Dear RDH:
Do I have a story for you! I would like to share it with you. First of all, I have been a hygienist for 18 years. For the first time, I couldn?t believe what a patient recently told me.
I brought my patient back to my room, and we chatted for a little while. She then told me that she didn?t think her teeth were Otoo bad today.O I asked why, and she said that her bird had been doing a good job cleaning her teeth. I thought I was hearing things and asked what kind of instrument was being used.
Again, she said her bird! She lets her bird peck at the calculus on her lower anterior teeth. I asked how she trained the bird. She has raised the bird from when it was a baby and used to feed it table food from her mouth. Then the bird just started pecking at her teeth!
The patient told me that the bird does a good job, but once in a while he gets her gum, prompting her to say Oouch.O The bird replies with, OBaby!O
And you know what? She really didn?t have much calculus! But now she has to teach the bird to floss, because she sure does build-up the subgingival calculus in the back!
Thanks for reading this!
Kay Eder
Rochester, Minnesota
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