What to Expect from a Visit to the Dentist

There is a lot more to keeping your teeth and gums healthy than just doing all of the typical oral care operations. You can brush, floss, and avoid eating sugary and acidic foods that can damage the protective enamel of your teeth. However, your teeth, gums, and jaws can still contract diseases and other issues that your oral care routine won’t be able to fix. And those issues can only be fixed with – you guessed it – a trip to the dentist.

With all of the weird tools, sounds, and that unmistakable medical smell in every dentist’s clinic out there, we understand that going to the dentist might be a bit scary – just as much for adults, in fact, as it is for the little ones. But by knowing what to expect when you’re at the dentist’s, you won’t have as much to fear when you’re there; that’s why we’ve crafted this handy little guide so your next visit will be scare-free, and maybe even a little fun.

The Checkup Visit

Most trips to the dentist are usually for checkups. The gist of these visits is to assess the condition of your mouth and recommend treatments if any issues are found to make sure your teeth, gums, and jaws stay nice and healthy.

If it is your first time visiting a dentist, he or she will ask you a few questions about your current and past dental health. This will give your dentist a baseline status of your teeth that he or she can use to compare with future dentist visits. Your dentist will then perform a thorough examination of your teeth, gums, and mouth to look for any indicators of problems such as tooth decay. The dentist will typically examine your mouth visually with the aid of a dental mirror (the small, round mirrors mounted on a metal rod).

However, many dental conditions are hidden just below the surface that the dentist can see, from teeth that aren’t growing out correctly to damage or disease in the jaws. In these cases, your dentist may recommend that you get an X-ray scan done on your teeth. This will give your dentist a much clearer view of the condition of your mouth and jaws, helping them to give you the treatment that works best for your specific case. Depending on the kind of dental problem you have, your dentist may need an X-ray scan for just a few teeth or a full scan of your entire upper and lower jaw (called a panoramic X-ray). Although modern X-ray machines emit a lot less radiation than their older counterparts, it is not advisable to get an X-ray scan if you are pregnant unless it is absolutely necessary.

Checkup visits also typically come with a prophylaxis session – in other words, a very thorough mouth cleaning. Your dentist will make use of the wide range of strangely shaped instruments at their disposal to poke and brush away at all of the tartar and plaque building up in the tiny nooks of your mouth that your toothbrush and floss can’t reach. This helps make sure that bacteria don’t stick around for too long in those hard to reach corners of your teeth and cause cavities and other infections.

In general, follow up visits to the dentist work in more or less the same way – the dentist assesses the condition of your teeth, recommends treatments if there are any, and get your teeth nice and clean. If you don’t have any need for urgent dental treatment and take generally good care of your teeth, you will typically be advised to come back around every six months or so for your regular cleanup.

The Treatment Visit

If your dentist does diagnose you with a dental condition, you will be given a rundown of your options for treatment. Regardless of whether or not the treatment is urgent, scheduling your next dental appointment with your dentist is entirely up to you so you can come in at a time that is most convenient for you.

The typical schedule for any dental treatment will vary depending on the kind of issue it tries to fix. If, for example, you need to have a tooth filled or pulled out altogether, the procedure never takes longer than 30 minutes and is as quick and easy as a scheduled checkup. Other treatments, such as a root canal treatment procedure, are a bit more complex and usually happens over one or two appointments, each about 1 to 2 hours long. The longest dental treatments are arguably orthodontic treatments, the most common of which are braces. Getting them requires several appointments spread out throughout 12 to 18 months to install, tighten, and eventually remove the braces to leave properly-aligned teeth.

Conclusion

We are often scared of what we don’t know or aren’t familiar with. That’s often why going to the dentist can feel a bit scary. With his knowledge of what to do at the dentist’s, your next appointment can be a breeze.