Sometimes it isnt good to be a health professional

[Noryn]

I guess sometimes ignorance is bliss. I was at the dentist's office yesterday for a cleaning and the hygienist told me I would need a "debridement." I dont tell people that I am a RN at medical establishments because I think it can create some tension or stress for the medical person. I also like to see how they treat me when they think I have very little medical knowledge.

Anyway she told me I would need a debridement and it was like a cleaning but "different". She had to have gotten that line from school because the way she said that brought back my memories of nursing school when they told us to tell the patients a NG tube is not painful it is just uncomfortable. Yeah right. I am not too knowledgeable about dental procedures so when she mentioned debridement I was thinking, "Oh my god they are going to cut tissue away." I came home and found out that debridement(and I am sure I will be corrected if I am wrong) is basically scaling and root planing.

Now if I didnt have this dang medical knowledge I would be like, I am just going for a deeper cleaning. Now I get to worry because when we use terms such as "different" it usually means its going to be bad.

I guess it is like you should never ever go to the ER and tell them you are throwing up blood . What we dont know cant hurt us--well that is until the procedure.

[TracyB,RN, RN]

My dental hygienist did my deep cleaning/scaling. LOTS of novocaine. She was fabulous. Her injections were practically painless. One side of the mouth per visit. It definitely wasn't as horrible as I anticipated.

[oldnurse newnurse]

Are you serious? To the best of my knowledge there will be no sedation--I will be driving to and from there.

I just had that done and I had no sedation. But hey yours may be different.

[chadash]

scaling and root plaining? OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO, ask for, no, DEMAND sedation!

I would have blissfully gone in assuming I was just going to get a sparklely dazziling smile! Hello!

Sorry, you probably wont need sedation. I have Dentalphobia.

[RN_Jen]

I worked for a periodontist for several years and we did scaling and root planing daily. We usually gave Novocaine for the procedure and ibuprofen afterward. We told our patients that they might have some discomfort afterward and to just take the ibuprofen and rinse with warm salt water, and we never had anyone come back and tell us they had pain. The other periodontist in the practice told his patients that there would be pain and swelling afterward and always prescribed pain killers. Guess what? His patients almost always experienced pain following the procedure. I think a lot of times people will experience what they're told to expect. You shouldn't expect anything more than some soreness afterward......warm salt water works wonders!!