Prophy vs Periodontal Maintenance

A routine dental cleaning or prophy is a procedure that involves the cleaning of your teeth from primarily your gums and up. It may involve all hand scaling or a combination of hand scaling and ultrasonic scaling followed by a polishing with a fine paste.

Sometimes a patient will present with a lot of buildup around the teeth, so much so that the doctor or hygienist cannot reach a proper diagnosis without first removing the bulk of the buildup on the teeth and reduce its associated bleeding. This type of cleaning is called a periodontal scaling or gross scale.

When a patient has been through scaling and root planings due to the presence of periodontal disease, he/she is placed on a more frequent recall interval – usually at 3 months apart. These types of cleanings are termed periodontal maintenance appointments and are vital to the success of treating the periodontal disease. Once you have periodontal disease you are more prone to relapse back into a diseased state. Meticulous home care is absolutely essential followed by strict adherence to your professional maintenance visits. These visits are more involved than a routine prophy appointment. The pocket depths that need to be maintained are greater and present a more challenging job for the hygienist. Also, these deeper pockets may need some spot root scaling and irrigation.

Sometimes, if you are able to retain pocket depths of 3 millimeters or less everywhere we may attempt at reverting you back to a prophy every 6 months.