Good dental hygiene requires vigilance. This is especially critical if you have dental implants. Apart from bruising your teeth daily, making regular visits to a dental facility is an integral part of keeping good hygiene and prolonging the longevity of your dental implants.

This guide from DentalX Clinic will discuss the importance of seeing a dental hygienist when you have dental implants.

What A Dental Hygienist Does

While regular dentists and dental surgeons get most of the plaudits for the success of any dental procedure and maintenance, dental hygienists also make a significant contribution toward helping maintain healthy-looking teeth. Their roles include:

Carrying out dental cleaning procedures: Perhaps the most well-known task of a dental hygienist is cleaning people’s teeth and other dental devices like braces.

Using a variety of tools designed to make the process of dental cleaning more precise and efficient, a dental hygienist will scour your dentition for food debris and plaques that are hard to reach using regular brushing techniques. With many patients opting for dentures and implants, such cleaning procedures become critical toward maintaining good oral hygiene and healthy teeth.

Administering preventive dental care: In addition to regular oral cleaning procedures, dental hygienists also take a proactive role in helping prevent tooth decay and other oral diseases. Preventive treatments include using sealants to keep tooth decay in check. Using fluoride to strengthen teeth against harmful agents that can cause erosion of the outer part of the teeth (enamel) also constitutes preventive measures.

Teaching patients good dental hygiene: Even in people who floss and brush their teeth regularly, tooth decay and other oral diseases can still occur. These occurrences are usually the result of improper toothbrush techniques. A dental hygienist teaches people the proper way of using the toothbrush for effective brushing that can stem the proliferation of bacteria.

These duties of a dental hygienist are critical to the maintenance of healthy teeth and other oral fittings like implants. Dental implants in particular can cause serious problems if not cared for appropriately.

Understanding the basics of dental implantation helps to put into perspective the critical role played by dental hygienists in ensuring the durability of such dental implants.

What Is A Dental Implant

A dental implant is a small, specially-designed piece of metal (prosthetic) that is placed into the jawbone to replace missing teeth.

A typical dental implant procedure will involve placing the screw-looking part of the implant into the jawbone during a dental surgical procedure. After the patient recovers from this initial procedure, the final top part of the implant (crown) is fitted. It can take several months for the completion of this whole process.

Sometimes, a patient may require a bone grafting procedure before having the dental implant fitted. This is usually the case when the patient’s jawbone is deemed too weak for the dental implant.

Evidently, the whole dental implantation procedure is long. It goes without saying that the maintenance of good oral hygiene throughout this process is crucial.

Without the proper care, infections could set in and seriously jeopardize the process.

How A Dental Hygienist Can Help Prevent Implant Failure

Dental implant failure is when some factors cause the implant not to stay in the intended part of the jawbone. While factors like inadequate expertise can contribute to this, the most common reason is poor oral hygiene.

Scheduling regular visits with a dental hygienist after having dental implants fixed in your jawbone becomes a necessity. With all the possible reasons for dental implant failure, seeing a dental hygienist will greatly increase the odds of retaining your implants for a long time.

See a dental hygienist regularly to deal with the following problems:

Gum Disease: Many oral diseases, including gum disease, can go unnoticed. Regularly examining your gums in front of a mirror may not reveal much, considering that you may not have the expertise to identify the early signs of such oral diseases. A dental hygienist can be able to catch such problems early before they spread and cause more harm.

Plaque build-up: Like natural teeth, the area around the dental implants may have minute spaces where food can get stuck. Such food debris provides an ideal environment for the proliferation of dangerous bacteria and plaque build-up.

Regular brushing and flossing may fail to address this problem adequately. A dental hygienist ensures that the area around the implant is properly cleaned, hence preventing possible infections due to bacteria multiplying there.

Ultimately, seeing a dental hygienist regularly is an investment that will pay off in the long run. Ensuring that your dental implants are properly cleaned means there is less chance for infections and failure, all of which could cost a lot of money to deal with.