Daily brushing and flossing are essential ingredients of good oral hygiene – and so is having your teeth cleaned by a dental professional. There are many teeth-cleaning benefits. The procedure allows your dentist to detect oral inflammation and treat it appropriately. In fact, through regular appointments, you help prevent the outbreak of oral inflammation. By making teeth cleaning part of your regimen for oral health maintenance, you foster good health not only in your mouth but in your body as a whole.
The importance of teeth cleaning – and its benefits
Teeth cleaning is so important that nature devised a clever way of keeping teeth clean even as they perform their function of chewing food. When food glides across the teeth and presses between one tooth and the next, it performs a vital cleaning function. The more abrasive the texture of the food, the more effective is the cleaning power of this rubbing motion.
When, long ago, humans changed the way they produce food – for instance, through the use of fire to cook it – it became less abrasive. Today, our diet consists largely of foods that are quickly and easily chewed. Our food is soft and rich in taste and abounds in sugars. As a result, there is a further loss of abrasiveness, and food simply does not perform its former function of cleaning our teeth. Plaque, which is a fine film of food debris, can easily build up on surfaces adjacent to the gums and harden into tartar. If tartar is not removed through brushing and flossing, and most effectively through professional teeth-cleaning services, its build-up allows bacteria to proliferate and cause damage to teeth and gums.
Teeth-cleaning tools
The basic tools you need to use to keep your teeth clean are a toothbrush, dental floss, interdental toothbrushes, specially designed toothpicks, tongue scrapers/cleaners, and mouth rinses.
Toothbrushes may be manual or electric. We provide all our patients with well- designed and tried-and-tested manual toothbrushes.
We also encourage the use of rechargeable electric toothbrushes.
Both manual and electric toothbrushes are very effective means for cleaning teeth, if they are used properly. When you come to see us, we review how you handle these tools and help you make the very best use of them.
Dental floss takes care of about 35% of the surface of the tooth, particularly areas toothbrushes can’t get to. These areas include the interfaces between teeth, which are very prone to cavities.
Interdental toothbrushes, which clean between teeth, resemble pine trees. Their shape allows them to brush the spaces between teeth that are large and difficult to clean with dental floss.
Nowadays, toothpicks are usually made of plastic and sheathed with medical-grade rubber that is gentle to the teeth. Their functionality, however, has not changed: they are used and they perform in the same way as the wooden toothpicks they have largely replaced.
Tongue scrapers are a useful tool for tongue cleaning. They come in many variants, but the most common and widely available version is a household spoon. When turned upside down and dragged gently across the surface of the tongue, a spoon proves to be an effective tongue scraper.
Mouth rinses, which are used to maintain oral hygiene and health, deliver remarkable results. For example, they:
- Act against plaque build-up
- Help reduce tartar build-up
- Reduce the number of bacteria in the mouth, thereby also reducing gum sensitivity and pain
- Help to remineralize the surface of teeth, reducing sensitivity and strengthening enamel
We also pay proper attention to the tongue
The tongue can reveal a great deal of information to a dental professional. By examining it, we can recognize signs of stress, infection, medication side effects, substance abuse, the presence of systemic disease, cancer, and signs of aging.
Did you know?
There is such a thing as not brushing your teeth properly – which can cause damage not only to your teeth, but to surrounding tissues as well. The usual culprits in this regard are the direction in which you move the brush, the pressure you exert on the teeth and tissues, and the abrasiveness of the toothpaste. Damage to the teeth includes wedged defects at the junction with the gums. Damage to the gums can appear as cuts or an unusually raised gum line that makes the teeth look longer.
Looking for teeth-cleaning services in downtown Montreal?
At Comfort Care Dental Clinic, we provide teeth-cleaning services that optimize your oral health. Come meet our team of dedicated dental professionals at our clinic conveniently located at 2045 Stanley Street, Suite 1100, in downtown Montreal – just a two-minute walk from Peel metro station.