| Reasons to visit independent Dental Hygienist
Recently a patient of mine posted this to the Yahoo Group, which I highly appreciated and thought to be a great summary of why one should visit independent hygienists. Actually, I had not thought about it in this way....but it is so true. Just a short time ago, while working for a dentist in Zürich, his wife (and the secretary) would poke me in the back, telling me to "find more work". I had smoke coming out of my ears....this is not to say all dentist are this way....but I am very happy to do it my way now...thanks everyone for your support!
Her words:
Hello,
>
> I would like to assert that going to a hygienist that is not employed
> by your dentist is an excellent idea everyone should consider.
>
> I am not affiliated with the practice below, except that I once
> was a customer.
>
> I had personal experience whereby the independent hygienist below
> showed me on a huge closeup screen how a dentist recently put in an expensive
> crown that did not fit my tooth, leaving a ledge of the old root exposed which would
> have caused serious longterm damage, possibly losing the tooth. I was then
> able to get a refund for the shoddy work to pay for a new, properly fitted
> crown without delay or further damage to the root.
>
> If I had gone to the hygienist employed by the dentist at his
> office, I don’t know that the hygienist would have been as likely to
> point out the shoddy work of her employer.
>
> Also, I found that often dentists will quickly look in your
> mouth and tell you what work that could be done next and could be swayed by
> personal profit.
>
> So for example, they will see some fillings that will be the
> next needing replacing and tell you those should be done now, when in actuality
> they are simply the next to be done but are okay and the lifecycle of that
> filling can be safely extended. I once had a situation where I had to see
> four dentists in a row (because of the way I was moving around countries). Each
> dentist told me “this filling on the right side needs to be redone, but
> the rest are fine” … then the next dentist said “will this
> filling on the left side needs to be done but the rest are fine” and so
> on continually through all four. Each was simply doing the next that could theoretically
> be done and no dentists out of the four gave the same opinion, and each
> continued to find more work to be done even though each asserted that if I just
> did what they said then I would be done for now. These were all very
> reputable dentist, some well know who advertise to the English speaking
> community in Zurich.
>
> I found that an independent hygienist will give a honest thoughts
> on what kind of work a dentist has completed and an independent opinion of the
> general state of your mouth that is not in any way swayed by personal gain.
>
> I also found that a dentist only has about five minutes to look
> into your mouth, grunt a few things at you, answer a quick few questions and
> then will press on to try to do some work. They do not want to spend a huge
> amount of time with you answering questions about your mouth and usually try to
> move you along if you are “wasting” lots of time asking lots of
> questions. A dentist’s schedule does not have a lot of time for answering
> questions, they see doing work as more productive use of time then chatting
> with the patient and doing work on your mouth is more profitable than spending
> lots of time answering questions or explaining what is going on with your mouth.
>
> A personal hygienist typically allocates more time per patient
> on pure preventative dental health than a dentist who is keen to get on with
> actual work/replacements.
>
> So I found that the hygienist below gives you the explanation on
> your mouth that you should have at least once in your life. She has a huge
> screen which you can see and camera (which I’ve never seen in a dentists
> office), looks closely at your mouth, spends time with you, shows you where you
> have old dental work, where you have some staining, shows you which previous
> work was done well / with good materials and which you might want to take a
> look on, shows you were you might be grinding or not taking care in the best
> way, answers lots of questions about your specifics as you are both looking at
> the screen, etc
>
> Afterwards, you feel like you have a real understanding of what’s
> really going on in your mouth, you have an independent thorough thoughts on
> work done and she has spent lots of time answering questions and showing you in
> your personal situation what exactly is going on.
>
> So, I can wholeheartedly recommend Susan Schlessinger in
> particular, and going to an independent hygienist in general.
>
> Hope this is helpful,
>
> Marie
>
 | 
It's nice to have a hygienist who isn't brutal and leaves your gums sore and bloodied. Plus your just nice 
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