I’m a dental hygienist... go on then ask away..

[Heatherjayne1972]

Been a hygienist over 20 years
In lots of different practices

Does whitening your teeth weaken them?

I get terrible tartar build up on my teeth and I'd love to see a hygienist for a really good clean. What puts me off is that I imagine it would hurt a LOT.

Can you please be brutally honest and tell me how painful it's likely to be? I seem to have sensitive gums even though I use the right toothpaste.

No whitening teeth doesn’t weaken them

Yes it’s likely to be quite uncomfortable if there’s lots to do however you can ask for a local anaesthetic - we would do maybe one side at a time depending on how much work there is to do

Is my dentist telling porkies when she says root treatment isnt sore and is fine. Im shitting myself and its not even definete ive to get it 🙈🙈

I have a huge dental phobia and my dentist is lovely but always wondering if they secretly judge me for being weird or dramatic when I am nervous or have to stop a clean briefly before resuming

Is it the law that you have to have radio 2 playing?

Do you sometimes peer into a mouth and think “you know what, all things being equal I think you’d be better off if we just pulled the whole lot out and started again?”

I have receding gums and have recently started using a water flosser thingy.
Apart from being absolutely horrified at how much shit i manage to wash out of my mouth AFTER brushing, will this help me long term?

Yes definitely to the R2 question !
The water flosser is great but it’s to be used as well as the little brushes or floss - not as a stand alone

No cant say I’ve ever suggested pulling all the teeth out although there are people who seem to lose them one by one even though we’re all working hard to keep them

I had Airflow cleaning last week. It was ok, got a lot of the between teeth stains off so fairly happy. The following day however, a filling in my back molar fell out.
Firstly, please tell me I’m not imagining the two are connected. Secondly, if I was a patient at your surgery would I have to pay to have the filling re-done? IE would you say, that’s the risk you took or would you ooops that shouldn’t have happened?

No we don’t judge you at all - unless you try to tell us that we’re wrong because ‘it was in the daily mail’

Personally I’d rather stop if the patient needs a rest.

Why do I get these weird brown marks on my front two teeth.
They hygienist will remove them but they soon re-appear and I don't even drink wine or coffee and they were there long before I started drinking tea.
It makes my teeth look dirty!!!

I don't smoke and have never.

The filling coming out is a coincidence - its likely to have been broken/ cracked already
There’s just no way we put enough pressure on a tooth to get a solid filling out/ they’re like icebergs ie the bit you see is the smallest bit
Yes you’d have to pay for a repair in the majority of practices

How often do you get a patient who has not brushed their teeth before the appointment?

i spent quite alot of time at the dentist yet he never refers me to the hygienist why do you thnk that is

things that cause staining are tea coffee red wine smoking Any red juice/ herbal or fruit tea / red or dark fizzy drinks Green tea spices in foods It’s likely a combination
Some mouth rinses stain also

When you do a deep clean of the roots and under the gum - how is that possible? Are the gums not attached to the teeth, keeping them in place? If you can clean down to the root I don't know why they don't fall out?

I had to have this done recently and I was too traumatised to ask at the time!

@ processed pea. You probably don’t need us

Quite a lot turn up without brushing Maybe half - depends on the day

Last time I went to the hygienist she manually scrapped behind my gums with what felt like a shovel. F'ck my life, I came out gums all swollen and bleeding. She massacred my mouth. Certainly hasn't left me wanting to go back!

Ok so in gum disease we can get in between the tooth and the gum far more than we should be able to because the bone has dissolved
The bone holds the tooth in so if left alone eventually the tooth has nothing left to hold it in place and it comes out
The deep cleaning is where we get right under the gum to clean the plaque and tartar off to hopefully tighten the gum enough to keep hold of the tooth

My dentist tells me only to use Corsodyl and that Listerine stains. My parents' dentist says the opposite . Who is right? Or is neither correct and mouthwash doesn't stain teeth ?!

Also - can having a lot of catarrh lead to staining/yellower teeth?

Thanks Heatherjayne, scary but interesting!

I realised when in the chair for my last appointment I had eaten a load of garlic the night before. Can you smell it through your mask when someone's eaten spicy / garlic food? Do you mind?

What's the grossest thing you have found in someone's teeth? My friend is a dentist and someone came to him with toothache and after investigation, he found it was a stuck pubic hair causing the problem.

Apparently he just told the patient he had found some 'debris'.

I have tetracycline teeth. Is it true that no amount of cleaning or even whitening would help ?
Bearing in mind it's something that happened as a very young child via medication - why is there not a medical negligence pay out to put things right ?

I’m going to quote someone who knows far more about this than I
‘Mouthwash dont do shit’
And I agree

Lol I come across far far worse smells than garlic