Cleanings, exams, and keeping what you have.
Prevention is the least expensive, least invasive, and most effective dentistry there is. It starts with a full look at what is actually going on.
A preventive dental visit at Better Health Dental in Decatur includes a comprehensive examination, digital radiographs, intraoral photographs, a professional cleaning, and a written home-care plan. A first visit typically takes about an hour. Most dental benefit plans cover two cleanings and exams per year at or near one hundred percent. New patients are welcome at 127 E. Trinity Pl — call (404) 446-2776 or request a visit.
Nearly everything expensive in dentistry began as something small and quiet. A cavity is painless until it reaches the nerve. Gum disease is painless almost all the way through. The point of a preventive visit is to find those things while they are still cheap and simple to deal with — and to tell you plainly what you are looking at.
What happens at a first dental exam?
A comprehensive examination is a survey of the whole system, not a hunt for holes. Dr. Walker evaluates each tooth and existing restoration, charts gum pocket depths around every tooth, checks how your teeth meet when you bite and whether that contact is wearing anything down, examines the soft tissue of the mouth, lips, tongue, and throat as an oral cancer screening, and palpates the jaw joints and the muscles around them.
Digital radiographs show what the eye cannot: decay between teeth, bone level around the roots, infection at a root tip, and the position of teeth that have not erupted yet. Intraoral photographs let you see your own mouth on a screen at a size where a cracked filling is obvious. Most patients find that single step more persuasive than any amount of explanation.
What a preventive visit includes
- Full-mouth comprehensive examination with charted findings
- Periodontal measurements — pocket depth at six points per tooth
- Digital radiographs at the lowest practical exposure, and intraoral photographs
- Oral cancer screening of soft tissue, tongue, floor of mouth, and throat
- Professional cleaning, or periodontal therapy where disease is present
- Fluoride and sealants where indicated
- A written plan — what needs doing, in what order, and what it will cost
Why does the mouth matter to the rest of the body?
Research has consistently found associations between periodontal disease and cardiovascular disease, diabetes, adverse pregnancy outcomes, and systemic inflammatory markers. The direction of cause is still debated in parts of the literature, but the association is well established and the practical conclusion is not controversial: chronic infection anywhere in the body is worth treating, and the gums are the most common place adults carry one without knowing.
If you are managing diabetes, pregnant, on a medication that causes dry mouth, or a smoker, say so at your visit. Each of those changes the recommended interval and sometimes the approach. More on the links in Why a healthy mouth matters.
Is a deep cleaning the same as a regular cleaning?
No, and the difference matters. A routine cleaning — a prophylaxis — removes plaque and calculus from the visible tooth surfaces and just under the gumline in a mouth whose gums are healthy. A deep cleaning, properly called scaling and root planing, is a treatment for active periodontal disease. It cleans the root surface inside pockets that have formed as the gum has detached from the tooth, it is usually done in halves or quadrants, and it is normally performed with local anesthetic.
If your gum measurements indicate scaling and root planing, you will be shown the numbers and told which teeth they came from. It is a diagnosis, not an upsell, and you are entitled to see the evidence for it.
How often do I actually need to come in?
| If this describes you | Typical interval |
|---|---|
| Healthy gums, no active decay, good home care | Every 6 months |
| History of periodontal disease, or completed scaling and root planing | Every 3–4 months |
| Frequent decay, dry mouth from medication, or a high-sugar or high-acid diet | Every 3–4 months |
| Braces, aligners, or other appliances | Every 3–6 months |
| Diabetes, pregnancy, or smoking | Every 3–4 months |
Your interval is a clinical judgment, and it can move in either direction over time. Patients who tighten up their home care and bring their gum measurements down are told so, and moved back out.
What should I be doing at home?
Two minutes of brushing twice a day with a fluoride toothpaste, and cleaning between the teeth once a day. That second habit is the one most adults skip and the one that changes the most, because a toothbrush bristle does not reach the surfaces where most adult decay and nearly all gum disease begin. Floss, interdental brushes, and water flossers all work — the one that works is the one you will actually use. We will show you the technique for whichever you pick. See why flossing matters for the longer version.
Questions we are asked most.
Answers from Dr. Sharifa Walker, DDS. If yours is not here, call (404) 446-2776 and ask — the front desk will put the clinical questions in front of her.
How long does a dental cleaning take?
Does a dental cleaning hurt?
How often do I need dental X-rays?
Does insurance cover cleanings and exams?
What is gingivitis, and is it reversible?
I have not been to a dentist in years. Will I be lectured?
