Hi bloody Brian:
I am a hygienist - and I totally understand your concerns. I wonder the
same things about the three different hygienists who work on my mouth. It
is very hard to know who is just rough, and who is doing a proper job.
Usually a cleaning is uncomfortable. Even healthy gums find it tender at
best. The hygienist is usually always working under the gums, scraping off
the hard deposits. These deposits encourage bacteria growth and adherence.
So, a hygienist who just fools around above the gums, and gives you a really
nice, comfortable cleaning isn't doing the job. On the other hand, some
hygienists are rough. And the floss should not snap through the contacts.
Gums just sore from a cleaning may find a proper flossing uncomfortable
though. Your hygienist has prescribed Chlorhexidine rinse for you, and it
is very good for killing bacteria and helping with healing. Do you have any
pockets? (Deep areas under the gums) Did she mention bone loss -
periodontal disease? If you have these problems, you have a serious
infection in your mouth that is difficult to heal up. Usually an increase
to three month visits is required - and helps. If you floss daily, you
should not have any bleeding with home care - and minimal bleeding with a
professional cleaning. Of course, nothing is simple - and the immune system
affects the way people's gums react to bacteria. Some people can floss
regularly and still have areas of infection that are tricky to heal, and
others don't floss and seem OK. In general though, the better you clean the
bacteria out, the less infection. Smoking greatly increases your chances of
gum problems.
Anyway, I took a new job in a practice where the previous hygienist was not
very thorough (and had short appointments), and that was really hard,
because everyone thinks I'm more rough ... wrecking their gums, etc. But,
there were many many people who did not know they had periodontal disease
(no probe readings were done) - and I had to break this bad news to them. I
put all the appointments to an hour. The first year was hard!
Usually, even a rough hygienist will not damage your gums. It only feels
that way. If you have slightly infected gums, they will be more sore than
average - working under them is similar to disturbing a wound site. It
hurts.
If you floss daily, (properly, nice and slow, good technique) brush well
(electrics are great) - go give that hygienist a try again. You may find
that it is not so bad, because you will have healed up your mouth.
Good luck!
Linda.
Brian W. <> wrote in message
news: om...
Quote:
> I am sitting here writing this with a dull headache and sore gums from
> my dentist visit yesterday...and I only got a cleaning! Our regular
> dentist just changed offices and we wanted to follow him because my
> wife has been going to him for 15 years and I have been seeing him for
> 8 now. At his old office we both had a different hygenist, but we
> both loved who we had. They were very nice and best of all - we
> didn't "dread" going to the dentist because we weren't in pain during
> the regular cleaning. Now that we have followed our dentist - who we
> see maybe for five minutes per visit - we have gotten a very
> "thorough" hygenist who pays very close attention to our gums rather
> than our teeth. My wife and I have good hygeine - not the best - but
> good hygeine. Neither one of us has had a cavity in the last seven
> years. We have seen the new hygenist twice now - yesterday was the
> second visit. We had our appointments on the same day and we agreed
> that if this visit wasn't any better, we would say something to our
> dentist. I went first and ended up closing my eyes and praying about
> half way through the cleaning. If felt like she was poking and
> prodding every part of my gum and was very forceful with the picks and
> tools (sorry, don't know the official terms). My gums were bleeding
> all over the place. She took about seven full swabs of blood out
> during the process - not to mention the blood that was sucked out.
> She said that my gums were bleeding due to bacteria buildup and my
> brushing technique wasn't doing the trick. I asked why I had never
> had this much bleeding (I'd had a little, but never this much with my
> other hygenist). She said she didn't know - maybe it was my other
> hygenist.
>
> My question is - can a hygenist be TOO aggressive and could it be
> harmful to my teeth if she is digging and scraping my teeth too hard
> and prodding too deep into my gums?
>
> She finally finished all the poking and prodding and forceful scraping
> and I thought - oh, the flossing should be a nice break. BAM - she
> slammed the floss so hard down on my gums it felt like she was cutting
> to the bone. Sonofabitch - I thought! That really hurts. Here came
> even more blood - which I thought I'd run out of. She prescribed a
> prescription rinse to "massage" my gums with and said that it may
> stain my teeth a little - like coffee. I don't want to stain my teeth
> at all! In all my years going to the dentist, I'd never been given a
> prescription rinse. She said some of her other patients don't see too
> much staining which led me to believe that maybe ALL of her patients
> have a similar experience with her and their "bad bleeding gums."
>
> Her explanation is that if I took good care of my gums, they wouldn't
> bleed. My thought is - gums are living tissue and if you scrape and
> poke and rip through them with floss - they're going to bleed...if I
> took a knife to my arm and ran the tip across my skin with force -
> there's going to be blood, right?
>
> PLEASE HELP - I don't want to change dentists if she is actually doing
> a good job and my old hygenist wasn't being thorough enough and at the
> same time I don't want to get my gums and teeth damaged by an overly
> aggressive hygenist. Never have I had a more terrible experience in
> all my years going to the dentist. What should I do?
>
> Brian Bloody Gums
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