Periodontal Maintenance in Beverly Hills, CA
Medically reviewed by Dr. Kayla Lebeau, DDS
The three-month appointment that keeps your teeth
Once you have been treated for gum disease, you do not go back to a routine cleaning twice a year. You move onto periodontal maintenance, and the interval is three months.
The reason is specific rather than commercial. The bacteria that cause periodontal disease repopulate a deep pocket in roughly nine to twelve weeks. Arrive at three months and they are disrupted before they can re-establish and start destroying bone again. Arrive at six months and you have given them a full cycle to do damage.
This is the appointment that decides, more than the original treatment did, whether you still have your teeth in twenty years.
- How oftenEvery 3 months
- TakesAbout 45 to 60 minutes
- IncludesFull re-measurement every time
- Not the same asA routine cleaning
You should be on maintenance if
- You have had scaling and root planing or gum surgery
- You have pockets deeper than 4mm anywhere in your mouth
- You have lost bone around any tooth
- You have implants, which need the same protection as teeth
- You smoke or have diabetes, both of which accelerate gum disease
What happens at every visit
- Re-chartingPocket depths measured at six points around each tooth and compared with last time. This is the early warning system, a pocket that has deepened by 1mm is a problem we can still fix cheaply.
- Checking where it bleedsBleeding on probing is the most useful sign we have. It shows active inflammation before you would ever notice anything.
- Cleaning above and below the gumBoth. Deposits are removed from the root surfaces inside the pockets, not only from the visible parts of the teeth.
- Implant checksImplants are probed and cleaned with instruments that will not scratch the surface. Peri-implantitis behaves like gum disease and is harder to treat, so it gets caught here.
- A look at your techniqueWhich specific spots you are missing, and whether your interdental brushes are the right size. Most people are missing the same two or three places every day.
What we are watching for between visits
- Pockets deepening anywhere, even by a millimeter, in a specific site.
- Bleeding that has increased since last time, which almost always means a cleaning technique problem in that area.
- Recession exposing root surfaces, which then decay far more easily than enamel.
- Changes in your health or medications. New diabetes, pregnancy, or drugs that cause dry mouth or gum overgrowth all change the picture.
- Loose or drifting teeth, or a bite that has started to feel different.
Why every three months and not six?
Because deep pockets are recolonized by bacteria within about three months. The interval matches the biology, not the calendar.
Is this just a cleaning with a different name?
No. A routine cleaning treats healthy gums above the gum line. Maintenance includes full re-measurement of every pocket and instrumentation below the gum on root surfaces. Different procedure, different code, different purpose.
Will I be on this forever?
Periodontal disease is controlled rather than cured, so yes, indefinitely, in the same way blood pressure is managed rather than fixed. Some people with excellent control move to four-month intervals.
What happens if I skip appointments?
The most common pattern we see is someone doing well, extending to six months, then a year, and returning with deeper pockets and looser teeth. Relapse is quiet and it is not painful.
Does insurance cover it?
Most plans cover periodontal maintenance, though sometimes at a set number of visits per year. We will check your coverage and tell you the position before you commit.
Does it hurt?
Usually not. If specific areas are tender we can numb them, and you should say so rather than sitting through it.
Book your next three-month visit
- (310) 860-6969Someone here answers.
- Request a visitWe will call to confirm.
- Pick a time onlineChoose your own slot.
Maintenance is a different appointment from a cleaning
They are billed differently because they are clinically different, and it is worth knowing which one you are having.
A routine cleaning is for a mouth with healthy bone. It polishes and removes deposits above and just below the gum line.
Periodontal maintenance is for a mouth that has already lost bone to gum disease. It involves measuring every pocket each visit, cleaning root surfaces inside those pockets, and comparing the numbers against last time to catch a site that is slipping.
Once you have had deep cleaning, you do not go back to routine cleanings. The pockets are still there, deeper than a brush reaches, and they need the deeper appointment permanently.
Why every three months
The interval is not arbitrary and it is not a billing habit. It comes from how fast bacteria return.
After a deep clean, a pocket is disrupted rather than sterilized. The bacteria that cause periodontal destruction recolonize and reorganize into a mature, damaging community over roughly nine to twelve weeks. Three months is the point at which we interrupt that, before it does another round of harm.
Wait six months and you have given that community three extra months of undisturbed work at every deep site, twice a year, every year.
This is the single strongest predictor of whether gum treatment holds. Patients who keep the three-month interval largely keep their teeth; those who drift back to six months lose ground steadily, usually without symptoms until a tooth loosens.
Honest expectations
Maintenance controls a condition. It does not undo it, and we would rather you knew that from the start.
Bone already lost does not return. Gums that receded stay receded, so some teeth look longer and gaps can appear between them. Exposed root surfaces are more sensitive to cold and, importantly, more prone to decay than enamel, which is why we may recommend a high-fluoride toothpaste.
What maintenance reliably buys you is stability: keeping your own teeth, in function, for decades longer than the alternative. That is a genuinely good outcome and it is worth being clear-eyed about.
Things that work against it: smoking, uncontrolled diabetes, and skipped appointments. Things that help more than most people expect: cleaning between the teeth every single day, which reaches the surfaces where this disease actually lives.