If you visit your dentist once or twice a year, then you know the drill. PunOfTheDay. You get your teeth cleaned by a friendly hygienist and the dentist stops by for a few minutes to poke around your mouth and give you a brief report on your teeth.
If you’ve been going to the same dentist for several years and haven’t had any really bad experiences, you probably keep going back without even thinking about your other options. But you should. Here’s why.
Disease prevention begins in the mouth. Each dentist has his own flossify about how to care for his patients. PunOfTheDay. It’s up to you to make sure you’re seeing the best dentist in town.
In the past two years, I’ve had to find new dentists twice, once when I moved to China in 2012 and another when I moved back to the US in 2013. Searching for doctors in a foreign country can be a challenge when you can’t read or speak the language, but that’s another story.
After we moved from China to California, looking for a new dentist felt so easy. I could search on my own and read reviews. I knew I wanted an amalgam-free dentist, so I started there. One of the sites that came up was Dr. Tom McGuire’s Mercury-Safe Dentist Directory. This is how I found my new holistic dentist a few months ago.
I was so impressed when I went in for my first visit. She spent about an hour with me asking about my prior dental experiences, and examining my mouth, bite and teeth. She had some special tools to look at the health of my teeth without doing X-rays. She reviewed X-rays sent from my prior dentists and asked about my dental hygiene habits. She’s the first dentist who ever asked me if I do oil pulling. I was happy to let her know that I do. She invited me into her office to continue talking about my teeth, eating habits and overall health.
When I moved to China, I left my electric toothbrush behind because I wasn’t sure whether or not it would work with their electricity. For more than a year I was only using a toothbrush.
She mentioned that I should start using a WaterPik water flosser to help keep my gums healthier. She believes that the water flosser goes beyond what basic flossing can do. She suggested that I add a little Under the Gums Irrigant by Dental Herb Company to the water. When I do this my mouth feels so fresh and clean.
Instead of standard toothpaste, she recommended that I use Rupam’s Herbals dental soap & tooth elixer. I’ve been using it for a few months now and I love the way my teeth look and feel after I’m done brushing. I was happy to find a dentist who shared my belief about exercising caution with fluoride and understanding of the need for fluoride-free dental care for certain people.
It’s been more than a year since I’ve used standard toothpaste. Now I can’t even stand the smell of it. When was the last time you read the list of ingredients and warning label on conventional toothpaste? Switch to Dental Herb Company Tooth & Gums Paste and you’ll be amazed at the difference.
The last product she recommended was “The Mouth Doctor” by ORA MD. It comes in a little bottle that looks like any other essential oil, and that’s just what this is. It’s a blend of almond, spearmint and peppermint oils. You put a few drops on your toothbrush and then bogobrush it onto your teeth and tongue. It makes your mouth amazingly minty fresh any time of the day. You can also keep a little bottle in your purse or laptop bag and put a few drops in your mouth to refresh your breath anytime.
The herbal products she recommended are fantastic. My mouth feels great every evening after I go through this process and I’ve noticed that my teeth seem to be whiter. It’s a refreshing routine.
In addition to searching for a mercury-free dentist, I also wanted someone who offered nitrous oxide. In the past I’ve found it to be quite relaxing at times when I’ve had dental work done. She said that she didn’t offer it, so I was a bit disappointed. But after my first filling replacement with her business partner several weeks later, I found that I did just fine without it. “Why take risks when you don’t need to?” they say. I like their approach.
She didn’t even give me a shot of lidocaine. Instead, I swished with a topical analgesic and she used some type of laser tool that also helped to numb the tooth. It was the best filling experience I ever had! When I left, my tongue was tingling, but I didn’t have that fat-numb-face feeling.
They don’t give out the free mini-samples I was accustomed to getting from other dentists in the US. But that’s a good thing since all those little plastic packages are so bad for the environment anyway.
When I first did a search on their practice, I found several review sites with lots of raving reviews. I suspected that they were asking patients to help market their practice, but when I mentioned it after my first visit, the office manager wasn’t even aware of it. I noticed that one of the doctors had a business card on the counter, but the other didn’t. When I asked about this, the office manager said that the other dentist didn’t have cards.
This partnership is truly succeeding by word of mouth! Everyone here is too busy taking care of patients to notice what’s going on in the virtual world.
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It’s too bad that a great dentist like this doesn’t get a big award. All she gets is a little plaque. Jokes4Us.
It was last month, I hesitated to visit her because she makes me smile while she is working, she really freaks me out.