Love Your Dental Hygienist

We all need to see the dentist to maintain healthy teeth, gums and mouth. In many cases, you don’t want to see the actual dentist, you want to see is the dental hygienist. While the best dentist in Santa Fe may wear the white coat, flash that dazzling smile, swoop in and poke around in your mouth for a minute or two, the dental hygienist is the powerhouse, doing the grunt work and making the dentist look good.

So, in honor of Dental Hygienist Month, we are going to show some much-deserved love to all the hygienists out there who spend their days elbow-deep in patients’ mouths, flinging saliva and wielding their ultrasonic scalers all in the quest to provide us the best dental care.

• Little known fact: Hygienists do the heavy lifting. Don’t get me wrong, the Dentist is the great and powerful when it comes to dental work, but for the day to day work of cleaning and spotting oral health problems, the hygienist is the ruler.
• Think you might have mouth issues? Yeah, your hygienist already knows. It’s true, since hygienists spend the bulk of their time cleaning and examining your teeth, they can spot problems your gums and teeth may have before you even suspect.
• Your mouth condition is causing other problems. Oddly enough, the mouth acts as a sort of canary in the mine shaft for the body. Problems in the mouth can either signal unknown problems in the body or contribute to them. When you have your teeth cleaned your hygienist can spot problem areas that may indicate whole body issues or get the gunk off your teeth to help prevent further disease.
• Prep work is a necessary pain. The hygienist lays the ground work for the dentist to work efficiently, and an efficient dentist needs to spend less time stretching out your smile to get the work done. Prep work isn’t fun but let the hygienist do their job. You don’t want an un-prepared dentist firing up that drill to work on your teeth. You may end up with a bridge to nowhere that you didn’t need.

There you have it. The dental hygienist is a necessary health professional you want in your life. They are the un-sung heroes of the teeth and gums. The next time you go in to have your teeth cleaned, give your hygienist a hug. Or if you want to avoid a restraining order, just tell them thanks for all the hard work.