Types of Dental Oral Exams: Importance and Benefits

Dental oral exams are an effective approach to checking the status of your oral health. Besides keeping good oral hygiene habits, undergoing dental examinations is another step to maintaining healthy teeth and gums.

What Are Dental Examinations?

Oral exams are considered crucial for preventive dental health care. Apart from checking for oral diseases that are invisible to the naked eye and can only be identified through dental X-rays, it also includes checking for early signs of cavities.

Benefits of Dental Oral Exam

1. Thorough Cleaning

Although it’s recommended to practice regular brushing, flossing, and gargling with mouthwash, these do not guarantee that tooth decay will be kept at bay.

A patient with good oral hygiene and habits will probably have fewer instances of incurring plaque and/or decay. Nonetheless, it is still possible for the patient to acquire them. This is where regular dental cleanings can make a difference.

Your Beverly dentist has the necessary dental tools for cleaning every centimeter of your teeth and gums. This is especially true of food particles that latch onto areas that are difficult to remove by mere brushing, rinsing, or flossing.

2. Complete Examination of Teeth

Aside from cleaning, your teeth will be examined very carefully. Our dentist will check for the presence of plaque, tartar, and tooth decay that are within their early stages. Before these tooth-damaging elements spread and cause greater harm to your pearly whites, an exam will tell your dentist in Beverly, MA, that you are in need of a filling or perhaps a dental crown procedure.

Your dentist in Beverly, MA, can also advise you of bad dental habits to watch out for. From smoking to teeth grinding, you will be given recommendations on how to avoid these to maintain your dental health.

3. Complete Periodontal Exam 

“Periodontium” is the term used to describe regions of the oral cavity which connect the teeth to the jawbone (i.e., tissues, ligaments). These four categories of the periodontium are the alveolar bone, gingiva, periodontium cementum, and periodontal ligament. These are structures surrounding the teeth and are responsible for holding them together.

An exam is a preventive measure for detecting looming gum disease, cancer, blood vessel and nerve ending damage along the gums, etc.

4. Head, Mouth, And Throat Examination 

Another benefit of dental exams is that the procedure revolves around not just the mouth but your head and throat as well. Additional disease analysis will be done in various areas of your upper body.

5. Occlusal Exam 

Bite examination is as necessary as tooth examination because improper jaw overlapping can cause moderate to severe discomfort. Pain around the jaw, head, neck, and gums are almost inevitable in such cases. And only through correcting the bite will a patient be alleviated from these dental pains.

Initial Dental Oral Examination Procedure: What to Expect

1. Brief Examination 

The initial findings of your dental examination will be carefully documented. If your dental practice has both a dental practitioner and a hygienist, the task of documenting will fall on the latter as only certified dentists are permitted to conduct the exam itself.

This initial check-up will tell your dentist of the status of your oral health—procedures that need to be accomplished with urgency, dental fixes, underlying diseases, etc.

2. Tooth Cleaning 

Now comes the professionally done cleaning. Scalers and similar metal dental devices will be utilized to scrape off tartar (hardened plaque) and get rid of particles stuck in between teeth.

3. Tooth Polishing 

Polishing and/or buffing will follow tooth-cleaning. This step is a safeguard of the first. Any missed stains from the cleaning session will be taken care of here. After, a rotating brush will be used to buff your teeth to bring out their natural brightness and shine. Then, fluoride may be applied to them for that extra layer of protection.

These three steps will be followed by a more comprehensive dental check-up if needed. Patients who are found to have severely weakened teeth and regions of the periodontium may be subjected to X-ray scanning as a means of learning if these dental problems are caused by serious ailments or not.

If it’s been more than six months since your last dental exam and cleaning, give Beverly Dental Group a call. We can help you get on track toward achieving optimal oral health.