Confessions to my dentist

If you've been following my blog you'll know that I have a history of dental issues that I finally started taking seriously a few months prior to my starting my invisalign treatment. Those dental issues led me to my current regular dentist, Dr. H, a little over a year ago. We have a pretty good relationship which probably due in part to her being quite informative without being paternalistic, about my age and easy for me to relate to. Prior to the summer 2008, I was a quite overdue in terms of seeing a dentist (to say the least!) but quite intent on having things looked at and hopefully having my teeth straightened before the wedding. After a few grueling sessions of deep scaling, xrays, surgical removal of my wisdom teeth (the last was done by her practice partner as my bottom ones were impacted), I finally made my way to a number of different orthos and dentists for consultations.

As it turned out, none of the orthos she had referred me to offered invisalign which I had my heart set on and while I might have considered metal/ceramic braces, the cost for taking them off for the day of the wedding just seemed a bit atrocious to me (upwards of $700 CDN). So in the end, I went with Dr. A, who is a dentist and premier invisalign provider and I haven't seen Dr. H since I began treatment. It wasn't intentional, it just sort of happened given that there were a couple of instances where it was suggested that I have my teeth cleaned at various points in my treatment and it was more convenient to arrange it with Dr. A's office and another instance where my insurance (after having my teeth cleaned about 4 times in the same year) ran out and I decided to pay out of pocket at the local university.

Needless to say, I've been a bit anxious and embarrassed about not keeping Dr. H in the loop and was a bit sheepish when I saw her this morning. She must have gone through her notes because she seemed to remember me quite clearly despite the long absence. I also explained about the invisalign treatment and where I was in treatment and she seemed to be pretty impressed with how my teeth had moved since she last saw me. Also commented on the fact that it was so much easier to clean my teeth now that they're so much straighter and that they seem to be in great shape. It doesn't look like I have any new cavities, however, there do seem a couple of spots I seem to have some trouble cleaning in the back of my teeth and gums have receded a bit. We also talked about retainers a bit and she did suggest that with my history of gum disease, it might be better for me to have removable retainers after I'm finished which makes sense. I might mention that to Dr. A if I get a chance to speak with him at my next appointment.

All in all, it was a pretty good appointment. After seeing Dr. H, I realize how I miss having dental professional who I can spend some time talking to and asking questions of. Dr. A while very efficient just doesn't spend the time. I don't know if this is the difference between going to a dentist for invisalign or just his style but if I had to do all of this over again and had all the time in the world, I'm not sure if I would have gone with an invisalign dentist but then again, I probably didn't do as much research as I should of in terms of understanding that the dental professional can play a very large role in determining the course of treatment.

Anyhow, these are just my musings on a Friday morning off. I'm not unhappy with my treatment, I'm just wondering if it might have been approached different had I decided to go with a different dental professional. Having said that, given that a little over year ago, I was dealing with all sorts of dental issues and today I got out of a dental cleaning and checkup in just over an hour with lots of positive comments from my dentist plus have reasonably straight teeth in my wedding pictures, I'm a pretty happy camper.