Check up and Clean is something that is needed in keeping your teeth in good health, in other words with active maintenance.
What is an Active Maintenance appointment?
At Ashgrove Dental, we like to keep our patients under Active Maintenance, which is the regular dental visits that allow us to keep your teeth free of build-up & tar (calculus). But what we also want our patients to know is that there is so much more to the check-up / active maintenance appointment. In addition to monitoring our teeth, we actually check a lot of other parts of the mouth that give us a very important indication of what is happening in the body.
We check the following things:
Jaw Joints, muscles around your head a neck, your cheeks, lips and tongue, your airways, tonsils, your salivary glands, your gums, your bite, your jawbones, gums and then finally your teeth.
We check all of these things because there’s actually a lot of information from the mouth that tells us things about a person’s entire body and their overall health! Check out the poster below
Of these described in the poster, Let me give you some other examples.
Why do we check the Jaw Joints and muscles of the head a neck?
We check these because it tells us a lot about stress levels, possible breathing obstructions, and possible obstructive sleep disorders. It also tells us about one’s posture during the day, as well as sleeping at night and how this can contribute to migraines, headaches and aches. The short worn down teeth could be a symptom of this, which makes the teeth appear “shorter”.
We check the soft tissues like the lips cheeks and tongue, to check for oral cancers, mucosal lining changes which indicate gut problems or digestive tract issues. It also tells us if there could be any underlying systemic issues.
We check the gums as this tells us about your general heart health. It indicates if there is a risk of diabetes. In cases of our patients who are pregnant. It helps us understand if there could be a risk of preterm birth.
We then check the way you bite, which can tell us about your jaw development, as well as airway issues, even possible if someone suffers from sleep apnoea or has significant allergies.
In the end, it’s not just about your teeth!
So coming in to see us here at Ashgrove Dental, isn’t just about getting your teeth nice, white and bright. It is much more than that. That’s why we always emphasise the importance of our six-monthly active maintenance appointments.
If you have been meaning to come and see us, we’d love to hear from you.
Call us today on 07 3366 3355 or Book online – Click here
To find out what services we provide, check out our services page.
https://ashgrovedental.com.au/services/dental-examination-general-preventive-dentistry/
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