How teeth are professionally deep cleaned

• Guided Biofilm Therapy is a different technique in comparison to traditional dental cleaning.

• It shows patients exactly where there is a buildup of bacteria on their teeth using a purple film.
• Faye Donald, a registered dental hygienist, walks us through the process from start to finish, explaining how it deep cleans a mouth more effectively than traditional methods.

Following is a transcript of the video.

Faye Donald: Today, I'm going to show you how guided biofilm therapy, or GBT, works when we professionally clean a patient's mouth from start to finish. My job as a dental hygienist is to detect and treat but most importantly prevent periodontal disease. Biofilms are highly organized microscopic communities of bacteria. But it's responsible for bleeding gums, for bad breath, for some dental infections, for some of the unsightly deposits that we see on our teeth, and, of course, it's linked to some more serious, systemic diseases, as well.

So, here we can see plaque and calculus deposits, but more concerning is the color of the gums, which are red, and they're also puffy and swollen, and that would lead us to believe either gingivitis or even periodontal disease could be present here. One of the problems with biofilm is that you can't see it and you can't feel it, so I use a dye called Biofilm Discloser, which is an organic, colored dye. So, when the dye's applied to the teeth, which have biofilm on them, it changes the color of the biofilm. And it's a really clever two-tone dye, so it means that it stains early biofilm, which is less than three days old, pink, and it stains mature biofilm, which is more than three days old, blue. The patient is shown in the mirror the stained biofilm. Biofilms are microscopic, whereas the plaque is a biofilm that's matured, and it's large enough to be seen with the naked eye. Ideally, what we want is to disrupt dental biofilm before it has the chance to mature into plaque.

So, this is where we start the cleaning process, and it is completely different to the old-fashioned methods of curettage and hand scaling. So, here I'm using a tool called Airflow Max, which acts like a warm jet wash for inside the mouth. It uses a combination of warm water and tiny soluble and antimicrobial powder. Airflow Max will remove 100% of the biofilm from the teeth and all of the surrounding tissues, including underneath the gums, where it's dark and warm and the biofilm really likes to hide. I'm also using the Airflow Max not just to take the biofilm away, but it takes the stains away, as well, so the mouth looks and feels super clean afterwards. It's very comfortable for the patient. It's gentle, it's efficient, it's very safe, with no abrasion or damage to the tooth surface at all.

After we've disrupted all of the biofilm and we've removed all of the stains, Piezon No-Pain is used at this stage, and it uses ultrasonic vibrations to remove any remaining hard calculus. It shaves the calculus off very gently. So it's very different to the old-fashioned methods of scraping the teeth, which would take calculus away but would also scratch the tooth's surface.

Stage seven of the GBT process is our quality-control stage, really. So, here, I would spend a few moments checking around the whole mouth to ensure that all the deposits have been removed and all the biofilm's been disrupted. So, at this stage, I would hand the mirror back to my patient so they can see the before-and-after results of their guided-biofilm-therapy treatment. I usually ask my patients to run their tongue over their teeth at this stage to feel how silky-smooth they are now that the biofilm and calculus is gone. Learning good oral-hygiene habits is like learning to swim. You have to be shown, so ask a dental hygienist to teach you how to clean your teeth properly. Spend the most time and concentrate the most efforts on the areas that you can't see. That's where you'll find the most biofilm. So in between the back teeth, underneath the gumline, around the base of restorations.

Ah! I love my job! I love it so much, because I get to put smiles on people's faces every single day. What other job in the world gets to do that?