Dental hygiene

Our hygienist team at Sturminster Dental Care have extensive experience in maintaining the oral health of patients throughout Sturminster Newton and beyond. This can range from simple scaling and polish, to routine maintenance or more complex gum treatments.

We can help you design a bespoke oral hygiene plan to prevent recurring problems like staining, bad breath, gum disease, plaque build-up and more.

For patients undergoing dental implant treatment, our hygienists also help maintain your dental health from the beginning of implant treatment to the fitting of the final crowns and bridges.

Benefits of our hygienist care include:

• Professional clean and tartar removal
  Plaque is a sticky bacterial coating that consistently forms on your teeth. If it is not brushed away properly, including difficult to reach areas like between the teeth, the plaque hardens to form tartar/calculus which cannot be removed so easily at home. Persistent plaque and calculus can lead to periodontal disease, causing bleeding gums, tooth mobility and eventually tooth loss.
  
  Your dental hygienist will perform an intensive clean on all accessible surfaces of the teeth to ensure any plaque and tartar build up is fully removed. If you have a lot of tooth decay, your hygienist may apply a fluoride gel to help protect the teeth from further attack.
• Stain removal
  Drinking tea, coffee, red wine or fizzy drinks will gradually stain your teeth over time. Your hygienist will be able to clean these stains away using natural products like baking soda for a whiter smile. Our hygienists also use the innovative AirFlow system which uses air, sodium bicarbonate and water together to clean stains from your teeth.
• Fresh breath
  A clean mouth means fresher breath!
• Prevention of gum disease
  Early signs of gum disease include bleeding gums when brushing. Your hygienist will test for this and if they spot symptoms. With regular appointments, they will be able to help deal with this before the disease has the chance to progress. They may use anti bacteria gel and solutions to apply under the gum line to kill any bacteria causing gum disease. It is important to pay attention to these symptoms as if left untreated, gum disease can lead to the movement or even the loss of teeth.
• Oral hygiene plan
  We will work with your individual needs to create a tailor made plan for optimum maintenance of your oral hygiene. This includes recommending the right products, different types of brushes and showing you the most effective ways to use them.
• Dietary advice and smoking cessation

To complement our hygienists we have three qualified Oral Health Educators at the practice who are available to give advice on all aspects of dental health and diet. This service is available to all patients at no extra charge. The food we eat can affect our teeth, this could be through staining or acid erosion. If your diet has had a detrimental effect on your teeth, our hygienists can advise on changing your eating habits to prevent further harm. Smoking is also a big factor in causing periodontal disease, bone loss, oral cancer, reducing healing after dental work and staining of teeth. Your dental hygienist can also offer smoking cessation advise if required.

We recommend all Sturminster Dental Care patients have regular hygiene treatments at least once to twice a year alongside your routine dental health reviews.