Tag: patient

Anti-Patients

Dental Revelations11 Comments

Dental Revelations Blog-24982

I have a confession to make. I am not perfect as a dental professional even though my posts may give the expression that I do everything as we are taught at the dental school. I do my best but I have weaknesses as well.

Another confession. I sometimes feel quite overwhelmed by some patients’ way of arguing about the well researched facts on dental health. Banging your head against the wall is not fun in the long run and in our business it tends to make us cynical and worn out mentally.

Of course there are good days and bad days. On bad days I have thought about changing my profession to the one where I could sit between piles of paper and no-one to talk to (anyone care to hire me?). On bad days I have given up trying to convince the patient about cleaning between the teeth when I have faced a non-cooperative patient the fifth time that day.

Fine, carry on practicing your beliefs…

Sooner or later you will learn I was right…

It’s your teeth not mine…

This does not happen often, but I wanted to bring out the great mental load we have on our profession. We need to have sort of a mental radar on ALL the time so that we can find the right approach to each patient. As each patient is different. But there will be a patient that slips beneath our radar. I have come to conclusion that with these patients there is no right approach. I call these patients Anti-Patients.

There are at least 5 types of Anti-Patients that I have listed below. If a new one comes to your mind, please share it in the comment box.

Anti-Fluoride

When I interview patients on their first visit, one of my questions is:

Which toothpaste do you use?

The most common reply is:

Dunno… Anything they sell in the supermarket.

But if the patient is a health-conscious one, they know exactly which toothpaste they use. And it won’t be just anything from the supermarket’s shelf. They also know that often their beliefs in health can be found controversial amongst the health professionals.

So after they have told that they use the aloe vera toothpaste/herbal toothpaste or any other non-fluoride toothpaste, they will carry on explaining the reasons behind it with fists raised into boxer’s pose (not really, but you get the gist?).

The fluoride is toxic..

There is fluoride in the drinking water anyway…

The fluoride is linked to health problems like cancer…

I only listen, let the patient finish and then carry on to the next question on the interview. I leave the toothpaste issue until I have build up a little bit more trust and until I have examined the patient’s mouth.

I know what I am going to find especially when the patient has used non-fluoride toothpaste for a long time. In my experience about 1 in 1000 patients has oral hygiene habits that good that my interference is not needed. One in thousand! And the likelihood that this one patient is the one who uses the non-fluoride toothpaste is close to zero. This means that poor oral hygiene together with non-fluoride toothpaste results in decay. And that is what I am going to find from the anti-fluoride patient’s teeth.

A faint white line on the enamel of the tooth close to the gum line that is the first stage of the decay. They are still reversible lesions of decay but they will often get discolouration that ruin the aesthetics of the smile. Sometimes the decay is already beyond stopping and requires a filling.

As some anti-fluoride patients take the advice on board, many don’t. And the most disheartening are the ones who practice their anti-fluoride beliefs on their children as well.

Want to know more impartial information on fluoride? Click here.

Anti-Amalgam

Amalgam has been used for about 150 years on people’s teeth. Although we have passed the peak of the amalgam phobia long time ago, there are patients who still believe the amalgam is a health risk. They either do not want to have a new filling made of the amalgam or they want to have the existing ones to be removed and replaced with white ones.

Now, there are dentists who have dollar/pound/euro (or whatever your currency) signs in their eyes whenever this kind of a patient walks in. They do not discuss about the reasons behind the patient’s wish or what the operation of changing the amalgam into white fillings mean. Of course they don’t. They do not want the patient to change their mind.

When a patient expresses this kind of a wish to me, they get this info every time:

  • Composite filling is not an option for an amalgam. Instead the ceramic or gold fillings are and those are many times more expensive than amalgam
  • Amalgam can last a lifetime, whereas average lifespan of a composite filling is somewhere way under 10 years and ceramic’s just slightly higher
  • If there is no problems with the amalgam filling, there is no reason to replace it
  • Replacing many amalgam fillings with white fillings will affect the bite
  • There are no health risks with amalgam as a filling
  • If choosing to have all the amalgam replaced with white fillings anyways, find a dentist who does laboratory-made ceramic/gold fillings and uses proper protection when removing the amalgam fillings as it is the most hazardous part of the life of an amalgam filling

I am always happy when I learn on the next visit that the patient has changed his mind about having amalgam replaced. And for some reason the patient is relieved as well.

It makes me sad when beautiful amalgam fillings have been replaced with composite fillings. It just isn’t right.

Note for professionals: Do polish the amalgam fillings regularly as the darkened amalgam fillings work as retention for bacteria. This is important especially with patients who have advanced periodontal disease.

Anti-X-Ray

X-rays are the vital part of making a diagnosis for the dentists and certain conditions will go undetected without them.

Refusing to have an x-ray taken is just pure madness. It is almost the same as if you would take your car to the car mechanic and tell him that

There is something wrong with the car but do not look under the hood.

In the worst case scenario, your life might be at risk. In the matter of the car and refusing the x-rays.

Anyone concerned about radiation with dental x-rays should read this and simply trust the dental professional’s judgement on whether or not you need to have x-rays taken.

Anti-Safety Glasses

Why on earth would you decline using the safety glasses that are meant for the protection of your eyes? Beats me.

We drill at high speed just a short distance of your eyes and anything can fly out of the patients mouth – a piece of an enamel, calculus (tartar), a broken bur and all sorts of nasty bacteria and viruses. We use chemicals that are acidic when making a filling. None of these you want in your eyes, believe me.

“We should not treat a patient who refuses to use the safety glasses”, I was told on one of the health and safety courses. In ideal world yes. But when you work at a private practice it is totally different story. What do you think that would happen if I send a patient home for not using the safety glasses. No income for the practice and who is the blame? Me.

So we let the patient to refuse the use of the safety glasses and tell them to keep their eyes closed. But they never do, do they?

Anti-Everything-You-Say-or-Do

I know the fear of the dental visit can bring out the worst in people. But it is always frightening when a patient comes across as aggressive from the moment you call the patient in. They walk to the surgery, throw their belongings to the side table and almost jump to the dental chair with arms crossed. They

  • dismiss everything you say
  • do not take the safety glasses
  • are suspicious of everything you do and want to see every instrument you have
  • tell you that they do not want to have a lecture
  • ask when you graduated
  • tell you how another dentist/hygienist did things differently compared to you

Thank goodness these kinds of patients are rare. But when I am faced with this kind of a hostile situation, I speak only when it is absolutely necessary and just do my job. I am glad when the patient is gone and hope we never meet again. But there is an exception. You see sometimes a miracle happens somewhere between the polishing and goodbyes.

The patient that just moments ago was a manifestation of the devil is suddenly the opposite and full of questions about oral hygiene. “Now he wants advice!” is my thought when I have couple of minutes time left before the next patient. But I do not have a heart to ask the patient to leave when I realise that all the hostility was due to the fear of the dental visit. The amazing fear!

Want to know one more Anti-patient type? Click here for my post Yet Another Anti-Patient.

Where it all started

Dental Revelations2 Comments
Dental Revelations Blog-2382
Do you know your dentist behind the mask?

There was whispering behind the reception desk when I arrived to work.
“Morning!” I said cheerfully and carried on downstairs to get changed to my uniform.

I was a dental student working as a trainee and was very happy that I was earning little extra on top of my student allowance. There wasn’t many dental practices who took in trainees on those days to work as nurses until they graduated.

I put the uniform on and went upstairs to the reception before setting up my surgery. There were two nurses and a receptionist still whispering as the reception was filling up with that morning’s first patients. I was a newbie but understood that something was going on. Something that made the nurses very annoyed. I heard a word Harry.

One word and I knew what was going on. Even though I had been working as a trainee only for a month, I knew almost all the secrets the practice had. Harry was a dentist and a partner of the practice which meant he had lots of freedom to decide how things were run. He was the one who paid our wages. Or to be precise, he made the money that paid our wages but it was the other partner of the practice, Sally who run the payroll. She had no dental education and dealt with all the finances of the practice.

Harry and Sally had been lovers on and off many years and had had this dental practice in the heart of the city for a long time. It was a very popular practice amongst celebrities who had extensive cosmetic treatment done by Harry. Veneers, crowns, implants… yes, implants as well even though he wasn’t an oral surgeon. He was a regular dentist who never attended any annual dental show case to revise. Worrying combination.

Now back to that one morning when Harry had once again done something to stir up feelings at the practice.

Harry had arrived to work drunk. Wasted. Pissed. Drunk as a skunk. And it wasn’t the first time. One would think that a dentist cannot work when drunk as they use various instruments that can cause serious damage to the patient, nurse and the dentist himself if used incorrectly. The drill for example, that is used for drilling through the enamel of your tooth – the high-pitched one – rotates up to 400 000 rpm. Imagine it in the hands of a drunkard. Scary as hell in my opinion.

Did Sally or Harry’s colleagues stop him from treating patients? No they didn’t. Neither did I but my excuse is that I was a newbie and didn’t have any say on anything really.

On this particular morning Harry was guided by his trusted nurse Tina from downstairs office which he shared with Sally to upstairs where the surgeries were. Half way up the stairs Tina realised that on her own she’s not able to prevent him from falling so she called help and another nurse came to her aid. Together they managed to steer Harry safely upstairs.

“Not that way!” I heard Tina whisper to Harry who was entering a wrong surgery. Tina pushed Harry from his shoulder to the direction of his surgery where the first patient was already in the dental chair with safety classes and a bib on. Tina sat Harry down to his chair and put a face mask on.

This is as much as I could see what was happening. The patient was treated and she left without complaints. So did the next one. No-one ever complained that the dentist was drunk. Didn’t they notice? They must have as the smell was obvious.

Why didn’t Tina say anything? She had worked with Harry for ages and had seen everything that is going on. How did she put up with this kind of behaviour and malpractice? I got an answer to this question couple of years later (already after I had left the practice) when I found out that Tina was Harry’s mistress. Love is blind, it sure is in many ways.

One day Tina was off sick and I was told to replace her as Harry’s nurse. I soon realised that the nurse was expected to do much more than what nurses normally do. And that was probably how Harry could carry on as he did. When Harry wasn’t able to do the treatment, Tina did it. Thankfully Harry realised that I wouldn’t be able to replace Tina fully. I wouldn’t use turbine (the high speed drill). So he was only hung over on the day when I was working with him. Phew!

What I saw that day, I never forget.

Patient one.

A 70 year-old man who had had two implants done to replace lower front teeth. The plan was to have an implant supported bridge done once the implants were fully integrated to the bone. He came in to complain odd feeling and appearance of the area where the implants were done.

The patient had a very low alveolar bone and the mucogingival junction was almost on top of the alveolar bone. The alveolar mucosa had probably pulled the area where the surgery was performed and opened up the incision. As a result the alveolar bone was exposed.

“Should it be like this?” the patient asked.
“Well it shouldn’t!” I thought.
Harry examined the area quickly and slurred something vague. Then he sent the patient home until the next scheduled appointment. My eyes were as wide as saucers but of course Harry didn’t see them as he was out of the surgery already before the patient was.

Patient two.

A 50 something year old lady who had started a restorative treatment for her lower teeth. The plan was to restore the bite by two rather long bridge. The bridges were going to be cemented today.

Harry fitted the bridges. He had difficulties in getting them in place and he had to use a drill to file away some of the metal of the bridge. Eventually the bridges went in and the patient was asked to bite the teeth together only to notice she wasn’t able to. Only the very back teeth were in contact leaving the mouth quite open. Harry took the high speed drill and started to file away the ceramic.

He drilled off a large area of ceramic and part of the metal structure underneath. I wanted to close my eyes as he was destroying the beautifully shaped cusps of the bridge but then the mouth of the patient would have flooded. So I carried on watching this mad man’s way of cutting corners.

Once Harry was done, he cemented the bridges into their places.

“The bite does not feel right…” the patient said.
“It will feel odd at first. It needs some getting used to.” Harry replied and left the surgery.

The patient left the practice with horrid looking bridges and bite that was not anywhere close being balanced.

I was in shock after that day. I knew this wasn’t going to be my future work place. Not a chance. And it wasn’t.

 

If you are interested to read more on the subject in another blog, visit here.

Alcohol – The Feared Subject

Dental Revelations3 Comments

Dental Revelations Blog-1044

About 60 year-old man came to see me one morning and complained that every once in a while a layer of skin comes off inside his mouth and no-one has been able to tell why. He was concerned and felt that it was happening at that very moment as well.

I took a look at the soft tissues before the treatment and asked if he had used a mouthwash the same morning or the night before. Negative. I asked if he had drank wine last night. The patient’s face went serious and he said he had been drinking whiskey last night. I went on telling without any judgement how alcohol effects the mouth and body – the risks in mouth and the age related risks. He looked like he had eureka moment and was very happy but also shaken as he realised that his alcohol use could be damaging his health in more ways than just one.

Now, this blog post is full of information for dental professionals but there are links that are useful for the patients as well. I will give advice to the patients at the end of this post so move on over there if you want to skip the professional part.

Fear of Asking

Us professionals seem to find it hard to discuss about patient’s alcohol consumption. For some reason we think that alcohol consumption is too personal question to ask. Sometimes also the patients think the same which makes it even more difficult question to ask. But we ask about illnesses, smoking, diet and oral hygiene habits. Why not about alcohol?

Everyone knows that smoking can cause oral cancer. But not so many know that alcohol does the same. And even fewer knows that alcohol and cigarettes combined raise the risk of developing oral cancer many times higher. So dental professionals are on the frontline of preventing oral cancer. This means that asking about alcohol consumption should be a routine thing to do and I’m going to help you with that.

  1. When interviewing the patient about his medical history, oral hygiene routines and smoking, continue without hesitation How about alcohol? Do you use alcohol? Keep the same tone of voice as if you were asking did you watch the footie last night?

This is how the conversation continues:

Patient: Yes, sometimes.
You: How often would you say you drink per week?
P: When we go out after work.
Y: How often did you go out last week?
P: Last week we went out almost every night.
Y: What do you normally drink?
P: Beer.
Y: How many do you drink on your regular night out?
P: Normally 3 or 4 pints and on weekends it can be a lot more…

When you engage patient into discussing about alcohol consumption you are kind of evaluating the patient’s attitude towards the subject. Is he co-operative or defensive? If the latter, you need to advance with very small steps. A piece of information here, a piece there. Whenever the patient is ready to take in information about alcohol.

If the patient is co-operative (you would be surprised how many are!), you can move on to sum up the alcohol units the patient consumed the last week and then give information about how it affects his health. Before you can do this you need to know the facts.

2. Learn the numbers and facts behind the risks of excessive alcohol consumption

The recommended low risk (of developing an alcohol related illnesses) daily units are:

healthy women 0-1 units
healthy men 0-2 units
65+ year-olds no more than 0-2 units (no more than 7 per week)

Learn these by heart or print them out (please note, that the recommendations can vary in different countries).

The oral cancer’s death rate is nearly 50%.

Alcohol is an aldehyde and it is metabolised by oral bacteria to acetaldehyde which is carcinogenic in humans.

This is very short but effective list. With this little information you can have a significant impact on patient’s alcohol consumption.

3. Be a therapist if needed

More than once I have been in a situation with a patient when the patient opens up about his life when we discuss about alcohol. There have been patients who have thought by themselves that they are drinking too much. Some tell the reasons behind them. All they need at this point is that someone listens.

But if you feel like the patient needs more advice and guidance, remember to ask
Do you mind me giving you an advice?

People generally respect you more if you don’t offer advice without asking. Especially when it is about alcohol. Have phone numbers at hand for local AA and offer them if needed.

4. If you didn’t ask about alcohol consumption

Do ask about alcohol every time when

  • there is no improvement on oral hygiene routine despite a great effort, especially if there is lot of plaque every time
  • the soft tissues are bright red and the patient is not using mouthwashes (and even if he is, mention also that alcohol can irritate the soft tissues no matter how it enters the mouth)
  • the mouth is very dry and no other reason is found for it

Reminder to All Dental Professionals

Do check the soft tissues and tongue every time you see the patient. It doesn’t take long and you might be saving somebody’s life. No matter if you are a nurse, hygienist or dentist. All of us can tell if something is normal or not and it doesn’t matter who points out the abnormality in the first place.

Have a dental camera or DSLR with macro lens at hand. Learn to use them so that when you see something suspicious, you are able to take a photo of it and compare it the next time.

This is an area in our profession that is too often neglected.

Information for the Patients

You are in good hands when you are interviewed thoroughly on your very first visit and  and every time when you have your check-up done. If you only needed to fill in a medical history form and no-one asks further questions, it’s not a very good sign. The professionals treating you are not looking after you very well.

Please do take our questions as they are. They are questions for your best interest and health and for good quality of treatment. We need to repeat these questions over and over again every time you come in for your regular check-up.

We will ask about subjects (like alcohol consumption) you would rather not discuss with anyone but please do not hide anything or lie. Most often we can see from the patient’s mouth if we were not told the truth about certain subjects like:

smoking
alcohol consumption
how often you clean between the teeth
do you brush your teeth regularly
certain illnesses

So be honest and don’t be afraid of a judgement. It is not our job to do.

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