Gwanghwamun Dental Clinic: Even If It Doesn’t Hurt, Do I Really Need a Dental Checkup?

Hello.

This is Yonsei Yegam Dental Clinic, located directly across from the main Samsung Building, right at Exit 7 of City Hall Station.

Located 233 meters straight ahead from City Hall Station Exit 7, our clinic is visited not only by people from City Hall Station, but also by many patients from Gwanghwamun, Seoul Station, Chungjeongno Station, Seodaemun Station, and surrounding company employees, as well as from overseas.

Unlike other clinics, we do not leave our blog posts to marketing agencies.

We receive posts from the director and upload them, or our in-house staff write the blog directly.

Even blog posts written in English are not run through a translator or outsourced to a translation company; our staff members handle them directly. The reason is professionalism.

When you look at blog posts written by marketing agencies, you can tell at a glance that they are copy-and-paste content written by someone with no dental knowledge.

Today, we asked a dental hygienist on staff with 11 years of experience to write down the things she would like to say to patients after working in dentistry for a long time.

She wrote this post on the topic, “Even if it doesn’t hurt, do I really need a dental checkup?”

Hello, I am a dental hygienist with 11 years of experience working at Yonsei Yegam Dental Clinic near City Hall Station.

Whenever I tell people that I work in dentistry, one of the questions many people ask me is, “Do I really need to go to the dentist even if nothing hurts?”

I then say, “You should go when it doesn’t hurt. If you go to the dentist only when it hurts, it’s already too late.”

Because cavities and gum disease do not heal naturally once they develop, taking care of them in advance is not just a simple saying—it is truly important.

1. Regular checkups

If a cavity is found early, it can be treated with a simple resin filling, but if it is left alone even a little, it can lead to root canal treatment, a crown, and in severe cases, extraction. The same goes for gum disease. At first, the gums may only swell and bleed, but if left untreated, the bone will start to dissolve and the teeth will become loose. If you get regular checkups consistently, you can prevent these situations in advance. Having your teeth checked regularly even once every 6 months to a year is ultimately the surest way to keep your teeth for a long time.

2. Scaling

Scaling is the process of removing tartar that has built up on the tooth surface and between the gums. Once tartar hardens, it cannot be removed with a toothbrush or dental floss, and if left as it is, the gums will swell and bleed.

Health insurance also supports one scaling treatment per year for adults aged 19 and older. That shows it is not a simple cosmetic procedure, but an essential part of oral care. At our clinic, we also provide gargle anesthesia so you can receive scaling as painlessly as possible, so please let us know if you would like that.

3. Gum treatment

Once gum disease progresses, it affects the bone as well, so treatment becomes larger and more complex over time. However, if you receive gum treatment consistently at an early stage, it can prevent further worsening and may improve.

Gum treatment is a procedure that thoroughly removes inflammation and bacteria deep inside the gums, helping the gums firmly support the teeth again.

Some patients worry and say, “I heard that I’ll eventually have to have the tooth pulled.”

In fact, a clinic that tries treatments like these is a place that is making an effort to save your natural teeth until the very end. Artificial teeth can be made, but nothing functions as perfectly as natural teeth.

That is why our clinic always tries to treat teeth in a way that preserves them rather than extracting them whenever possible.

Sometimes going to the dentist can feel bothersome, and you may think it is okay because nothing hurts.

But the small care you provide now is the surest way to prevent bigger problems in the future and keep your teeth healthy for a long time.

At Yonsei Yegam Dental Clinic, we will always do our best so that all patients can receive treatment comfortably and with confidence. Today’s post was written directly by a dental hygienist with more than 10 years of experience working at our City Hall Station Yonsei Yegam Dental Clinic.

Going forward, we will continue to be Yonsei Yegam Dental Clinic, striving for dental health and beautiful teeth for our patients’ happy meals.

Selected after six consecutive years of Seoul City-certified Level 3 screening, Yonsei Yegam Dental Clinic, a Seoul Metropolitan Government medical tourism partner institution