Dental Scaling

what is the result of dental scaling?

im getting dental scaling soon and i want to know what's going to happen to my gums after i get it done. are my gums going to sore? is it going to swell up? is it going to stretch out because of the dental tools? does bleeding occur and does it hurt after the scaling?

Public Comments

1. I've had it done twice. It isn't very different from a normal cleaning, albeit with anesthetic first because it's a comparatively aggressive procedure on an already-inflamed area. First they manually scrape the roots with something similar to the hooked explorer (maybe it's the explorer itself), and then follow with a buzzing tool (stop me if I'm being too technical, lol). It takes about an hour, followed by a day or so of Aspirin and salt-water rinses to keep the mouth clean. You'll be sore afterwards, and if your gums are in rough shape right now you'll probably bleed (slightly) for a couple of hours after. Not dribbling out of the side of your mouth, but if you were to put some tissue in there it would emerge with red spots. The very edges of the gums stretch a little and won't be snug against the teeth for a day or two, and to the extent that you'll want to chew anything you'll find that food gets stuck in the gums more easily. The gums and ligaments might be too tender for you to eat your usual stuff, so soft foods are on the menu because if your gums are too tender to eat normally, they're definitely too tender to clean properly, and you'll probably find it isn't worth the trouble to eat crunchy or chewy items until they're healed. Just have Ensure or something for dinner that night. I haven't had swelling that I've noticed. My second scaling was on Friday, this time with a pretty active infection on the left, so I'm on a course of antibiotics for a couple of weeks. If you have an area with a real problem, it will feel worse before it feels better. Otherwise, it's smooth sailing. The payoff at the end is that once your gingiva settle down, they'll feel better than ever.