Oral Hygiene Care

What if you could reset the clock on all the damage done to your teeth? Is it possible to cancel out all the occasions when you forgot to brush or floss, all the dark coffee you drank and even the taffy you enjoyed at the beach? Our regular cleanings provide you with this “fresh start.”
With the importance our office places on preventive care, we work hard to perfect the regular cleaning. Our team of friendly and talented dental hygienists will guarantee that you receive both a thorough and gentle cleaning.

Furthermore, we’ll work with you to ensure that you’re brushing and flossing routine provides you with the greatest benefit possible to keep your dental health intact in between visits.

How Often Do I Need a Cleaning?

Our office supports the American Dental Association recommendation for a professional cleaning every six months. If you have missed cleanings and are experiencing significant tartar buildup or gum disease, more frequent cleanings may be temporarily necessary.

Why are Regular Cleanings Necessary?

You may feel like your teeth are healthy – especially if you practice good habits of brushing twice and flossing daily. Chances are, however, you are probably missing hard-to-reach areas in between your teeth and just below the gumline. Particularly if your teeth are slightly crooked or crowded, it can be difficult to access every single surface with a toothbrush and piece of floss.

These unreachable areas start to accumulate plaque, which will harden into tartar. Only professional dental instruments are able to remove tartar – a toothbrush just won’t do the trick. If tartar isn’t removed in a timely manner, you are creating the perfect conditions for cavity and gum disease development.

By prioritizing twice a year cleanings, you will save yourself more time and cost in the long run to treat problems that could have been prevented.

What Happens During a Cleaning?

There are three simple steps to a typical cleaning.

1) Your hygienist removes tartar from your teeth using ultrasonic instrument. Then, your hygienist rinses away the bits of tartar from your teeth.

2) Using fine, hand-held instruments, your hygienist goes over your teeth to find even smaller deposits of tartar that the ultrasonic instrument overlooked. Our equipment combined with strategically applied pressure will remove these stubborn tartar deposits from hard-to-reach crevices and beneath your gumline.

3) Once we remove all the plaque and tartar from your teeth, we’ll polish them using a device with a small rubber end and paste. The paste polishes your teeth to smooth, shiny perfection.

During your appointment, your hygienist will also discuss your home dental care habits with you and make recommendations for improving your routine, technique and equipment.

How Can I Save on Regular Cleanings?

Members of Quality Dental Plan, our patient savings plan, receive two free cleanings with fluoride treatments. Call our office to learn more about this incredible savings program.

Whether you’re on schedule and looking for a new local dentist to provide your cleanings or are a little behind, we are ready to provide your teeth with a deep clean. Give Dr. Delwiche’s Santa Rosa office a call today to schedule your appointment.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is gum disease and how do you treat it?

Gum disease is a progressive, inflammatory condition that can severely damage your gums over time and even cause you to lose your teeth. During your hygiene appointment, we will review the causes of gum disease as well as how to prevent it.

If you currently have gum disease, our goal will be to stop it from progressing further. A number of different treatment techniques are available, depending on the severity of your condition. Scaling and root planing, medications, and surgery, including grafts, may all need to be applied to treat the problem. Dr. Delwiche will help you determine what treatments are best for your situation.

We will also give you recommendations on how you can help the treatment and keep it from reoccurring through home care routines. Proper brushing and flossing techniques as well as regular checkups and cleanings at our Santa Rosa, CA dental office will all help to keep your gums and teeth healthy. Smoking increases the risk of gum disease as well as causing many other health problems, so you may want to consider quitting if you are a smoker.

If you think you have gum disease or want information on how to prevent it, schedule an appointment to get started on a treatment plan right away!

What is gum disease and how do you treat it?

Gum disease is a progressive, inflammatory condition that can severely damage your gums over time and even cause you to lose your teeth. During your hygiene appointment, we will review the causes of gum disease and give you advice on how to prevent it.

If you currently have gum disease, our goal will be to stop it from progressing further. A number of different treatment techniques are available, and we will discuss our recommendations, which will vary depending on the severity of your condition.

What are the benefits of the soft tissue laser?

The soft tissue laser makes it easy to perform a number of treatments less invasively and more comfortably with greater precision and control than is possible with manual instruments. Patients who have received treatment with the laser experience a shorter healing time with minimal bleeding and discomfort. Infection can be vaporized at the source, and when the laser is used for periodontal treatment, only diseased tissue is removed, leaving healthy tissue intact.

Meet Our Doctor:

Dr. Amanda Delwiche DDS

Amanda Delwiche, DDS was raised in Santa Rosa, California, graduating from Ursuline High School. She received her BA from UC Berkeley in 1997 and her Doctorate of Dental Surgery degree from the UCLA School of Dentistry in 2003.

After completing an Advanced Education in General Dentistry residency at UCSF School of Dentistry, she joined a private practice in San Rafael, California. In 2008, Dr. Delwiche returned to her hometown of Santa Rosa to raise a family and to provide excellent dental care to ...

Featured Blog Posts - Oral Hygiene Care

March 7, 2019

Picking Out the Right Floss

In one of our more recent posts, we talked about picking out a toothpaste. What is even more important is, what kind of floss to use. So, how do you know which one to get?

There are many options available at the store and it can be overwhelming. Glide, which is a very slippery kind of floss that is made by Oral-B, is a very popular brand that is all over the shelves at the stores and comes in many variations. Unfortunately, this floss is not very effective. It is so slippery that it glides right in between the teeth, like the name implies, and doesn't take much plaque or debris ...

Picking Out a Toothpaste

What kind of toothpaste should I use?” As a dental hygienist, I get this question often. It can be overwhelming trying to decide what kind to buy because there are so many brands and variations of products on the shelves. The answer is not completely black and white.

For most people, I tell them to use whatever kind of toothpaste they like that makes them want to brush their teeth as long as it meets a couple of criteria.

The first criteria is that it should have fluoride in it. Fluoride is important because it helps protect the teeth from decay (i.e. cavities). There is a lot of misinformation spread about fluoride ...