As of two days ago, I am officially "between jobs." Jordan and I have been busy in the last month getting things ready for our move. We spent a week in Madison looking at apartments and signed a lease. We rented a moving truck and have sold a fair amount of things on Craigslist. We have about 70% of our stuff in boxes and our apartment is a perpetual mess of piles of more stuff going into boxes. Wednesday was my last day at work and I've been thinking about how much I've learned about oral health and dentistry in the last two years.
I will be the first to admit that before working in a dental office, I had given very little thought to my teeth. I had some negative experiences at the dentist while growing up and went about 5 years after high school without seeing the dentist. Fortunately for me, when I finally went back I only had a few cavities and no signs of gum disease. I was very lucky.
Here are some things I've learned about dentistry... keep in mind that I am not even close to being a dentist, but I worked with some really fantastic ones that taught me a lot...
1. Your teeth are important. Like, really important. It was shocking to me how many people would come in with a toothache and just ask to have the tooth pulled. Even young people, like in their 20's, would rather have a tooth pulled than pay to have it restored. This is crazy. When you lose a tooth, the surrounding teeth shift which will change your bite, and the bone level in your jaw will diminish in the area where the tooth used to be. If one of your teeth is not restorable, then you should get it replaced. But if your dentist tells you that your tooth can be fixed, GET IT FIXED.
2. Dentistry is expensive. But when your dentist tells you that you need to have a cavity filled, it will never be cheaper to fix than it is that day. Here is what happens if you decide to ignore it... the cavity gets bigger and deeper, eventually it will hit your nerve (and that will hurt like hell) and at that point you'll probably need a root canal and crown (which is a lot more expensive than filling a cavity.) If you decide to continue ignoring it, the nerve will die and your tooth with become brittle. Eventually your tooth will break, then it won't be able to be fixed and it will need to be pulled. Then you'll need a partial, bridge, or implant to replace that tooth (which is even more expensive). Oh, and in the middle of all that, you could develop a nasty infection and abscess in your mouth which is both gross and dangerous.
3. If you have an infected tooth, don't mess around. Go see your dentist ASAP and get on antibiotics. Twice, I've seen our doctors have to send a patient to the emergency room immediately for IV antibiotics because they were so swollen that they were having trouble swallowing and if it continued, they wouldn't have been able to breathe. Some people even die from letting infections go on for too long. Don't mess around.
4. If you're looking for a new dentist, make sure they do periodontal charting. This is to check for gum disease. It's not super comfortable, but it's important to make sure that your gum tissue is healthy. You can help prevent periodontal disease by flossing daily and getting your cleaning done twice a year. If you don't, bacteria builds up and can get below the gum tissue causing deep pockets and bone loss. And once you have periodontal disease, you have it forever. It doesn't go away, you can only treat it by having a deep cleaning (which is also expensive) where the hygienist goes below the gums to get out the bacteria. We've have patients that had absolutely no decay but their periodontal disease was so advanced that they had lost a lot of bone and their teeth were actually loose. The worst I ever saw was a 19 year old girl that was so sweet but hadn't had a cleaning done in years. Her gums were so puffy and inflamed and she had already lost a significant amount of bone. If she let things continue, she would be in dentures by the time was was 30.
5. Flossing is super important. I used to think that seeing a little blood in the sink after you floss is normal. A lot of people think that. But it's not. If you start flossing just once a day, that will stop. One of our dentists told me once that if she had to choose between only brushing or only flossing, she'd choose flossing. It's important.
6. Dentures should always be the last resort. We've had patients come in asking to have all their teeth pulled because they just don't like the way they look. This is crazy talk. Dentures are not going to function like your natural teeth. You have to re-learn how to speak and chew, and it's not easy. I've worked with a lot of patients that have gotten dentures and all of them have said that if they could go back, they'd have taken better care and kept their teeth. Dentures give you sore spots and they can be difficult to fit properly and it takes awhile to adjust to them. And if you do eventually need dentures, don't go to a same-day denture place and get economy plates. They will not fit properly and they'll charge you every time you need an adjustment (and you will need a lot in the first few months.) And finally, don't assume that your teeth will just eventually rot and you'll need dentures. We have several patients that are in their 70's and 80's and still have all or almost all of their teeth. If you take good care of them, you can keep your teeth a long long time.
7. It is up to you to be aware of what your dental insurance covers, what your maximum is, and if you have a deductible. I research every patient's insurance before they come in so I can give them an estimate of what their treatment will cost, but the financial responsibility falls to the patient if their insurance doesn't pay on their claim. I can't tell you how many patients don't know ANYTHING about the insurance plan that THEY signed up for and they look to me to explain their plan to them. I do my very best to help patients understand their coverage, and I try to make sure I give them an estimate that is as accurate as I can, but insurance companies are not easy to work with and even they will not guarantee payment before a claim is filed. The biggest thing I've learned about insurance is: it sucks and I hope my next job does not involve calling insurance companies ever again.
8. Here are some things that patients have done that are super obnoxious, don't do them:
- Make the assistant wait to take you back while you make yourself a cup of coffee in the lobby before your appointment and then carry it into your room.
- Show up late and then get mad when we tell you that you can't be
seen. We run a tight schedule and if you show up late, you put our
whole schedule behind.
- Bring your toddler to your two-hour root canal and crown appointment and then rely on the front desk to watch your kids.
- Talk/text on your cell phone while the dentist/assistant/staff are trying to talk to you. Super rude.
- Come up to the front desk after your extraction appointment and remove the bloody gauze from your mouth and place it on the counter in front of me. Super gross.
- Storm into the office upset about a bill and then yell at me when I explain that your insurance plan decided to not pay on your claim. This is not my fault. And yelling at me isn't going to make me want to help you out very much.
- Become upset with me because you think your dental treatment is too expensive. I'm sorry your insurance doesn't cover everything at 100%. This is not my fault.
- Teeth whitening is something you should have done when all your treatment is complete. It's not a good idea to focus on aesthetics when you have active periodontal disease and a ton of work to be done.
9. Be nice to the staff. It's amazing how far the simple act of being nice and polite will take you. I will bend over backward to try and help out a patient that is kind and calm, especially when they're dealing with a difficult billing issue. But if you get a rude attitude, I'm not so inclined to want to do anything for you.
10. Pretty much no one likes going to the dentist. We know this. But we work really hard to make your experience as smooth and pleasant as possible. We want to help you. We want you to have a healthy mouth. We want to make your treatment as affordable as we can. One of my favorite experiences at work was working with new patients that initially came in with a lot of apprehension. We worked with them to create a treatment plan and they became comfortable, got all their work done, and only needed their twice a year check-up and cleaning.
I never ever thought I'd end up working in a dental office. I hated going to the dentist until I finally found one that I liked when I was 24. I always tell our patients that the most important thing is finding someone that you're comfortable with. If you don't like your dentist, don't decide to stop going and getting your check-up, find another one that you like.
Okay, I'll get off my dental soap-box now. Hopefully you learned something from this if you make it all the way to the end! I promise, my next posts will go back to pictures of the cats and stories about our move to WI!
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