Dental hygienists are specially trained to work with the dentist to give care to patients.
Dental hygienists are mainly concerned with ‘preventive’ dental health and treating gum disease – showing you correct home care and helping you to keep your teeth and gums healthy. This includes professionally cleaning your teeth by removing plaque and tartar (usually called a ‘scale and polish’ or a prophylaxis). However, perhaps their most important role is showing you the best way to keep your teeth free of plaque.
Plaque is a soft, sticky substance that builds up on your teeth. It is mostly made up of bacteria. The bacteria in plaque feed on sugar from food and drink, producing acids as a waste product. The acids attack the teeth by dissolving the minerals in the tooth surface. If this happens too often, tooth decay results.
And if plaque is allowed to build up, the bacteria in it can cause gum disease, making your gums sore and infected.
Tartar (also known as ‘calculus’), formed by hardened plaque, helps plaque to gather and makes it harder to remove when you brush.
You can’t remove tartar just by brushing your teeth, but a dentist or hygienist can remove it using special instruments – this is known as scaling.
A dentist or hygienist can also polish your teeth. This removes stains from coffee, tea, cigarettes or red wine; and makes it more difficult for plaque to stick to your teeth.
No matter how good you are at cleaning your teeth, there is always a little plaque left behind normally just below the gum level where your tooth brush can’t reach. Your dentist/ hygienist can clean this away for you. However if you clean your teeth very thoroughly at home, your scale and polish treatment will take less time.
Hygienists also give advice about diet and about preventing tooth decay. Our hygienists will give you care that is tailored to your needs.
Hygienist
Regular professional cleaning to remove plaque and tartar, combined with looking after your teeth and gums properly at home, will help keep your mouth healthy. Keeping your gums and teeth clean and healthy slows down how quickly your gums shrink and recede with age. A clean and healthy mouth will improve your appearance, help you to keep your teeth and give you fresh breath.
This is what the training of the hygienist is all about. They will carefully remove the hard deposits of tartar (or ‘calculus') that build up on the teeth and teach you how to prevent them coming back. This will do a lot to halt or slow the progress of gum disease.
By talking to you about your diet, and recommending other preventive measures, our hygienists can help you keep to a routine that will slow down tooth decay. Regular visits and advice will help build your confidence in keeping your mouth healthy.
Children can benefit from having their teeth polished. The hygienist can also apply fluoride varnishes to help prevent decay.
Adults who have a lot of decay can benefit from having fluoride applied. They can also have anti-bacterial gels and solutions applied under the gum to kill the bacteria causing gum disease.
Another very important part of the hygienist's work is showing you and telling you how to look after your mouth at home.
Research has also shown that smokers have more gum disease and lose more teeth than non-smokers. Our hygienists will be able to advise you on various ways of giving up smoking. They can also give you special advice for home care if you have dental implants or orthodontic appliances.
Scaling and polishing is usually pain free. However, if you do have any discomfort the hygienist can use anaesthetic creams, or give you some local anaesthetic. If you think you will want to have your teeth numbed for cleaning please let us know in advance of your appointment.
Our most up to date hours can be found on our Google page.
There is someone available at reception Mon-Fri 8am- 6pm, Sat 10am-1pm to answer telephone calls. Telephone calls may or may not be answered outside of these times.
Carton Dental
Silken Gardens
Dublin Rd
Maynooth
Co. Kildare
W23 X2T7
Ireland