Professional tooth cleaning

How it works, why it is getting more and more expensive and why it can also be dangerous for your teeth.

 Brush, scratch, clean

The service used to be a visit to the dentist like opening the door of an optician: “I’ll get rid of the pads quickly,” the doctor promised after completing the treatment and reached for the scratch. From this casual – and free – service has now developed the prevention service par excellence in German practices: the professional teeth cleaning, short PZR called.

With brushes and scratches, ultrasound and airflow, dentists or specially qualified prophylaxis assistant’s clean teeth and gum pockets. There are sometimes places where even thorough cleaners do not use the brush.  The professional can significantly better, as every patient will confirm. As bright as white shortly after the PZR, the teeth are never otherwise.

If plaque becomes dangerous

Shorter intervals between brushing are only allowed in the case of massive inflammation in the mouth, or if the patients are no longer able to brush their teeth. Because the bacterial deposits have to go away, as they endanger not only the biting and the periodontium, but also the rest of the body.

Private

Although the PZR considers the legal provisions to be “basically good” . Some also give grants or donate bonus points. But they do not want to take over the treatment completely. Of course you shy away from the cost, on the other hand you can see the oral hygiene as a private matter.

A tooth costs 4.22 dollars

In addition, some health insurance does not seem quite convinced of the benefits. “The importance of professional dental cleaning in plaque control is less clear,” says the TK website. In plain language: Whether the PZR improves the oral health sustainable, is questionable. Skeptics even claim that the cleaning effect is lost after only 24 hours.

The normal cash patient has to pay himself, and in the future usually more than before. Because until the end of 2011, there was no figure in the scale of fees for the PZR, each dentist calculated his own price. Depending on the financial strength of his patients came so a price range of 40 to 120 dollars.

New bill

That’s different now: Per tooth (simple fee rate) $ 1.57 estimated. Since hardly a dentist reaches under the 2.3-fold sentence to the tool, is to be assumed from 3, 62 dollars per tooth. Makes 101.36 dollars for 28 teeth.

Clean in seven steps

The yellowish deposits are not appetizing. And they are also not healthy, because countless bacteria cavort in it. In one millimeter, estimates are 200 million bacteria. Discoloration (tea, nicotine) are harmless in this way, but repulsive for your counterpart.

Not Just Cosmetics

Even if one is most impressed by the new look of teeth after a PZR, the PZR is not a cosmetic. The teeth are freed from deposits on all sides to minimize the bacteria. That they radiate again after all the scratching, blasting, polishing is a nice side effect.