Dental Hygiene

Disclosure: We value transparency at Today’s RDH. This article is sponsored content from 3M Oral Care as part of our sponsored partner program. As a dental hygienist, you are constantly assessing caries risk. What’s often missing is comprehensive and personalized patient engagement. Building trust with patients, empowering them to take control of their oral health, and educating them about their current situation...

Great news came out of Olympia, Washington, on February 22, 2019. The House Bill that was proposed on Wednesday, February 6, 2019, that would allow dental assistants to perform dental hygiene procedures, with nothing more than a one-time training failed to make it out of committee. You can read more about this bill and the effort made to stop...

With the extensive list of conditions on a dental health history, it can be quite overwhelming to really know about all of them and how they affect the dental appointment. While scarlet and rheumatic fever is not too common anymore, there’s still a reason it’s listed on health histories. I have even seen it marked on the health history of...

A patient comes in and with a chief complaint of extremely sensitive teeth. It’s painful to drink a cold beverage or eat their favorite ice cream. They even struggle with the simple act of brushing their teeth. You know the answer to their problems and so does every dental hygienist across the nation: Fluoride. Whether you have patients that...

We have all been educated to review our patients’ health histories prior to every dental appointment, but are we seeing the red flags some health histories wave? With today’s over-prescribed pain and anti-depressant medications, close attention needs to be paid to the patient sitting in our dental chair. We are in a prime position to be a positive influence...

I love the online dental hygiene community. I enjoy being a part of several forums and continuously find myself learning new information. In a field where many of us are the sole hygienist in an office, forums help to bring unity and ensure us that we are not alone in our struggles and triumphs. There are times, however, when a...

Tonsils are part of the immune system and contain an abundance of white blood cells to combat germs from entering the body. They are part of mucous-associated lymphoid tissue (MALT).1 Tonsils are made with lymphocytes and cells that prevent and fight infections.1 The tonsils have antigen-presenting cells on their surface that communicate with the B and T cells as...

Barodontalgia, also known as “tooth squeeze,” is pain in the tooth region after a pressure change. The name reflects the condition – “baro” means pressure, and “odontalgia” means tooth pain. It is an acute toothache with high sensitivity when a sudden change in environmental pressure occurs.1 Another condition is dental barotrauma that happens when changes in barometric pressure generate damage...

Learn more about Ingrid's eco-friendly, dental products company, PANGA, at https://www.wearepanga.com/ Has the amount of garbage, especially plastics, used in dentistry ever crossed your mind? Though one-time use items such as plastic barriers, air/water syringe tips, prophy angles, sterilization pouches, and everything in between are imperative for infection control and keeping our patients as safe as possible, dentistry certainly creates...

The dental business is a booming structure that is constantly being introduced to new inventions and dentifrices intended to improve oral health. Whitening has become the new sought after trend that is said to be achieved naturally with the use of the popular additive charcoal. With the added benefit of being “natural,” charcoal whitening has quickly become the item...