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Some people just don’t like going to the dentist. Maybe they watched Marathon Man one too many times. Maybe they had a bad experience in younger days. Whatever the reason, people will skip their twice-yearly professional cleanings.

Their thinking is — Hey, if I clean my teeth well at home, who needs to head to Dr. Egger’s office? It’s just a cleaning, right?

In reality, good dental hygiene is a partnership between home care and professional cleanings. And those professional cleanings (we use a fancy term, prophylaxis) should happen twice each year.

Here’s why you need prophylaxis twice yearly with Dr. Egger.

Not steak tartar, dental tartar

If there were only one word to consider it would be tartar. Professional cleaning by our hygienists removes plaque, calculus (tartar), and stains from the teeth. Can’t this happen at home? While you can, and do need to, remove plaque with your home hygiene, it is almost impossible to remove it all. What you don’t remove relatively quickly begins to turn into tartar. This is the hard light-colored stuff that builds up particularly on the inner bottom teeth. Tartar cannot be removed with home care. No matter how well you brush or floss, once tartar has taken hold it can only be removed by a professional hygienist or dentist. That’s where dental picks come into play.

Who cares about a little tartar anyway? Once formed, tartar keeps growing because brushing doesn’t remove it. If you let it keep expanding, it will eventually begin to expand down under the gumline, causing irritation. This irritation is called gingivitis and is the precursor of gum disease.

No offense, but you aren’t exactly a professional!

So, what does a prophylaxis at Dr. Egger’s involve? First is a scaling and polishing procedure that removes normal plaque buildup, calculus, and stains. What’s scaling? That’s where the hygienist chips away the layer of tartar that has formed in your usual spots in your mouth. Various picks have different characteristics that help the hygienist break the grip of the tartar. Once the grip is loosened, the tartar comes off like a shell and can be removed.

Once the tartar is removed, the teeth are professionally polished. All dentists utilize a special paste with more grit than typical toothpaste that helps remove stains and polishes the teeth. This polishing also makes the tooth surfaces more smooth and difficult for plaque and debris to adhere to, at least for a couple days.

Twice each year

Why two times a year for professional cleanings with Dr. Egger? It’s not just arbitrary — six months is the time it takes for tartar to take hold in your usual build-up locations. And once it builds up it needs to be removed.

Is it time for your cleaning? Call us at 989-773-3560 to book your appointment.