Dental hygiene

Professional teeth cleaning is part of dental hygiene. This includes the removal of plaque and tartar on tooth surfaces above the gum line. Then, interdental spaces are cleaned. A polishing of all tooth surfaces concludes the treatment. This type of teeth cleaning belongs in the competence area of prophylaxis assistants.

Dental hygiene further removes plaque and tartar in periodontal pockets and below the gum line. Only dentists and specialized dental hygienists practice this type of teeth cleaning.

Prophylaxis is the term for all measures that help prevent diseases. This includes daily dental care and hygiene at home as well as regular professional teeth cleaning and dental hygiene.

The costs of dental hygiene and professional teeth cleaning depend on the duration of the procedure and usually amount to 130 to 220 CHF.

If you have good oral hygiene, floss daily, have little discoloration or tartar and get your teeth cleaned regularly, the procedure takes very little time.

We recommend an appointment for professional teeth cleaning in the form of dental hygiene once a year. However, depending on oral hygiene or dental health, up to four appointments per year may be necessary.

Despite good oral hygiene, there are places that are difficult to reach in daily cleaning at home and so the build-up of plaque and tartar cannot be prevented.

If your oral hygiene is inadequate, you are prone to tartar formation or deposits of discoloration, the position of your teeth makes daily oral hygiene difficult, or you suffer from gum disease or inflammation of the gums, then we recommend having dental hygiene appointments two to four times per year.

Plan for an hour for your dental hygiene visit.

This is what happens during a dental hygiene procedure:

• First, we remove tartar and discoloration above and below the gum line and in periodontal pockets either mechanically or with an ultrasonic scaling instrument.
• Then, we use a powder blaster (Air-Flow by EMS) to remove soft plaque and remaining discoloration. Often, we also use a small brush head with a course abrasive paste. 
Subsequently we clean interdental spaces with floss or interdental brushes.
• In a last step, we polish all teeth with a fine-grained abrasive paste until the tooth surfaces gleam.
• To conclude the treatment, we brush all tooth surfaces with fluoride varnish or gel in order to strengthen the enamel and support prophylaxis.

We recommend that you do not eat or drink for at least an hour after your dental hygiene visit.

We’d gladly advise you on your oral hygiene and daily dental care to acheive the best possible oral hygiene together.

Dental hygiene is considered very low-risk.

If you have a congenital heart (valve) defect, we suggest you discuss with you dentist and your general physician whether antibiotic shielding is necessary. It is possible for bacteria to enter your blood stream through the mucous membranes and cause an infection of the heart valve or inner membrane of the heart. Depending on the type of heart defect or past surgeries it’s necessary to take antibiotics an hour before your visit to the dentist. This will eliminate any bacteria that reaches your blood stream during the procedure.

Please inform your dentist or dental hygienist if you take blood-thinning medications, so they can correctly interpret excessive bleeding during treatment.

We advise adults to brush their teeth two to three times a day with a toothpaste containing fluoride. Brushing after breakfast, lunch and dinner yields the best results.

You should brush your child’s teeth once a day in the first year, twice a day in the second year and three times a day from their third year on. For children under the age of six we recommend a toothpaste with reduced fluoride-concentration. Children under six don’t always manage spitting out toothpaste after brushing their teeth.

Thorough tooth brushing takes about three minutes and should always be done systematically in the same order.

For this, you don’t need to use toothpaste.

Sonic toothbrushes have an oblong brush head and create a high-frequency vibration through an electric transducer. These vibrations transfer to the brush head and loosen plaque as well as flush out interdental spaces.