A (dental hygiene) reality check

As you may recall last week I went for a 3 hour dental hygiene appointment at the local dental school.  Since I've gotten serious about my oral health several months ago and especially since I got my invisalign trays, I've been very conscientious about brushing (3x), flossing (at least 2x) and rinsing (1x with salt water and 1x with fluoride rinse) daily.  I've also had my teeth cleaned professionally 2-3x in the past several months alone.  So I was really surprised when at the end of my 3 hour session last week (this was the assessment alone!!), the dental hygiene student (let's call her D) told me that she'd need to see me at least twice to get all the build up off of my teeth.  

I have to admit I feel a bit badly about seeing D since I never visited the clinics when my friend T was going through the dental hygiene program and was looking for volunteers to have their teeth cleaned.  For the most part, I think I was just really embarrassed about the state of my teeth.  Since I started having all of my dental issues looked after in addition to my invisalign, I've felt a lot more confident about my teeth.  In addition, D happens to be wearing invisalign too which is kind of a nice coincidence because at first I was worried that my student wouldn't know what to do with an invisalign patient. 

Today I went in for my first of said 2-3 sessions.  It was rather uncomfortable but interesting to hear D and her instructor converse about my teeth and gums.  Her instructor was wondering why my gums seemed a bit inflamed relative to the fine layer of build up and eventually came back and pointed out that my invisalign trays were the likely culprit.   Anyhow, hopefully after my appointments with D are over, I'll be back to 2 cleanings per year schedule.  

The two things that did make me feel (sore teeth and all) a bit better was that D commented on clean my teeth are despite some of the buildup below the gum line and... the cleaning cost me only a fraction of what I normally pay for a cleaning ($26 at university vs. 20% of $300 (or $60) at my dentist's office).  It's not a huge difference I suppose but with the upcoming wedding and also in anticipation of some of the other things I'd like to have done with my teeth (ie. whitening) saving money by any means has become more and more rewarding to my increasingly frugal self.