What is the Purpose of Scaling and Root Planing?

Scaling and root planing is a periodontal procedure that your dentist may recommend strictly because of your bad breath. This is because bad breath, or halitosis, can signal something wrong with your gums. Since periodontics is the branch of dentistry that deals with the gums, a lot of maintenance and repair is done after a referral to a periodontist. And one of the first steps a periodontist may take toward getting your gums healthy is scaling and root planing, regardless of which symptom came first.

Our expert in scaling and root planing in North Hollywood will do their best to rid your mouth of etiologic agents like plaque and calculus, which break down structures and destroy your smile a tooth a time. The dentist literally scrapes these agents off the tooth surfaces, and smooths the tooth root to make it less hospitable to bad organisms. In some cases, the procedure delivers antimicrobial agents below the gumline as an extra layer of defense.

Back to your bad breath: removal of all this bacteria can really reduce it. Ask your North Hollywood dentist about secondary benefits of scaling and root planing, like removal of surface stains.

What Does Scaling and Root Planing Do?

Also known as deep cleaning, scaling and root planing is meant to curtail gum disease in its mild or middle stages. This control is accomplished by going into the gums and scraping away all the plaque and tartar that have collected there.

As nearly half of Americans are at some stage of gum disease, scaling and root planing is a necessary deterrent that our dentist in Van Nuys performs on a regular basis.

Past a certain point, you can no longer clean your teeth yourself, at least not in a way that removes the right materials.

To determine the stage of your gum disease, the dentist will do x-rays and a full-mouth exam. If the x-rays show bone loss, or if measurements find you have periodontal pockets deeper than 4 millimeters, you are a candidate for scaling and root planing.

Scaling is the scraping, or removal, part of the procedure. Planing involves smoothing any root structure that may be impacting with the gum.

Typically our expert in scaling and root planing in Van Nuys will do the deep clean one quadrant of the mouth at a time. It is important to treat only the sick areas, and not involve healthy tissue.

For more about scaling and root planing, contact someone from our group.