 Hello everybody, Andrea here with Dental L Mobile Hygiene. So a day in the life of a mobile dental hygienist. So today I was seeing primarily children. So depending on the day, I might see a family of six. I might see two kids the next day. I might see two adults the next day, three kids the next day. It really does vary on who I see and how many people because I like to be as flexible as possible for my patients. And what I like to do is when I get messages from parents saying they want me to take a quick look at their two year old, three year old or four year old who's never been to the dentist before but they want me to come and have a quick look to make sure that everything's okay, that there's no cavities, there's no concerns, there's not a lot of plaque, tartar, buildup, anything. Those children I refer to as those appointments as dental screenings. So I'm probably not going to do a full polish, full this, full that, it's not going to take me an hour but I like to go in there, talk to the parents whoever's home about how are they brushing? Are they starting to use those floss picks? What toothpaste are they using? What is their diet like? And are they able to brush themselves? Are the parents helping them? And I like to talk to them overall about how they can take care, how they can help their child take care of their mouth and every child is different. So I might walk in, the child might be nervous, shy, not sure, I take it slow. So let me just show you guys a couple of things. So when I see children, I bring, I call him Mr. Rex. It's amazing how many kids love Mr. Rex but a little warning, some two and three year olds are scared of him probably because of his big teeth. So I don't just shove Mr. Rex in their face. I actually come in, say hello because remember, this is the parents and the child's first time meeting me. So I say hello, I, sorry guys, this is live unedited. I say hello and I introduce myself and then I put Mr. Rex down. So I don't just shove it to the kids, shove it to the parents. I say, this is Mr. Rex. He was so excited to see you. He does have a big toothbrush too but they're actually being sanitized at the moment. But, and then I just kind of leave the toothbrush down here. I put him down and then I let the parent know that I will be right back. I'm just going to make another trip where I bring in my patient chair, stool. I bring in my cart here. I call it a cart because sometimes I do attach it to a larger attachment if I need more stuff. And then I also bring in this, okay? So what this has is if I'm bringing my cart, I don't normally need this because I can put all of this stuff in my cart. But I find when I'm seeing children it's just kind of easier to just carry two different things. Sorry, I was trying to lift that up but I lost my strings there. So I just come in carrying this. Super simple for screenings. So if I'm doing a full cleaning, there's going to be more. So this is just for kids. And what I have in there is my mobile dental bag advertising where I have my loops in there, my disinfectant, my gloves, I have the intraoral camera in there, my laptop, my hair caps, that kind of thing. Of course, as I had shown you guys, I bring in Mr. Rex. But what do I have in here, do you ask? So for children, I might do nothing. So if the child is super nervous, I'm going to just say, okay, let's count Mr. Rex's teeth together. We count his teeth together. And if I can tell that the child is still nervous, that's okay. I'm going to try again though. I'm going to say he has, I don't know, 20 teeth, how many teeth do you have? Can I count them? Let me just check here if I have my plastic tooth mirror. I like to bring out my plastic tooth mirror. I think they're all being sanitized right now too. Sorry guys, I don't even have that to show you. But for kids, I like to bring out the plastic tooth mirror. This is obviously stainless steel. I don't want the child to hold this and possibly hurt themselves. Well, what they like to do is go to the parents and shove this in the parents' mouth right away. If it's plastic, it doesn't cause as much damage. Of course, if you're going to shove it in there, that's not good either, but plastic is better. So I let kids hold the plastic tooth mirrors, plus they come in different colors. So I'll say to them, would you like a purple one or an orange one? They go, ooh, orange, I go, here you go. I'm going to use this cool one, this super shiny one to count as well. So then we count Mr. Rex's teeth together. And then I'm going to say, awesome, can I count your teeth now? And then you can have a toy. And hopefully they open for me to count their teeth. And then I have a toy box as well. So I just have five or six toys in there at a time. I find if you add in too many toys, the kids take like an hour and a half to choose, right? So I just have a couple little toys. Amazon purchases you guys, super easy. So I let them pick a toy. And then if I see something, so let's say I'm looking in the child's mouth and I see a little suspicious area, I'm going to want to apply silver diamine fluoride, otherwise known as SDF. That is like a liquid medicine. I tell the parents, it's a liquid medicine that I put on the tooth to kill the cavity. So then if I notice a little spot, I'm going to let the parents know. And then what I do next is, so for silver diamine fluoride, I use very tiny micro brushes. Notice how the yellow one is longer, the blue one is tinier. So I take the tinier one, so it's more localized to the area. I'm going to also give a brush to the child. So I go, okay, this is gonna be so much fun. I'm going to put something on the teeth to make them super shiny. They don't make the teeth shiny, it's killing the cavity. But if you tell the child, I'm going to put a medicine on your tooth to kill the cavity. It's gonna taste horrible. They're not gonna do it, right? So I say, okay, I'm gonna put something super shiny on your teeth. Here, you can hold this one. I give it to the child. And then I go, okay. Let's put it on Mr. Rex's tooth right here. I rub it in. I count to three and done. Isn't his tooth so shiny? And they go, wow. So then, I mean, hopefully that's the plan. So then what I'm going to do is I shake this up really, really well, keep it away from the kids. It stains like crazy. I shake, shake, shake. I put it in a little dish. I dap it in there. And I say, okay, now I'm going to put this on your tooth to make it really, really shiny. And then, which I forgot to mention earlier, you guys, I like to put on a fluoride varnish. Salted caramel is everything. So I have the salted caramel one. And then I'm gonna put on something that tastes like candy to make it really, really show. I'm doing it again. Sorry, guys. I can't stop talking so much. Or I need some water. So then with the yellow brush, this stuff tastes like candy. I'm gonna put it all over the teeth. I pay special attention to that tooth because it's going to taste bad. And then you're done. If I can do that, if I can make the teeth shiny, you get two stickers afterwards. That usually helps. So then I do that. The child is usually at this point like, ew, that tastes horrible. I go, really, I love that taste. But if you don't like it, you can have some water. They drink the water, spit out the water, whatever they wanna do. And then they're done and they can pick two stickers. So that's what I do for my child's screening. But if they have a cavity, then that's where the SDF comes in. But I like to talk to parents too. So it's not just simply, hi, I'm Andrea, count the teeth, teeth look good, see you later. Because then they're gonna wonder, why am I paying for this? Like that took two seconds. I like to talk to the parents as well. I talked to them about the diet. I talked to them about xylitol and why that's so important. I'm going to recommend a toothpaste for their child. So I have a couple of different ones that I like that include xylitol. That's just the best prevention. And then I let the parents know, keep an eye out for any black spots, brown spots or anything that doesn't look normal. If you see something you're concerned about, take a photo of it, send it to me. And I can let you know if it's something to be concerned about or if I'm not sure, then I can come over and have another look. So I talk to the parents too. The point of a dental screening, even if the teeth look fantastic, there's no cavities, that's okay. That's a good thing, right? But it helps to get the child used to you coming over and looking in their mouth. If for some reason the child just isn't into it, I don't force things. Some dental professionals don't agree with me on this. They say, well, you're there, you're the authority figure, the child has to listen to you. But I do not force things. So if the child just is shy, nervous, not sure, I'm not going to shove something in their mouth and then go, okay, pick a toy now. No. So I let them pick a toy anyway. I say, okay, can I count maybe one tooth? If I can do something, then I'll say, okay, you did great. You can pick a toy now. And then next time, maybe I can look in your mouth with my tooth mirror. You can have another toy. Do you want another toy today? And then that might help to move things along. If it doesn't work, that's okay. They at least know who you are. And when you come back, they're not going to remember she shoved something in my mouth. I didn't like her. They're going to remember, she let me pick a toy. Even when I was kind of, you know, I wasn't very happy, but she let me pick a toy anyway. They remember that and slowly but surely they get better and better. If I can't look in the child's mouth at all, I tell the parents, I still talk to them about proper brushing habits, diet, xylitol, all of that. And I'm going to recommend especially a certain toothpaste that has xylitol in it because I couldn't look inside the mouth today. There might be a suspected cavity. There might not be, I don't know, but using this toothpaste really makes a big difference in prevention. So we're doing everything we possibly can. So for a screening, I'd say it takes me approximately 45 minutes. And that includes bringing my stuff in from the car, sitting down, talking to the parents, all of that, sometimes half an hour. That's it though. It doesn't take long, but it also doesn't take 10 minutes either because I like to talk to the child, the parents, and all of that. And I like to see kids every six months, mainly because if they get a little suspected lesion, I like to take care of that before it's this big hole. And then I tell them, you're going to have to go to the dentist to get a filling, try doing a filling on a two-year-old, impossible. So these are the types of things that I talk about with parents. So let me know you guys if you have any questions. When I do dental screenings, by the way, for children, I like to book a bunch of children in that day. So that way I don't just have one 45-minute appointment. That's not really going to be worth it to me. Or I like to book those dental screenings after I see a couple adult patients, maybe a family of six. It doesn't matter. But I don't just book children's screenings like one patient a day. So I kind of manage my schedule that way too. So if you are a mobile dental hygienist and you would like to start seeing more children or maybe you need help in your mobile dental hygiene practice, I can help you. I do have a course called Mobile RDH Academy where I give you guys step-by-step everything on how I run my successful mobile dental hygiene practice. So comment below if you have any questions. Thank you guys so much for watching and I'll see you guys in the next one.