What is a gum management cleaning?
- Gum management cleanings are cleanings that patients who have had gum disease treatment in the past receive to maintain the treatment that was done and prevent the gum disease from coming back.
- Once a patient has gum disease they are more likely to get it again, so frequent gum management cleanings help prevent that from happening.
- A gum management cleaning is still a routine cleaning, it is just a different kind of cleaning than a normal healthy mouth cleaning patients are used to receiving every six months.
- If the doctor recommends a patient to receive a gum management cleaning, the patient cannot choose to get a healthy mouth cleaning instead. Gum management cleanings go below the gum line to remove embedded toxins that are forming. Normal health mouth cleanings do not do this.
- In our office, once a patient has completed gum disease treatment, we ideally like to see them back for a re-evaluation within 4-6 weeks to make sure the gums are healing well and no areas need to be retreated and at that visit we do the first gum management cleaning. We will then see the patient back every 3 months for the first year. Once it has been a year since the patient has completed their gum disease treatment, we do another re-evaluation to determine if we would like to see the patient on a less frequent basis for normal healthy mouth cleanings, or if we would still like to see them more often for gum management cleanings. This decision is tailored to the patient’s dental needs and is determined by the doctor and hygienist.
