 Hello everybody, Andrea Mayasty here with dental tutoring. I had a YouTube question about a week ago I believe but it was an excellent question as they always are. Somebody asked me what dental hygiene does to your body over time and how can you prevent certain issues? How can you handle them if they happen and just sort of what happens? Now you have all probably heard at some point by now that yes being a dental hygienist is hard on your body. Now I've been doing this for about 14 years and I can have me say that I don't have any chronic back pain, neck pain issues, but I I can't say that I never did have pain, you know after an eight-hour day I'm exhausted, my back tends to hurt, my neck hurts sometimes but you know part of that's usually my fault, you know, I'm the worst person to For example, if I'm seeing a five-year-old in my chair who might be antsy who might be You know so shy that I will ask them to move and they just don't do it I have the bad tendency to move myself, you know So that I can see properly or instead of asking the patient to move for me I'll just simply move my neck a little bit more, but that's not the best way to do it Okay, so it's not something that I recommend So a little tip for you guys to begin with is to look at your patient and Set them up That's easiest for you because you need to remember that you're the one doing this all day every day and might be I mean I'm not saying this to make it sound the way it's coming out But they might be uncomfortable for 45 minutes where that's helping you prevent back pain for the rest of your life There are patients out there that are annoying and yes I said it those annoying patients where you'll sit them back a little bit and they'll be like, oh my god I can't sit that far back. Don't don't do it and you're thinking in your head. Okay. How do you lay down at night bed? How do you sleep when you're barely sitting them back and they're just like What are you doing yet? You're barely sitting them back Now that's up to you how you want to handle that situation But what I do at least now is I I will say will I apologize, but I can't clean your teeth like this I can't see and if I can't see I can't clean your teeth properly I can't hurt my back bending over for you, you know, I might not take it that far It depends on how the patient's acting, but I'm not afraid to say well I'm sorry, but I do have to sit you back a little bit more because if I don't I can't see Um, and I want to clean your teeth properly because it's always those patients It's amazing. They don't want to lay back for you But then when the dentist comes in to do the check, they just automatically lay them back really far And the patient's fine Watch it. It happens So that's a little piece of advice for you is make the patient work for you Don't work for them If you can't see tell them to move their head either away from you or towards you depending on where you're working Don't move your neck so that you can see because that's a bad habit that I have And I notice that when I do that my neck is very sore at the end of the day I am known to sleep on my neck wrong And I will have a sore neck for three or four days afterwards But it's probably not from sleeping on my neck wrong It's probably from not working and sitting properly And then I sleep slightly the wrong way and then it does hurt my neck So those are just kind of the issues that I have the more Sudden pain, but nothing ever lasts Thankfully, but I do recommend getting a massage at least once a month because this is something that I like to do Um, I did have insurance so it was covered now that I don't have insurance. Yes, it's expensive I pay about I think with tax almost a hundred dollars for the hour But that is saving me in the long run you guys I know that after I get a massage I just I feel better Not that I was in pain before But I just feel like my body isn't as tight So if you haven't been getting that um, if you haven't been getting massages yet highly recommend it Save up your money if you have to it. It will work for you in the long run now Um another tip is I did get loops So if you're a dental hygiene student even now is a good time to get loops Because they're typically cheaper for students. You get them at a discount. They are worth every penny Because it will help you sit up properly Um, I find when I had to repair my loops for a couple weeks I sent them out for repair I'd be sitting like this, but then I couldn't see the teeth properly like it just felt weird Because with loops everything is magnified and you have a light and it's just amazing But with without loops if you're not used to working without them You will almost feel like you have to see better and you get closer But then notice how you could easily have neck pain back pain hip pain the whole works you guys So sit properly even just practice practice at home, you know Sitting up properly back as straight as possible, you know Let the patient come to you now. There are instances though where that's just impossible If your patient's in a Wheel chair or if they just have something where they're not able to sit back all the way That's totally normal. It does happen. You may have to stand up for 45 minutes. Yes, that will hurt hurt your back Yes, you will have neck pain. Yes, you will be in pain But do the best you can to be in the least amount of pain possible And make sure that you're not seeing patients like that back to back like if you're seeing Wheelchair patients eight patients a day that's not right And you will really hurt your back because typically for them you do have to stand up Maybe not for the homo but for parts of it that you can't see if you're seeing kids all day every day You know, you will likely have to move sometimes depending on the child But that will be harder on your back over time So prevention really helps Darn, I thought I had it here. I think I moved into the other room Um, I'll leave a link actually on the bottom of the youtube video But I did buy it's called a foam Roller I bought it off of amazon and I use that every day. I try to but sometimes it's not every day But I find that if I don't use it then I I'm in more pain, you know, I'm not in pain I shouldn't say pain where I feel like I have to take Advil or something because it's like oh, it hurts so bad But it just feels uncomfortable So I will use the foam roller on my um hip area to just sort of stretch My back and my hip area and then sometimes even on my neck For the stretches I'll try to send youtube videos for you guys because that's what I did when I first ordered my foam roller In fact, I might even have a youtube video on on here somewhere when I was first talking about it But I would just look on videos on youtube like I would just type in foam roller exercises for the hip or foam roller exercises for the back So do a search and it does really really help you guys because it does stretch things out So I would do that when I used to work full-time I would do that before work and after work for like five minutes So it's not a half an hour or anything like that because who has time for that But I did it for five minutes and that helped me I'm sure if I could do it for 10 minutes before and after that would help me even more But just sometimes I just feel like I don't have time for that But I found that really did help me out where I just felt better after work I wasn't as tired Even when I went for my massages every month She would always say like oh, you're not as tight as you normally are. What are you doing differently? So prevention helps but also just being in the moment and recognizing If you're moving your neck too much, you're you know head too much your shoulders are slouched Just keep an eye on all of that and you might not ever have any issues but Full disclosure. I do not work full-time anymore I work part-time even some weeks less than part-time because I tutor full-time from home So I probably work twice a week at the most and that will probably help me in the long run also Because if you're not working as much then you're not putting as much stress on your body But obviously we can't all do that. We have to make a living But if you're able to cut back a day a week even I think that that would make a huge difference But if you guys want to follow me for the next 30 years I will let you guys know how my back hips shoulders and everything are doing Knock on wood that there won't be any issues So I hope this helped. Please let me know if you guys have any comments or questions I am very happy to help and I'll see you guys in the next one