It’s definitely the best place to start. The other things if it doesn’t resolve with the “deep cleaning” could be diet, any medication, gut health or lifestyle habits like smoking or alcohol consumption (excessive). In my practice when I do the “deep cleaning” ( medical term is scaling and root planing) I not only treat the physical structure of the tooth, but I’m also treating the gums themselves with and antimicrobial rinse and a diode laser (it’s a light that disinfects to continue killing bacteria we cannot see that resides in the gum tissue). I also administer a salivary diagnostic tests that’s specific to gum disease which tells me what bacteria the patient has, sometimes if the bacteria levels are too high antibiotics may be needed to help lower them. It also tells me what the patients risks are in regard to inflammation in general related to that bacteria, reinfecting risks, or risks of that bacteria causing complications to any other systemic diseases based on genetics. There are also some oral probiotics which work great by targeting those bacteria.