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Dental Hygiene Care Is Not a “One-Size-Fits-All” Process
Posted in Oral Hygiene
Posted on July 20, 2023 by Dr. Gerald Marlin
Oral hygiene is the first line of defense against conditions such as cavities and gum disease that can result in lost bone and teeth. Therefore, caring for your teeth and gums throughout your life is crucial to protecting your beautiful smile. For those patients who have dental implants, you must take care of them as if they are natural teeth.
However, like you, your teeth and gums are unique, so your dental hygiene care should be too. Dental care should be customized based on your specific smile to have the maximum effect on your oral hygiene and the longevity of your dental restorations.
Effective dental hygiene care should never be “one-size-fits-all”. Here is why.
Proper Oral Hygiene Supports Restoration Longevity, Protecting Your Investment
Taking care of your teeth can help your dental restorations last as long as possible. Oral hygiene is a risk factor for restoration failure, so it is essential to ensure that initial problems do not become more significant issues, such as gum disease, bone loss, and tooth loss [1].
Digital X-rays are also important. At Elite Prosthetic Dentistry, we take a full mouth set of X-rays of individual teeth, not a panoramic film. The latter does not provide the necessary detail to detect problems on individual teeth. Depending on your unique oral health, we recommend getting this set every two to three years as needed.
Periodic X-rays will also help us identify any issues and address them, accordingly, including with any dental restorations you may have.
Tailored Home Care Instructions Help You Maintain Your Smile Between Visits
General recommendations for oral care at home may work for some patients, but tailored instructions that we deliver in our own “Oral Health and Wellness Program” in such a manner it matches to your needs. In short, our hygienists take a personalized approach to disease treatment and prevention [2].
She focuses on preventative care so you can avoid restorative work as much as possible. We assess your current oral health and create a personal treatment and maintenance plan, complete with a dental hygiene schedule of professional cleanings in intervals designed to support your specific dental condition. As a result of this tried and proven approach, at Elite Prosthetic Dentistry, our patients rarely lose teeth once they have been treated.
With our definitive home care instructions and your motivation, we are confident that you will have the tools to take excellent care of your teeth and preserve them. At your follow-up visits, we will discuss how the maintenance plan is going and if you require any adjustments or further instruction to better care for your teeth and gums.
Good Oral Health Helps You Be a Candidate for Cosmetic or Restorative Treatment
Personalized dental hygiene has a twofold effect. First, it prevents the need for many restorative procedures in the first place. Secondly, should you want to improve your smile with cosmetic or restorative work, maintaining good oral health makes you a better candidate [3].
At Elite Prosthetic Dentistry, we diagnose and treat conditions that can impact your oral health to keep your smile beautiful and functional. We support your goals for your smile. If necessary, we will refer you to specialists to treat conditions that require specialized care, such as advanced gum disease.
Our goal is to help you have the healthiest smile possible for as long as possible to support your oral health, appearance, and dental restorations.
Take the Best Care of Your Smile with Elite Prosthetic Dentistry’s Upscale Comprehensive Dental Hygiene Services
At Elite Prosthetic Dentistry, we understand that each smile is different. That is why we provide tailored check-ups, cleanings, and preventative care for our patients in our Oral Health & Wellness Program. In this way, we support our patients by delivering exceptional oral hygiene to maintain their oral health and dental restorations. Contact us today for an appointment or to learn more about our Oral Health & Wellness Program!
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Through this commitment, Dr. Marlin provides his patients with long-lasting (35 years vs. the national average of 7-10 years) aesthetic restorations so that they have virtually no future problems.
As such, he is a leading specialist in dental implants, cosmetic dentistry, sedation dentistry , and restorative dentistry in the Bethesda–Chevy Chase, Northern Virginia, and Washington DC Metro Area. He has inserted and restored over 3,600 dental implants.
