I have been doing my own periodontal scaling since 2006. Because of severe periodontal disease and lack of funds. Successfully keeping almost all my teeth in my mouth against all odds. Except one gone, plus a few highly likely goners that are still surviving and which I may be lucky enough to heal someday. Or which will lose but just not today. Or real real soon.

Including - periodontal abscess curettage - which is a real tooth killer and people killer too. I have a webpage and YouTube videos. I am easy to find because I am the only person posting such information. Just search for relevant terms or find - diy perio.

The strategy is - progressive periodontal debridement - Not for the faint of heart. Lots of blood and scary stuff. Lots of twists and turns and confusion. Plus dumb dangerous moves. But ultimately doable. And not as dangerous as it may sound. Maybe not really very dangerous at all. If you don't do anything real stupid.

If things are very severe then takes lots of time. Like maybe even 10-40 or more hours per tooth. Plus months and months of activity, recovery, healing and more activity.

If things are not so bad then it isn't that difficult. 20-40 hours of quality time could just do the trick to reverse the progress of the infection. If not so severe. Plus gain a lifetime survival skill.

Realistically need quite a lot of good curettes. But can do a lot with just the Langer 1-2 Extended Access Mini. Plus the PDT Mini-me (Langer 5-6 straight curette plus straight sickle). Plus possibly the PDT Montana Jack. Which is an offset sickle.

Just figure that dental hygienists are high school graduates and only have a few months training doing the actual scaling. Regular people can do the same and get the general hang of it within 10-20 hours of trial and error. Can also practice on domestic animals, like dogs and cats. The principles are the same.

Also includes some difficult to understand esoteric stuff. But only if the disease is very very severe and you are dealing with goners anyway. Otherwise it is fairly straightforward. Clean and heal.

I have also been nursing a cavity without filling it in because tooth already has too many fillings and is too delicate to drill. Along with being periodontally compromised.

Trick to cavities is to first clean out the crud with an explorer and keep your fingers crossed you don't hit the nerve! Then get the narrowest available Sugarman File to open up the top. But stay away from any cusps. Then use toothpick to polish. Peroxide to debride. Iodine to disinfect. A&H Whitening Booster to remineralize. Or equivilent. Like Novamon or liquid calcium.

Eventually the fibroblasts inside of the tooth will form a hardened layer that is semi-permanent. Except for any gaps. Not the ideal, but doable. Filling it in in another matter. Which I don't see any good materials except for gold. Which is expensive and hard to work with.

On the short term can use tooth varnish, like Copalite. After the months and months of fibroblast hygiene and healing.

But otherwise most filling materials are problematic. Namely they shrink and then leave a gap for bacteria to creep in. Plus moisture hurts the curing. Plus thickness hurts the curing. Etc. No easy answers. Maybe keeping it open with Copalite is best. Or to build up the Copalite slowly, with like 50 layers? Who knows? I sure don't.