Preventitive Procedures: Dental Probing

I don't know if a lot of people have had this done before, but the main purpose of probing is to see how deep your gums are attached too your tooth. A healthy gingival pocket is 1-3mm, anything deeper then that has the potential to be periodontal disease (gingivitis or periodontist).

For people with healthy gums probing can be very uncomfortable because the gum tissue is tightly wrapped around the tooth. For unhealthy gums the probe will fit easily between the gums and most likely bleed.

Other purposes for dental probing is to identify ginigival bleeding, measure the size of an oral lesion , aid in the detection of calculus underneath the gums.