Dental Hygienist Essay

Working in the dental field has made me realized that many people do not care for their dental health. Why do most people see the dentist only if they are in pain? I ask myself this question quite often at I ask my patients. I love working in the dental field and part of selecting my career has a hygienist is that I want to educate all the patients at my office about how much we need our teeth and how to keep a good oral health. Everyone wants to have a pretty amazing smile. Most importantly everyone wants to have a good healthy oral health.

Our mouths are extremely important for important reasons. Our smile is a greeter and is also part of our first impressions. Our teeth helps us masticate our food that we need for our bodies to

get nourished. Personally speaking I love to eat is one of my favorite things to go and enjoy different types of food. It amazes me to see that many people don’t think about eating when it comes down to their oral hygiene. The reason why I say that is because many patient just want to take the less expensive treatment when it comes down to teeth. If you have a tooth ache usually is because there is something wrong and if you wait for the last minute to come when you are in severe pain that means that we have a large problem.
In order to find out what is going on with your dental health you have to go to the dentist usually every six months. If you are going to the regular dentist appointment that means every six months usually two cleanings a year that is recommended. During this appointment you meet with your dental hygienist that takes x-rays, removes plaque, flosses your teeth, evaluates your gum tissues and usually the dentist will come in to do a periodic exam and review your oral health screen you for oral cancer and review x-rays. Insurance usually covers this appointment for free because is a preventive visit. If you are doing this that is awesome keep up the good work.
In another hand if you are not and you rarely see the dentist that means that we have to help educate you why going to the dentist is important for your oral health. If you haven’t seen the dentist in a long time there is a large possibility that you might have periodontal disease which is the number one reason why adults loose bone and eventually teeth. Periodontal disease is inflammation of the gums when we do not remove the plaque and bacteria collect from our food. While we are brushing our teeth we have to make sure we are removing all of the bacteria. If not the bacteria will get hard and create pockets of tarter that after time the bacteria will eventually result in bone loss and kills the ligaments that hold our teeth solid and are not mobile.
Periodontal disease is painless and that may be why several people have it without even knowing. For that reason they do not go to the dentist for a long period of times because they see it being worthless or just a waste of money because they are not educated in oral health. Many people will brush their teeth regularly usually that means that they are brushing once or twice a day. They believe that is they are brushing and if they do not have pain there is no need to go see the dentist.
Other times we have several people that cannot afford dental insurance and see it extremely difficult financial to afford to go into the dentist. There is a few dentist in the Denver Metro area that are low- income dentist or offer payment arrangement plans. When we have a patient come in for either a comprehensive or a periodic exam we like to educate them in their oral health. Depending on the patient’s case we set priorities in what needs to be done as soon as possible typically infections are always top priority. We place patient on antibiotics if they are needed prior to starting treatment. Usually after we set up our patient with a cleaning appointment.
During the cleaning appointment usually we can establish if the patient is not having a regularly pattern of flossing or brushing. The way that we can tell if the patients is flossing on daily pattern is by the gums look healthy they are nice and pink none to minimal bleeding. Unhealthy gums usually bleed a lot while brushing and flossing inflamed dark purple or black gums. Flossing is an important skill to have for preventing interproximal cavities this mean that the cavities are in between the teeth. Think about it like this if you are drinking juices, soda, protein shakes, or anything that contains sugars. After a few days this sugar is collected and then later becomes plaque and eventually tartar and that is when you actually develop the famous periodontal disease.
Of course that once you have the periodontal disease we have treatments to treat this infection.

You have to go to the dentist and have the dentist or the dental hygienist look at you and find out if you periodontal disease give you a diagnosed. The treatment for periodontal disease is scaling and root planning is usually known has the deep cleaning. The deep cleaning is not the most comfortable appointment but is very helpful. At our practice we place local anesthesia for the patient to be relax and usually it can be done into two or four visits if you are lucky maybe one visit. During this treatment we place anesthesia, the dental hygienist places an antibacterial mouth rinse around the gum to prevent future bacteria. Smooth the root by removing tarter from the roots with special instruments. Most of the time our patients do this into two appointment and it takes about ninety minutes each appointment. The scaling and root planning is done by a licensed register dental hygienist usually not very often dentist will do this procedure.

After have the scaling and root planning is done approximately one month after the dental hygienist will bring you back to evaluate the gum tissue. During this appointment they will take measurements of the gums to keep record of the amount of bone we have left evaluate the gum tissue. The dental hygienist will come up with a plan with the patient to set up a good recall schedule to prevent bone loss or loss of teeth. The patient will be in a three, four, five, or six month recall and this is called periodontal maintenance along with the two annual cleanings that is

recommended.
Once you have established a good health pattern and the measurement are in the healthy range which means that you are in the lowest number of periodontal pockets readings which are one, two, three, and four. You will be consider to be a patient with good oral health. I personally always like to talk to patients and educate them in how and what treatment is the best according to the case. Overall do not wait to be in pain to go visit your dental health provider preventing infections or cavities is going to be the best decision and also it will be the least expensive financial speaking. Take care or your mouth and don’t be afraid to smile!