How often should I have a regular dental checkup?
I definitely need to see you every 6 months. I want to see if you have any periodontal disease, if you have any cavities, because it could be really quick for the cavity to get bigger, and then instead of just having a filling, you might need to get more aggressive treatment. It's very important to prevent that from the beginning and also be proactive.
If you have a really small cavity, we can start doing something preventive and help to remineralize that instead of it getting like a bigger cavity and having to do a filling or maybe more like a crown. If we see you every 3 months or 6 months, that definitely helps us take a dental X-ray and see if you have any small cavities and start treating them, and if you have more like a dental pocket, that helps us monitor your teeth from having any issues, and also your gum health.
What happens during a regular dental checkup?
What we usually do when we see you every 6 months is take a few dental X-rays, like around six or seven X-rays. If you're really coming regularly every 6 months, then we don't need to take that many X-rays. We just take small X-rays to make sure if you have small cavities, we monitor that and see if they're the same size or getting bigger. If we start to see a new cavity, then we have to figure out what we can do from here to prevent the progression and keep the cavity from getting bigger and intervene if we need to.
As a dentist, I usually look at your soft tissue and your hard tissue to see if you have any lesions that either I need to investigate or intervene on, or something that I can monitor and watch. If it's something I can mark and watch, I definitely need to see you either more closely, like more than every 6 months, like every 3 months, or if it's something I need to do something about, like you have a cavity or if you have something I need to refer to a specialist. This is all the kind of thing that I need to look at to decide what is best for you.
How long does a regular dental checkup take?
Really, if you're coming here every 6 months, it shouldn't take a long time. I would say from 30 minutes to an hour. That includes coming in for a cleaning if you have a regular cleaning also, and taking an X-ray for me to come in really quick and make sure everything looks good. If anything needs to be done, we'll go through that and discuss your options, give you different treatment options. Most of the time, if you come regularly, you don't have that many issues that need to be discussed, and it should be really quick.
Will a regular dental checkup hurt?
I don't think there's anything during the checkup that will hurt. The only thing you are probably going to do is just a dental cleaning. If it's just a regular dental cleaning or even a deep teeth cleaning, it shouldn't hurt. You're going to be numb if we're doing a deep cleaning.
But for me, as an exam, just taking an X-ray, taking a look at the X-ray, and demonstrating and showing you what I see from the X-ray, what I see in your soft tissue or your hard tissue, if anything needs to be discussed.
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