Introduction
Every January, the temptation to write a blog post on New Year’s Resolutions is almost overwhelming. But my own resolutions are
off-limits because a) you quite rightly don’t care about my shortcomings, and
b) I don’t have any (resolutions, that is). But I can’t exactly write about
your resolutions because a) I don’t know what they are, and b) you don’t have
any (shortcomings). And yet, here we are.
Today, I’ll offer up a single new year’s resolution that I
think is the best combination of being a) undeniably worthwhile, and b) utterly
achievable. Since I don’t know whether this resolution will apply to you, I’ll
also offer the benefits of its polar opposite. And for good measure, I’m also
including five resolutions that all dental hygienists ought to take on.
Part 1 - Take better
care of your teeth
So here is your New Year’s Resolution: take better care of your teeth. Why is this a good one? First off, it’s achievable. We’re
talking about spending just a few extra minutes a day, which can make a huge
difference in your oral health. (I know … it’s impossible to talk about dental
hygiene without coming across as pedantic and square.)
If you don’t always brush, and/or seldom floss, then it’s
time to face the fact that your teeth and gums are probably disgusting. If your
parents spent a fortune on orthodontia, it’s a shame that you’re taking such
poor care of their investment. And if you didn’t get orthodontia, your teeth
need all the help they can get.
On the flip side, if you’re one of those people who is so
scrupulous about oral care that you think you don’t need to visit the dentist,
think again. Everybody should visit the dentist twice a year. If you have
insurance coverage, use it—this won’t cost you a thing, because your insurance
company cares (possibly more than you do) about preventing expensive repair
work later. (If you don’t have dental insurance, here’s another New Year’s
Resolution: get a real job!)
My grandfather died a week or so shy of his 101st birthday,
with all his original teeth. That was impressive. My father, who recently died a bit shy
of his 81st birthday, was not on the right track. It’s not that he didn’t take
care of his teeth—he was in the second category, thinking he was above going to the dentist. Well, I saw
into his mouth a lot toward the end, what with trying to read his lips when his
voice was weak, spoon-feeding him, and eventually, administering morphine.
His teeth were in shockingly bad shape. I probably shouldn’t be admitting this,
but I found it a bit of a relief (or at least a silver lining) that, through death,
my father was escaping a looming dental crisis.
Yes, you should do all you can to take care of your teeth at
home—flossing, stimulating (more on this later), and brushing. But you can’t go
it alone. Dentists and hygienists have special tools that get your teeth whiter
and cleaner than you can, period. If you hate going to the dentist, is it
because you’re afraid and/or ashamed? If so, let that be your wake-up call. Do
a good enough job with your teeth that you can walk into the dental office with
your head held high.
But this resolution isn’t just about avoiding things like
root canals and crowns. It’s about avoiding food in your teeth and/or bad
breath. This isn’t some selfish New Year’s Resolution that only addresses your
personal quest for self-actualization; you’re doing all the people around you a
favor by not being gross.
I use a gum stimulator (see photo above) after every meal,
to work the crap out of the nooks and crannies between my teeth. It’s shocking
how much my gum stimulator dredges up—food shrapnel that brushing and even
flossing don’t get. Once you become aware of this detritus, which you’ve heretofore
been flashing to the world after every meal, you should feel an intense
retroactive embarrassment for all the times you didn’t use this simple tool.
Part 2 – Stop beating
yourself up about dental hygiene
All right, calm down, I get it—there are readers to whom the
resolution above simply doesn’t apply. If you’re one of them, congratulations.
For you I have a special New Year’s Resolution: relax and stop beating yourself
up.
Beating yourself up? Yes—I suspect that, if you’re like me,
and dental hygiene is your life, you suffer a lot when you go to the dentist.
Not because your gums bleed—they’re far too healthy for that—but because you
don’t get the credit you deserve for all your good oral habits. Sure, you do
sometimes—about half of my dental hygienists over the decades have worshipped
me like a god, and all my dentists have—but you probably get a lot of unfounded
criticism too. Being conscientious, you let this criticism get to you … but you
shouldn’t. It’s not you … it’s them. Which brings me to the final section of
this post.
Part 3 – Five New
Year’s Resolutions for dental hygienists
The way some hygienists go on about my perceived failings as
custodian of my teeth, I have to wonder what they say to people who eat too
much sugar, and/or don’t floss, and/or (gasp) smoke cigarettes or chew tobacco.
Their lectures must border on abuse: “You filthy degenerate, you don’t even deserve teeth!” Or maybe they go easy on
the less diligent patients for fear of alienating them completely, while saving
their scrutiny for arrogant patients like me who think they’re all that.
Look, I get that being a dental hygienist is a tough job, and these people have a big workload without a lot of
socializing at the water cooler to break up the day. Surely lots of patients
are a bit stressed out, and those with neglected mouths must be tough to take.
But that doesn’t mean some of these hygienists shouldn’t try harder to improve my experience. And so,
here are my New Year’s Resolutions for this crew.
Hygienist resolution #1: Stop making shit up
I’ve fielded various complaints from hygienists over the
years. Here are some examples:
- “You are pressing too hard with the floss and slicing up your gums.”
- “You aren’t getting the backs of your front teeth.”
- “You aren’t getting the back of your 12-year molars.”
- “You’re brushing too hard and causing gum recession.”
- “You grind your teeth at night. Soon you’ll have no enamel left.”
Hygienist resolution #2: Stop making this My Teeth Cleaning With Andre
Why are hygienists so chatty? I guess it gets a bit lonely
when you’re only interacting with patients, not colleagues, but why don’t you
people understand that I cannot talk when my mouth is stretched wide open and
has your hands in it? You ask me these open-ended questions and I don’t know
what to do. Due to the crowding from your fingers and your instruments, my
tongue cannot reach my teeth, my alveolar ridge, or my hard palate, so
basically all I can do is grunt. If you’ve wondered why my description of my
holiday plans is so terse and unhelpful, that is why.
Where things get especially frustrating is when you take
unfair advantage of my situation to criticize me, secure in the knowledge that
I can’t really defend myself. So when you say, “Oh, I see you’re a mouth
breather—but then, you knew that,” you shouldn’t take my “Huh” for any kind of
agreement. It’s just that I can’t be bothered to twist my head away to
disengage from your fingers so I can say, “Look, if I mouth-breathed in my
sleep, my wife would surely call me on it. If the bit of gum between my front
teeth seems a little raw, it’s because I exercise in the cold morning air, a
practice that I refuse to give up just to avoid the minimal damage it may cause
to my gums.”
Hygienist resolution #3: Keep your monologue anodyne
Many hygienists I’ve encountered are quite happy with my
minimal contributions to our conversation because all they really want is to
talk. Perhaps that’s why they chose this line of work. I’m fine with this, so
long as their chatter is low-key and uncontroversial. Ideally, I’d like to be
able to sleep through it, since it’s so rare to be leaning back in a chair like
this with my head supported and nothing required of me. So, hygienists: please
don’t upset me with diatribes about, say, the sorry state of public education,
or worse, anything personal.
One hygienist started off by asking my why my arm was in a
sling (for this I had to twist my head away long enough to say, “Bike
accident”), and then she moved on to how dangerous bicycles are and how
irresponsible it is to ride one on city streets, and then—I am not making this
up—she went off on a tirade about how hard it is teaching her teenaged daughter
how to drive, because the girl just won’t listen.
She lamented, “I told my daughter to take the highway on-ramp and she flat refused, she was like, ‘Mom, I don’t
feel comfortable,’ and I had to yell at her and say, ‘Just do it!’ and so finally she did.” I was very disturbed by this: not
only was this person a total psycho, but she was having some kind of freak-out,
while holding a very sharp pointy object millimeters away from the softest
parts of my mouth.
Hygienist resolution #4: Enough with the face shield!
When did dental hygienists start using the clear plastic
face shield? This device is ridiculous. Okay, I get it, you don’t want to catch
cold from a patient, but let’s think about this. You’ve got a device stick in my
mouth continuously sucking every drop of moisture out of it, and I’m not talking
anyway. Before these face shields, I uncomplainingly tolerated the risk of dental hygienists’ spittle landing in my mouth (assisted by gravity, no less), but you can’t seem to handle the reduced risk of my spittle reaching you and making its way past your paper surgical mask. Meanwhile your face shield makes you look just a little bit like the riot
police.
Think about it. Flight attendants, despite being bombarded
with cosmic radiation, don’t wear unsightly lead vests and trousers. They know
the risks of their profession, and they accept them. Politicians work giant
crowds, shaking hundreds of hands a day, and they’re not wearing single-use
rubber gloves. For most of the history of dental offices, hygienists accepted
the risk of germs—why can’t you?
Hygienist resolution #5: Stop being so stingy with the
water!
Back in the glory days, there was a little sink next to the
chair, and the patient got a little paper cup of water, and could rinse all
that powdery residue out of his or her mouth after the teeth cleaning. If he or
she wanted another cupful, he or she could just ask for it. Maybe that got too
expensive, or dental offices are trying to conserve water or cups, because now
that sink is gone. I grant that this isn’t the hygienist’s fault. But why give
me just one little squirt of water from your little nozzle? Are you that
concerned about saving water, or is this some little power trip? Why not hand
the nozzle to me and let me help myself?
While you’re at it, how about giving me, say, a full five
seconds to swish that water around in my mouth before thrusting the suction
back in my mouth and taking all the water back? You give me like a second and
it’s not nearly enough time. What, are you in a rush? Where was this sense of urgency when you kept pausing during
the tooth-scraping because you got so into your monologue?
From now on, maybe I’ll bring my own water bottle to my
appointments. In fact, I’m making that my
New Year’s Resolution.
Related reading
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