Benefits of Ultrasonic Cleanings

When you go to the dentist, there are a variety of tools and hand pieces that are used by the dental providers that treat conditions from cleaning teeth to surgical applications.

When the procedure is your hygiene appointment, there are a couple of different approaches. If you are one of the lucky ones that don’t seem to suffer from excessive plaque build-up, scaling your teeth with a manual scaler is the likely treatment you can anticipate. 

But for the thousands of patients that deal with a large amount of calculus that has formed on their teeth since their last cleaning, your dental appointment can be made better when implementing the use of ultrasonic cleaning.

There are many benefits to using the ultrasonic method:

- Since ultrasonic cleaning works much more efficiently than manual scaling, treatment time is significantly reduced. For patients with considerable plaque build-up, this is ideal.

- A more thorough cleaning is available as the ultrasonic tips are very small and can reach below the gum line to remove plaque build-up that manual scaling might not reach.

- Patients that are susceptible to or have already developed gingivitis or periodontal disease can receive the most optimal cleaning available for their condition. With a manual scaler, the dentist must put pressure on the tooth to remove plaque and stain. For patients already at risk for gum problems, the ultrasonic method eliminates this unnecessary pressure.

- No more anxious moments at the thought of that sharp pick grinding away on your teeth and gums.

- Uncomfortable scaling is eliminated as plaque is removed through the power of sound waves.

Plaque build-up can lead to many serious problems so removing it as thoroughly as possible is important. Patients who are fastidious in their oral hygiene habits are less likely to develop plaque build-up. But daily flossing and brushing might not always be enough since this build-up is a result of bacteria that form at the gum line and harden over time. There are many hard to reach places in the mouth that can really benefit from using the ultrasonic cleaning method.

At your next hygiene visit in our uptown Dallas office, ask about how you can benefit from a professional cleaning using the ultrasonic approach.

Advantages of a Cone Beam CT Scanner?

Many dentists are turning to the most advanced technology available for imaging used in treatment planning. A dentist needs a complete picture of the structure of the skull and jaws to design cutting-edge interventions like dental implants and new orthodontic techniques.

As a result, one piece of equipment that has begun to show up in dental practices is the cone beam computed tomography (CT) scanner. 

Although cone beam CT scanners were originally introduced in medical settings, the device is useful for your dentist, too. In fact, dentists rely on information contained in these scans to prepare for a variety of procedures, ranging from dental implant placement to wisdom teeth extraction and cancer screening.

The images produced by a CT scanner are far more graphic, lifelike and informative than those from a standard radiograph.

An improvement upon the conventional CT scanner, which builds a three-dimensional image through a series of scans that are compiled into one picture, a cone beam CT scanner has a different mechanism. It uses a single targeted cone-shaped beam of radiation to capture a volume of data on which such images are based.

A conventional CT scanner requires separate scans for the upper and lower jaws, but a cone beam CT scanner can capture images of both simultaneously. Cone beam scans take less time, and when a CT image is needed, cone beams limit the patient’s exposure to radiation in comparison to the traditional CT approach.

Cone beam CT scans also have a lower margin of error than their conventional CT counterparts. This feature makes the cone beam scanner particularly helpful in planning the placement of dental implants, in which the implant site must be precise.

When patients have a cone beam scan, the images are thoroughly reviewed, with dentists evaluating all aspects, even ones that are unrelated to the particular treatment that originally prompted the scan. As such, a cone beam scan may also identify other problems that the patient had been previously unaware of.

To learn more and to schedule your consultation, contact our Uptown Dallas office at 214-521-5900 today!