Hello world!!! So lockdown is starting to ease and the world is starting to open up again. Over the past few weeks I’ve been filling my head full of advice about how we can get my appointment book opened up again too.

Lots of people have the perception that all Dental Hygienists do is remove tartar, remove some stains and have a bit of a whinge at you about oral hygiene. This my friends is not the case, in actual fact, Dental Hygienist and Therapists help coach and educate you on how to keep your gums healthy which in turn will mean that your body is healthier. Hooray!

Did you know that gum problems are related to Diabetes, Heart Disease, Alzheimer’s, Dementia, Stroke, Erectile Dysfunction and Fertility Problems? Did you know that there is also brand new research coming out in the last few months to suggest that poor oral hygiene has been linked with severity of Covid-19 if happen to catch it? Crazy, super interesting and a fabulous motivator for you to do the best possible job with your oral hygiene at home and see your Dental Hygienist regularly.

Dental Hygienists and Therapists help you hold on to your natural teeth for as long as you possibly can. We are also there to help maintain your dental implants which helps you protect your investment and flag and treat problems as soon as they crop up.

At the end of last week I came back to work after the longest clinical break of my career. Already I’ve seen Gingivitis, Gum Disease and huge amounts of inflammation that has been caused solely by plaque and this is just the tip of the iceberg. There’s a lot of dental problems out there, lots of Gingivitis that could’ve turned into Gum Disease, that’s a lot of stable Gum Disease that could’ve relapsed into active Gum Disease which can increase your risk of tooth loss and other health problems and there’s potentially a lot of expensive dental implants that could now be compromised. Eeeek. We need to get this all sorted out asap. I’m so so excited that my appointment books are now open again and I can start seeing you guys, but we need to be able to do so safely. For this reason there are going to be some c-c-c-c-hanges.

First and foremost, your dental hygiene appointment starts at home. I saw A LOT of plaque last week and I’m expecting to see a hell of a lot more this week. Plaque can be removed with a toothbrush and interdental brushes and floss easily and quickly at home so you can get a real head start with this before your hygiene visit. I’ve written a lot about plaque in my blog post here, but basically plaque causes inflammation, which causes blood to rush to the area and ultimately your gums to bleed. Bleeding gums are not normal and are 100% caused by plaque.

Areas that are bleeding

cause splatter which limits how much treatment we can do on the day
will be tender and uncomfortable to treat
will possibly take longer to treat because of the equipment we will have available under current government guidelines.

For this reason I will be asking you to please please please strive for gold standard oral hygiene before your appointment. I have lots of cheat sheets and guidance of gold standard oral hygiene on my website if you need any refreshers.

Before your appointment we may ask you to fill out certain forms and information at home before you attend, this will probably include you and your households Covid-19 status, please don’t be offended if we ask, please don’t attend your appointment if you are feeling unwell even if this is outside a 24 hour notice period.

Ridin’ Solo to my dental appointment like..

If you normally pay for your hygiene appointments pre payments may be required to limit time spent in reception areas. Appointment prices may also be changing or additional charges may be applied and this is up to each practice individually.

When attending your appointments we would ask if possible if you could attend alone. I understand this can be difficult with childcare etc and other commitments but coming alone means it is easier for us to comply with social distancing regulations.

When you arrive at the practice we will probably ask you to wait in your car until your appointment time rather than in the waiting area so try to avoid arriving too early. If this is not an option socially distanced waiting areas will be available. At this time we won’t have any magazines or children’s toys for you and probably won’t be able to offer you any refreshments. Our toilet facilities will possibly not be available to patients so try do go to the toilet and do any toothbrushing etc at home beforehand.

Before you are taken into the dental surgery you may have your temperature checked, again please don’t be offended we are all having our temperatures checked on a daily basis too. We will ask you to sanitise your hands and you may also be asked to wear PPE. These are practice guidelines and are non negotiable. Soz.

When you come into surgery I’m going to look very different, I promise it’s me under there, I’m happy to see you and I’m smiling like there’s no tomorrow - I’ve missed you :D. It may be a little harder to hear me than usual, if you need to please ask me to speak up or repeat what I’ve said, don’t worry we have loads of time.

On that note your appointment times will be longer, this might be up to 1hr in some cases for a regular appointment,so it won’t be a quick in and out, please give yourself loads of time if you’re meeting a friend or heading back to work or catching a bus or a train after your appointment. Luckily in dentistry we have always had to comply with really strict guidelines regarding PPE but these are extra special enhancements to help protect us and you against Covid-19.

The bulk of your appointment will be oral hygiene based for safety and to make sure, especially now more than ever that your are happy and confident about what I’m suggesting as part of your oral hygiene routine. For this reason I’d love you to bring your dental kit with you, your toothbrush, toothpaste, interdental brushes, floss, water flosser etc. We might be spending a lot of time talking about this, remember the goal of dental hygiene appointments is to coach you to help prevent you getting gum disease in the future or stabilising any existing gum disease not just cleaning teeth when we first come back gum health is the main priority and cosmetic treatments will come later. The most important thing is that you can maintain your oral health at home.

We will still be checking your gums, looking at bleeding scores, tooth wear and completing oral cancer screening at all of your appointments so this will all be the same post Covid-19 we need to make sure we monitor your gums closely during this time.

We will probably be looking at hand scaling your teeth only. This is because the ultrasonic scaler and polishing devices cause aerosol and this aerosol is how viruses like corona virus/Covid-19 are transmitted. These guidelines are changing ALL the time so as soon as we know more you’ll know more. There will be EVEN EXTRA PPE required when we move back to doing aerosol generating procedures like using the good old ultrasonic scaler so again there may be an additional safety charge added for this, we’ll keep you posted and will always confirm any additional charges wit you before your appointment.

Handscaling is how I learned how to clean teeth and I’ve spend hours and hours doing this over the course of my career, I’ve also been using my time during lockdown wisely and refreshing these skills and I feel really happy to deliver general scaling and periodontal treatments using a handscaler so the treatment will be just as effective. This can take a bit longer, sometimes a lot longer. Some of you guys already only have hand scaling at your appointments so there will be no difference for you here. Some people aren’t overly fond of handscaling but it will be much more comfortable if your oral hygiene is good so that why I want you working really hard on your oral hygiene before you come to your appointment. Also although handscaling will be effective at removing some surface stain, stain removal will not be the main goal in the treatment time we have.

To polish or not to polish? That is the question. At the moment we have received no guidance as to whether polishing will generate an aerosol or just splatter. Splatter is still not ideal and you can still transmit the virus through this but this does not stay in the air as aerosols do. We’ve always dealt with splatter and we have superb cross infection protocols in place to deal with this which could not be more heavily regulated. At this point we may or may not be polishing your teeth. I know a lot of you have contacted me and might be a bit disappointed not to have your teeth polished at your visit, as soon as we can polish your teeth we will. As of last week, I was not polishing teeth at dental hygiene appointments, again this is changing on a weekly, sometimes daily basis.

After your treatment we will have to leave the surgery pretty immediately and we won’t be able to go back into the room afterwards so it’s really important that you remember everything, glasses, phones, car keys etc. We can’t hang around and chat afterwards and I’m so sad because you know I love chatting!! Especially because I’ve really missed you all but hopefully this scenario won’t be forever. After you appointment you may be telephoned to make your next appointment rather than making an appointment at reception, again this is for us to help maintain social distancing and where possible keep a one way system within the practice.

Thanks so much guys for reading, hopefully we will have an opening date for you all soon, please bare with us its all new for us too any questions please message me or comment below :).