Have you ever experienced a dental cleaning where the dentist or hygienist uniformly jabbed your gums with a poking device and hollered numbers aloud like, "3,2,3…4,3,5…"? If you have, you underwent a periodontal assessment. That poking device is called a probe and it is used to measure, in millimeters, the tissue pockets around your teeth for loss of attachment and bone loss. If the probing depths are too deep to keep clean or if the dentist determines that your gums or... read more

If you are diagnosed with gum disease, a deep cleaning known as scaling and root planing may be recommended to eradicate the disease. When a deep cleaning does not prove to be successful in pocket reduction and decay still exists below the gum line, periodontal flap surgery may be your next step.

During periodontal flap surgery, also known as pocket reduction surgery, the patient is administered local anesthesia, then tiny incisions are made in the gums. Next, the gums are lifted back so the... read more