Hygienist Services
We don’t want to shout it too loudly, but we think hygienists are more important than dentists when it comes to stable long term health.
When it comes to maintaining your dental health, the relationship and work the hygienist does with you is incredibly important.
It’s kind of like a physiotherapist. If you do the work to prevent an injury, then many times you can avoid surgery. With hygienists, you can avoid needing dentistry or add years to the work you already have.
I can’t think of a better investment.
Also, it’s lovely having clean teeth.
What Does a Hygienist Actually Do?
A lot more than most people realise! Our hygienists are registered dental professionals whose work is preventing and treating gum disease, and helping you keep your mouth as healthy as possible between dental check-ups.
During a hygienist appointment, they’ll thoroughly clean your teeth – removing plaque and tartar (calculus) that builds up in those hard-to-reach areas that even the best brushing and flossing can’t quite get to. They’ll clean above and below the gum line, polish your teeth, and check the health of your gums carefully.
But here’s the thing that makes our hygienists really special – they’re educators. They’ll spend time with you, show you where you’re missing when you brush, recommend the right tools for your mouth (not everyone needs the same brush or technique), and give you honest, practical advice about how to keep things healthy at home. It’s genuinely personalised care.
Why Gum Health Is So Important
This is something we feel really passionate about, because gum disease is one of the most common health conditions in the world – and most people don’t even know they have it.
Gum disease starts with gingivitis – red, swollen gums that bleed when you brush. At this stage, it’s completely reversible with the right care. But if it’s left untreated, it can progress to periodontitis, which is a more serious condition where the bone that supports your teeth starts to break down. This is one of the leading causes of tooth loss in adults, and the frustrating thing is, it’s largely preventable.
There’s also growing evidence linking gum disease to serious systemic health conditions, including heart disease, diabetes, stroke and complications during pregnancy. Looking after your gums isn’t just about keeping your teeth – it’s about looking after your whole body.
Regular hygienist visits are the single most effective way to prevent and manage gum disease. We can’t stress this enough.
What to Expect at Your Hygienist Appointment
We know some people feel a bit nervous about hygienist visits (especially if it’s been a while), so let us put your mind at ease. Here’s what happens:
Assessment. Your hygienist will check your gums, measure any pockets around the teeth, and assess the overall health of your mouth. This helps us track changes over time and catch any problems early.
Professional cleaning. Using specialist instruments (both ultrasonic and hand instruments), we’ll remove all the plaque and tartar that’s built up since your last visit. This includes cleaning below the gum line, which is something you can’t do at home.
Polishing. Your teeth will be polished to remove surface staining and leave them feeling smooth and fresh. This isn’t just cosmetic – smooth teeth are harder for plaque to stick to.
Personalised advice. This is where the real value is. Your hygienist will talk to you about your brushing technique, recommend specific products, and give you tips tailored to your mouth. Everyone’s different, and what works for one person might not work for another.
If you’re someone who finds dental visits uncomfortable, please let us know. We can use topical numbing gel, take breaks, and adjust our approach to make sure you’re as comfortable as possible.
How Often Should You See the Hygienist?
For most people, we recommend every six months. But if you have gum disease, are prone to tartar build-up, or have dental implants, we may suggest more frequent visits – every three to four months.
The key is consistency. Regular visits mean we can keep on top of things and prevent small issues from becoming big ones.
Hygienist Care for Dental Implants
If you have dental implants, hygienist visits are especially important. Implants need careful maintenance to prevent a condition called peri-implantitis, which is essentially gum disease around an implant. Our hygienists use specialised instruments designed specifically for cleaning around implants without damaging them.
We recommend all implant patients see our hygienist every six months at minimum. It’s one of the best things you can do to protect your investment and keep your implants healthy for the long term.
What is our new hygiene unit?
We have built a dedicated hygiene unit at our Grand Canal Dock practice with three treatment suites used only for hygiene and gum care. That matters for a reason that sounds boring until you have lived it: appointments stop being squeezed around the dental chairs. Hygiene gets its own space, its own equipment and its own time.
Your hygienist will be Liz, Catherine, Lynn or Aaron. We work on first-name terms here, and most patients end up seeing the same person visit after visit, which is exactly what you want — the person who cleaned your teeth six months ago is the one who notices what has changed.
What is biofilm therapy, and how is it different from a scrape and polish?
Our biofilm therapy follows a guided, biofilm-first protocol on EMS AIRFLOW technology — warm water, air and a fine powder lift plaque off the tooth and under the gum, instead of scraping every surface. Most people describe it as a warm spray rather than the scraping and scratching they brace themselves for.
The research backs the approach up. A 2023 systematic review in the Journal of Clinical Medicine reviewed 55 papers on subgingival air polishing and described it as a promising alternative to hand and ultrasonic scalers for removing dental biofilm. In practice we use both — air polishing does the biofilm, and instruments still deal with hardened tartar, because nothing sprays calculus off a root surface. We go through how it works, who it suits and where it stops in our guide to biofilm therapy with EMS AIRFLOW.
Does the powder actually make a difference?
Not as much as the marketing suggests — a 2025 systematic review and network meta-analysis in Frontiers in Physiology pooled nine randomised trials and 462 patients and found no statistically significant difference between erythritol, glycine and trehalose powders. Erythritol ranked highest for pocket-depth reduction, which is why it is what we use, but we would rather tell you the honest version: the operator and the recall interval matter more than the powder in the machine.
Where is the hygiene unit?
The hygiene unit is Unit 40 Forbes Street, in the same building as our existing clinic at 1 Forbes Street, Grand Canal Dock, Dublin 2 — an expansion of what we do here, not a new clinic. If you are using a sat-nav or Google Maps, the Eircode for the hygiene unit is D02 PP49; the main clinic is D02 FN53. Both bring you to the same building on Forbes Street, and our directions page covers the DART, Luas, bus and parking. Bookings, phone number and email are exactly as they have always been: 01 636 0192 and hello@docklandsdental.ie.
How much does a dental check-up and teeth cleaning cost in Dublin?
At Docklands Dental in Dublin, a check-up (dental exam) is €80 and a professional teeth cleaning with our hygienist is €95, so a check-up and clean costs €175 in total. Those are our own fees, straight from our price list. No packages, no discounts, no limited-time offers — the price is the price, and you will know it before you sit down.
A few things can be added, and we will tell you before any of them happen: a small X-ray is €30 and an OPG (the wide X-ray of the whole mouth) is €60, taken only when clinically necessary rather than by default; local anaesthetic during your clean is €20 if you want the area numbed. A child’s exam is €55.
For most people we recommend a check-up and a clean every six months, which comes to €350 a year at our fees. If you have gum disease, build up tartar quickly or have dental implants, we may suggest seeing the hygienist every three to four months instead.
What is included in a check-up and clean at Docklands Dental?
Our €80 check-up in Dublin 2 covers five things every time: your teeth, your gums, an oral cancer screening, your bite and jaw, and any existing fillings or crowns. We look for decay, cracks and wear; assess your gum health; check the soft tissues of your mouth, tongue and throat for unusual changes; look for signs of bite or jaw-joint problems; and review the condition of previous work. There is more detail on our general dental care page.
The €95 clean is the hygiene appointment described above: your hygienist checks your gums and measures any pockets, removes plaque and tartar above and below the gum line, polishes, and talks you through your brushing and the right tools for your mouth. Air polishing with EMS AIRFLOW deals with the biofilm and instruments deal with hardened tartar — our guide to biofilm therapy explains the difference.
What if my gums need more than a routine clean?
If your gums need more than a routine clean in Dublin, that is non-surgical periodontal therapy (deep cleaning) at €250 per session, and each session is a full hour. It is a different appointment for a reason: treating active gum disease is careful, methodical work under the gumline, and it cannot be done properly in the time set aside for a routine clean. Our full fees are on the price list, and we explain the sessions and the staging in what a deep clean costs in Dublin.
We will also be straight with you about what regular care buys. A 2016 modelling study in the Journal of Clinical Periodontology — German costs, and patients in ongoing gum-disease maintenance rather than routine cleans — found that regular maintenance kept teeth for longer but did not necessarily reduce expenses. So we will not tell you hygiene visits save you money. What they reliably buy you is keeping your own teeth for longer, and that is a better thing to buy.
Why is gum treatment staged rather than done in one go?
Because the European Federation of Periodontology’s 2020 treatment guideline sets out a deliberately stepwise pathway, and every step depends on how your gums responded to the one before. It starts with the things you do at home and the biofilm we can reach, moves to instrumentation under the gum, and only then considers anything surgical, with maintenance running underneath all of it.
That is also why we quote gum treatment per session rather than as a single headline figure. We genuinely do not know at the first visit how many hours your mouth will need, and we would rather stage it honestly than quote you a number we cannot stand over. If your gums need more advanced periodontal care than we provide, we will tell you, explain why, and arrange the referral — the Institute of Specialist and Cosmetic Dentistry explains how gum disease is treated at each stage.
Book Your Hygienist Appointment
Whether it’s been six months or six years, we’d love to see you. Our hygiene team is friendly, thorough, and genuinely passionate about helping you keep your mouth healthy.
Our team at Docklands Dental is at 1 Forbes Street, Grand Canal Dock, Dublin 2, D02 FN53. Call us on 01 636 0192 or book online below.
