Good morning! I hope the world is being good to you and you’re being good to it.

Grab your coffee or beverage of choice and share a thought with me.

Apologies in advance – we’re going to talk about teeth. Trying to go to the dentist for the most basic reasons has become unnecessarily complex, and while I suspect this is not uncommon, it’s not the same for everyone in our house. Do you experience the following or is the dentist experience a nice tiptoe through the tulips?

Full disclosure, I dislike going to the dentist. It’s not typically a terrible experience, just unpleasant and time consuming. Annoyingly, my wife usually has a better experience, and the whole situation really grinds my gears. She says I should switch dentists, but my reluctance to do say may stem from too much invested loyalty in the past and years of visits that seemingly normalized my current dental experiences. It has not always been frustrating, but the trend is sloping downward.

Starting with booking a simple cleaning, something that is supposed to occur twice a year, I can typically only get in every nine months. The most recent example: my cleaning and check-up to kick-off July, a seven month span from my prior appointment, is currently succeeded by the next available appointment in May of 2027, a ten month gap. If you’re doing the calendar math, that will lead to one visit per year. Heaven forbid you need to reschedule because you had no idea what your calendar was going to look like three-quarters of a year later. In that event, you may as well pray you can get in before the end times. If they are that booked, I applaud the patient pool for being diligent with their oral hygiene, but then something business or personnel-wise needs to change to accommodate such a backlogged calendar. Conversely, my wife always gets in with her two cleanings and check-ups per year. Her dentist’s patient roster must be less enthusiastic about staving off gingivitis, the slayer of gums. (Absolutely zero data to back that up – That is me trying to irrationally rationalize the effectiveness of one dentist’s practice compared to another. The more logical explanation is my wife’s dentist’s practice is better positioned and structured to meet the needs of its patients.)

Then, looking at the duration of each visit, I can expect to spend no less than 90 minutes in a chair with someone poking around in my mouth. This includes the x-rays, cleaning, and exam. My wife’s typical visit: 45 minutes max for the same thing. Since we visit different offices, this wild discrepancy really makes me wonder what witchcraft her provider uses to streamline the experience. I have to imagine the quality is comparable, because I don’t hear or see my dentist doing anything special or different from what she shares, so what in the world of oral hygiene accounts for such differing experiences?

I also suspect the health of my teeth has declined because the cleaning interval has increased. It’s not like my teeth are crumbling and falling apart, but for the effort I put into their care, I expect better outcomes from one check-up to another. Overall, I’d say the care I receive is good, but the dentistry landscape has apparently changed.

Okay, that’s the end of my “things aren’t the way they used to be” rant, at least on this topic. I just want my two cleanings per year so I can stave off dentures until the most twilight of my twilight years.

Have a great day and enjoy that coffee!