”Small stones hard and white, neatly lined up in two rows. Brush them clean every morning, and they will not break.” This is a riddle about teeth. As a “face project”, white and healthy teeth can enhance the charm index and improve the quality of life, so many people will regularly go to the dental hospital to clean their teeth. However, there are people on the internet who say that “scaling can hurt your teeth and damage your enamel”. It is very difficult to recover from tooth injury. Others say that real teeth have a light yellow color, which is the enamel, and that scaling will destroy the enamel and make the teeth look white. Are these claims credible? Enamel is the outermost layer of our teeth and is one of the hardest tissues in the human body. It effectively prevents external damage to the teeth and protects the dentin. It can be said that enamel is a protective barrier built on the teeth. So can scaling really destroy the hard enamel? The reporter went to the Fourth Military Medical University Dental Hospital in Xi’an. First the reporter collected four teeth with dental calculus, which is a calcified deposit surrounding the tooth surface. It can cause direct damage to the gums and periodontal tissues. It is also the main reason why we scaled the teeth, and then the reporter these teeth were put under the body microscope for observation. The expert told us that although these teeth had more calculus, they still had a good enamel structure and could be seen to have a uniform color and a healthy luster. The reporter then sent these teeth to the scaling department, imitating the normal scaling process, using a professional ultrasonic scaler to start cleaning the teeth. The teeth after cleaning are obviously whiter than before, so is it because the enamel is destroyed, as the netizens say, so that the teeth look white? In order to see more clearly the enamel of these teeth after cleaning, the reporter put the four teeth under the scanning electron microscope, magnified 5000 times for further observation. And take a normal tooth that has not been cleaned for comparison. Doctor: first look at the performance of the teeth without cleaning, its surface enamel is relatively flat, the performance of the four cleaned teeth, the entire crown part and enamel is also very smooth, without any depression, and no difference compared to normal teeth. So once the enamel is destroyed what will the tooth look like? What kind of damage can be done to the tooth? Doctor: If there is artificial damage to the enamel there will be scratches, dents and even some defects and the teeth will feel very sensitive. Although in our experiments, the four teeth were not found to have enamel damage due to scaling, does that mean that scaling will not damage the enamel? Doctor: It will not damage the enamel because the principle of scaling is to produce some airflow and force through high frequency sonic vibrations to shatter the calculus from the attached tooth surface, even though the probe is placed on the tooth, it is a relatively round and blunt head and will not cause direct damage to the tooth surface. Tooth enamel is the hardest tissue in the human body, usually we have to use a special diamond knife or tungsten steel knife to cut it when we do experiments, so the power of scaling is not enough to damage tooth enamel. Tips It is true that scaling does not destroy tooth enamel. Experts recommend: 1. To avoid calculus, it is best to have your teeth scaled once every three to six months. 2, Polishing treatment should be done after scaling to facilitate the recovery of periodontal tissue attachment.