will return to our office after several weeks for reevaluation. The patient is kept comfortable with a non-injectible, topical numbing agent that works very well for these procedures. However, sometimes it is necessary to administer local anesthetic to gain proper anesthesia so the patient can remain comfortable during the cleaning.