Keeping your gums and teeth healthy and clean with great home care is the most important thing we can do to keep our mouth free of gum disease and tooth decay. at Interbay General Dentistry we believe, regular dental care with teeth cleanings and exams is necessary to clean and examine those areas that one cannot access or see. Those areas are under your gums and between your teeth. 6 months is a general "rule of thumb" amount of time that one should have a cleaning and exam. Some people however have the propensity to develop periodontal disease, where they lose bone and soft tissue attachment around their teeth. A routine cleaning will not be sufficient to stop this process from continuing. A procedure called scaling and root planing would need to be done where it would most likely require local anesthesia to clean those deeper areas under the gums. Patients who have had this procedure done previously or patients who could have the susceptibility to periodontal disease are recommended to have more frequent cleanings or periodontal maintenance, where a 6 month regular cleaning and exam will not be enough.