How Long Has it Been Since You’ve Seen the Dentist?
Has it been very long since you’ve visited our Newport Beach dentist for a dental checkup? How many months has it been since your last dental cleaning? If you’re like a lot of people, you may not have seen the dentist since before the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.
There’s a good reason why. For several months, dentists in Newport Beach and around the country were closed. PPE was in short supply, and what was available needed to go to local hospitals and medical care facilities. Fortunately, that’s no longer the case. Now that the supply chain has leveled out, dentists are able to purchase the PPE necessary to safely care for their patients.
Why a “Routine” Dental Cleaning is Important
A preventative dental cleaning (prophylaxis) is meant to help you avoid oral health problems before they start. Through routine preventative care, your gums and teeth are more likely to remain in a healthy state. Plus, Dr. Yazdan can intercept potential issues — such as tooth decay or gum disease — at the earliest stage possible. Oftentimes they’re still reversible. But if they aren’t, your dental checkup gives us time to treat them while they’re still small.
Plus, during your dental checkup, we’re also assessing your mouth for signs of gum disease, oral cancer, symptoms of undiagnosed medical conditions, and even warning signs of sleep apnea or stress. If you’re having trouble sleeping or clenching your teeth more these days — and feel like COVID is to blame — you might be right. We can fit you with a protective nightguard to help you protect your smile and avoid any excessive, stress-induced enamel wear.
How Often Should You See the Dentist?
Most people with healthy teeth and gums need to schedule a dental checkup every six months. These twice a year visits are an ideal time to re-screen for new developments and professionally clean away tartar buildup.
Ideally, we keep tartar buildup in check between dental cleaning appointments through daily brushing and flossing. But even if we have great oral hygiene, there can sometimes be a small amount of plaque left on our teeth. Especially along the gumlines or between teeth if we don’t floss. After about 24 hours, those plaque particles calcify into tartar. Typically, a professional dental cleaning twice a year is more than adequate to remove the mild tartar accumulation that occurred since your last dental checkup. But if you’ve waited longer than six months, there’s a good chance that you might have a lot more tartar buildup than normal.
Left unchecked — or if COVID interfered with your dental cleaning schedule — tartar will continue to develop and lead to periodontal disease. Essentially, it triggers bone loss and gum detachment, which can jeopardize the integrity of your teeth.
COVID-Safe Dentistry in Newport Beach
Is it safe to go back to the dentist? Absolutely. At The Center For Restorative & Cosmetic Dentistry, we’ve made specific accommodations to facilitate safe dental care. Each patient and staff is carefully screened, temperatures recorded, and special measures are taken to reduce interaction with other individuals within the practice. Although infection control has always been a high priority, we’re going above and beyond the recommendations of the American Dental Association to ensure a safe space for our Newport Beach patients to receive care.
“Universal precautions” is a technique used in dentistry where each patient is treated as if they could be infectious. During a pandemic and because of the potential respiratory droplet spread of the disease, those precautions have been increased. Not only are our receptionists wearing masks and spacing out patients, but our clinical staff is utilizing N95 grade masks and spending additional time decontaminating rooms between each procedure. The ultimate goal is to provide the safest atmosphere for our patients so that our office is one of the best places you could actually be during COVID.
It’s Easier to Get an Appointment
Maybe one of the reasons why you haven’t seen a dentist lately is because scheduling is always a difficult issue. If that’s the case, right now is an excellent time to request an appointment. Since many people’s routines got thrown off during COVID, their dental checkups did too. As we all work to get things back on track, our schedule has a few extra openings than usual, simply because of trying to stagger everyone and get them in at a convenient time. Once we see you for your dental checkup, it’s easier to put you back onto a routine six-month schedule.
Contact Us Today
Has it been six months or longer since you last scheduled a dental cleaning? Perhaps you haven’t seen our Newport Beach dentist since before COVID. If that’s the case, contact The Center For Restorative & Cosmetic Dentistry today to reserve your next dental checkup.
About Dr. Yazdan
