If you’ve ever had your gum pockets measured at a dental exam, you know how uncomfortable the procedure can be. Commonly done with an old-fashioned pick, the procedure involves your dentist or hygienist probing the tissue between your tooth and gum line to see how deep the pocket is and how far down the pick will go. A healthy pocket depth is no more than 3 millimeters - anything more could signal signs of gum disease, and the deeper the pocket, the more severe the disease.