Hygiene and prevention

The presence of dense or soft plaque on the teeth is the main cause of caries and periodontal disease.

Professional oral hygiene is a set of measures aimed at removing tartar, pigmented dense and soft plaque, which cannot be completely removed with daily brushing. It should be preceded by therapeutic, orthopedic, surgical and orthodontic treatment.

In our clinic, a complete hygiene complex consists of the following steps:

- ultrasonic removal of dense dental calculus (using a special device for professional hygiene)
- Cavitron, which is 100% safe, effective and, most importantly, painlessly removes all dense dental deposits)
- air-water polishing of tooth and root surfaces with special powders based on calcium, glycine and eritrol.
- additional polishing with a special paste
- antiseptic gum treatment
- the introduction of a tray with remineralizing gel to strengthen the enamel of the teeth and reduce sensitivity.

After each procedure, we select products for home hygiene and teach you how to properly care for your teeth.

To visualize pigmented plaque, we use an intraoral camera, with which we display intraoral photographs directly in the dental chair. This serves as an additional argument to the patient about the need for professional teeth cleaning, as well as quality control of the performed manipulations.

To determine non-pigmented dental plaque, we carry out a plaque test. To do this, the patient is offered to chew a special tablet for the indication of dental plaque, which contains a complex of food dyes capable of reacting with organic components of dental plaque. After you chew the pill, the plaque-covered areas of the tooth enamel will stain and you can clearly see them. If the plaque is less than 3 days old, the contaminated areas will turn red. Older contaminants will turn blue. This is a unique way to check teeth for plaque without dental intervention. These tablets are hypoallergenic and non-toxic.

Professional oral hygiene can be performed by several methods: with the help of ultrasonic devices, soda jets (the so-called “Air-flow” method), various brushes, pastes, hand tools and other accessories, such as floss, strips, etc.

In the case of professional oral hygiene, ultrasound is used to remove hard dental plaque, both gingival and subgingival. The so-called tartar belongs to firm dental deposits. With the help of an ultrasonic tip and specially adapted nozzles, tartar removal is completely painless. The procedure does not damage tooth enamel.

With the help of special brushes, pastes and rubber heads, as a rule, at the end of the whole procedure the teeth are polished. This is done so that the surface of the teeth is smooth and to minimize the fixation of fresh plaque. Polishing compositions for plaque removal and final polishing are in many ways similar to some toothpastes. Therefore, their use is completely safe for enamel.

Professional oral hygiene should be carried out once every six months, and for people who smoke and with unsatisfactory individual oral hygiene, once every three to four months.

It is completely wrong to think that the removal of dental plaque allegedly contributes to loosening teeth. On the contrary, after careful removal of dental plaque, the bleeding stops and the teeth become somewhat stronger. Sometimes after the removal of dental plaque hypersensitivity of the teeth to temperature stimuli may appear, but it passes quickly.

The technique of professional teeth cleaning Air Flow means that a mixture of water and abrasive particles is applied to the surface of the teeth under high but strictly dosed pressure. In this case, plaque and bacteria are removed from tooth enamel and interdental spaces, and enamel is polished.

The principle of operation of this device is sandblasting. The fine sand is a fine powder with a high soda content. The Air-Flow procedure takes about 30 minutes. The crystals of the mixture at high speed in contact with the surface of the teeth and clean them. Water spray washes away all dental plaque and normalizes the temperature of the tooth surface.

Due to the softness of the powder, tooth enamel cannot be damaged.

The procedure cannot be performed by those who suffer from chronic bronchitis and asthma due to the risk of developing an attack of shortness of breath, as well as those who are on a diet without salt, as the powder contains salt.

Removal of dental plaque from the surface of the teeth with the help of air – abrasive systems is a hygienic procedure, which today is one of the effective and non – traumatic methods of prevention of dental and periodontal diseases. It is used to remove dense pigmented plaque (smoker’s plaque), which cannot be removed with an ultrasonic scaler, in hard-to-reach places (eg, interdental spaces).

Tartar is dental plaque formed from fragments of food and elements of oral fluid. It is supra- and subgingival. Supragingival stone is visible to the naked eye, even to the patient, and subgingival – is detected by special dental probes.

The initial stage of tartar formation is a soft plaque, which consists of epithelial cells, food debris, bacteria and mucus, which sticks it all together.

The formation of tartar usually lasts from 18 weeks to 6 months, until it reaches the maximum level set for each person.

The danger of tartar is that it is the main cause of periodontitis, which leads to loosening of the teeth and, in the absence of treatment, their premature loss.

Preventive filling involves excision of carious tissues of the tooth (preparation), filling of the formed cavity with simultaneous preventive sealing of fissures and, if necessary, local fluoridation of tooth enamel.

This takes into account the features of the filling materials used and the state of individual carious stability of the patient. The method is focused on the use of glass ionomer cements, composites, compomers and other materials with the necessary qualities and properties of adhesion.

Fissures (Latin slit, crack) are natural grooves on the masticatory surface of large and small molars.

The method of sealing is to seal the fissures and other anatomical depressions of healthy teeth with special materials in order to create a barrier to external cariogenic factors.

Fissure caries develops in the first few years after teething.

Why do you need to seal the fissures of the tooth?

The purpose of sealing is to isolate the fissure during the maturation of the enamel from food, microbes and products of their activities. The materials used for these purposes are called dental sealants or Silantiev. It is most effective to seal the fissures in the first 6 months after teething.

Fissure sealing performs two main functions:

• first – it creates a physical barrier on the surface of the tooth (from filling material) from the impact on the tooth of cariogenic factors (food debris, microorganisms);
• secondly – increases the resistance of the enamel to cariogenic factors due to the content in the sealant of active fluoride ions.

1. Non-invasive sealing of fissures – is used if the fissures are fully accessible for visual inspection, which ensures the absence of caries in the area of ​​the bottom and walls of the fissure. Fissures are sealed in this case without tooth preparation

2. Invasive sealing of fissures – used in the case of very deep and narrow fissures, when it is difficult to achieve a good filling of the fissure with liquid filling materials, and it is impossible to guarantee that after filling there will be no voids. In addition, the expansion of deep and narrow fissures is shown even if the visual inspection of such a fissure does not show its bottom. In this case, there is a risk that the bottom of the fissure may already be affected by caries. This type of sealing is carried out after preparation of fissures. Sealing such a fissure without dissection will only lead to negative consequences.

Grammar (Silantiev) – a group of filling materials used for the primary prevention of dental caries as a means of hermetically closing the fissures of the masticatory teeth.

The principle of their action is very simple – Silantiev hermetically& seal the fissures (deepenings) in the masticatory teeth. As a result, the penetration of microflora, the formation of soft plaque and the development of caries becomes impossible.

As a rule, sealants differ in color from natural teeth so that their presence in fissures was easier to control.

In modern dentistry, light and chemical curing sealants are used. Light curing sealants harden as a result of exposure to light of a certain spectrum, chemical curing sealants – as a result of a chemical reaction.

Individual oral hygiene is, of course, the main method of prevention of diseases of the teeth and periodontal tissues ..

However, the concept of “quality individual oral hygiene” involves the correct implementation of the following points:

• regular and proper brushing;
• use of quality toothbrushes and toothpastes;
• use of additional means of prevention (floss, interdental brushes, irrigators, devices for cleaning the tongue, etc.).

The standard method of brushing teeth.

The dentition of each jaw is divided into several segments: molars and premolars (lateral teeth) on each side and front teeth. The result is 3 segments on each jaw.

Teeth cleaning is carried out with open dentitions. The brush is placed at an angle of 45 degrees to the tooth surface.

Begin to brush your teeth from the buccal surface of the upper jaw on the left (1st segment), where you perform 10 sweeping movements with a brush, and then pass gradually over all other segments (10 movements for each segment).

After that, clean the palatal surface of the right teeth, passing through the segments from left to right, making 10 sweeping movements on each segment.

The next step in brushing your teeth is to clean the chewing surface of the molars and premolars. Cleaning is performed by movements along and then across the chewing surface. It is necessary to make 10-15 movements on each side.

On the lower jaw, teeth are cleaned in the same sequence – first on the buccal, then on the lingual and finally on the masticatory surface of the teeth (from left to right).

When cleaning the palatal surface of the upper incisors and the lingual surface of the lower ones, a brush should be perpendicular to the vertical. The cleaning procedure should end with a massage of the gums, which is carried out with closed tooth rows in a circular motion of the toothbrush with the capture of teeth and gums, moving in the direction from left to right.

The main mistakes when brushing your teeth:

• The predominance of horizontal movements when cleaning all surfaces of the teeth.
• Reciprocating nature of movements.
• Cleaning only the vestibular surface of the teeth.
• Insufficient number of movements performed at each stage of cleaning.

Teeth should be brushed at least twice a day – in the morning after meals and in the evening before bedtime. It is extremely important to follow this sequence.

To improve hygiene, it is recommended to use oral irrigators. These devices allow you to remove food debris between the teeth with a jet of water that is fed through the tip under pressure. It is also used to hydromassage the gums, which improves blood circulation in the periodontal tissues and prevents periodontitis.