A “deep cleaning” is a lot more than a little something extra to get your mouth especially pristine and bright. It’s a procedure done to help save your teeth by getting active gum disease under control.
Truly, tooth loss becomes a possibility when gum disease is allowed to progress from gingivitis to periodontitis. The infection starts to destroy tissues in your mouth, such as those that attach your teeth to the gums and even the bone that supports those teeth.
As more and more damage occurs, the teeth become less stable. They may even become wobbly in their sockets. Some may ultimately become candidates for extraction in hopes of giving other teeth a better chance to stay strong, stable, and healthy.
When you’ve got advanced gum disease, “deep cleanings” are an important step in keeping that from becoming your future.
The actual name of the procedure is a little less friendly-sounding but much more descriptive: scaling and root planing, or SRP for short. “Scaling” involves removing plaque and tartar, as in a regular cleaning. But for SRP, we also go under the gums to clean the roots, as well, often with an ultrasonic scaler, which uses high-frequency vibrations to remove tartar and water to flush out bacteria and debris.
Once the teeth have been thoroughly cleaned both above and below the gums, we use the ultrasonic and hand instruments called curettes to smooth out – or “plane” – any rough surfaces on the roots. This helps remove any remaining toxins and makes it harder for bacteria to cling and build up. It also makes it easier for the gums to heal and reattach.
And yet, as effective as SRP is, there’s even more that we can do as a biological dental practice to encourage even better results. Top amongst those is the use of ozone.
We’ve looked before at some of the research on using ozone to treat periodontitis. Now, a new systematic review and meta-analysis lends even more support for this use of the powerful, natural antimicrobial.
Aiming to understand if SRP plus ozone works better than SRP alone, researchers scoured three major scientific databases for relevant studies published before July 2024. Thirteen made the cut. Analysis showed that there were two main aspects of periodontal health that improved more when ozone was added to conventional treatment:
- Periodontal pockets became significantly shallower.
- Reduced inflammation, signifying better overall gum health.
Although the research team found no meaningful differences in other aspects of gum health – bleeding on probing, for instance, or how much plaque was present – the others were enough for them to conclude that
Ozone therapy combined with SRP is superior to SRP alone in improving PD [probing depth] and GI [gingival index] indexes in patients with periodontitis, without increasing adverse reactions, and the effect is worthy of recognition. The research evidence indicates that ozone therapy in patients with chronic periodontitis has a positive effect.
Indeed, that positive effect of ozone on gum health is something we’ve regularly seen in the office for years. Yet that’s hardly its only use. Learn more about the different ways we put dental ozone to use in caring for our patients.
