Friday, January 20, 2006

I Am Disturbed!

After work I had to go to the dentist. No problems per se, just a regular check-up, ending with the age-old suggestion that I should consider having my face torn apart to dig those wisdom teeth out of my head. According to my dentist, the roots of those gum-hidden boulders are threatening to poke through my scalp and neck, any day now!
Plus, I need to get a crown on the tooth that marks the site of an ancient root canal.
Even though I have insurance that covers most of these bills, I once again opted to forego any further optional excavation of my jawbone[s]!
But this time around, I noticed something as I sat in the chair... staring at the dental lamp.
Obviously, in any Dentist Office worthy of the name, great care is taken toward sterility, cleanliness, hygiene.... I mean, what is the word?
Lack of GERMS is what I am after.
Lack of the spreading of germs.
Obviously, my dentist works on a myriad of patients on a daily basis, as do his many assistants. Today, no less than three people had their hands in my mouth for quite a while. The dentist, his main assistant, and then a sort of rookie-type girl who came in to finish off with the cleaning and polishing.
So, as they all worked away I sat there and stared up at the kite of a butterfly in the top corner of the room, and of course, I also stared into the lamp.
The lamp.

That bright lamp, with the stainless steel handles, just like the one shown here, in the picture.
Of course, every one that had their hands crammed into my mouth had those latex gloves on. Whenever anyone entered the room they put on those gloves. When they left the room, they took those gloves off, and discarded them.
This is all as it should be. So far so good, right?
BUT...
BUT...
[I am far too observant....]
I noticed that all of them, in between having their hands crammed in my mouth, [which was, of course, full of my own personal saliva and germy thingys]... all of them also raised and lowered that lamp at least forty times!
Now.
My question is this.
Every time they reach up to that lamp and grab those handles, aren’t they putting my germs all over them?
And then every time they bring those hands down back into my mouth, aren’t I sort of eating the germs of whoever it was that last sat in that chair, just before me? And then, before that guy too?
Like seriously, when I get up off of the nice recliner chair and rinse out and then go to the desk to settle the score and book my next appointment, I have never once seen anyone scouring that dentist lamp with any sort of... scoury thingy!
In fact, I have seen other people pretty much walk straight in there.
So what is the deal with the dentist lamps?
Like seriously, as I got into my car and drove away I thought to myself, “Hey, there must be tons of my spit-juice all over that lamp!”
Is there a dental hygienist, or dental assistant, or DENTIST out there that can answer my questions?
WHO WASHES THE LAMP HANDLES.... AND WHEN?
AND HOW OFTEN?
AND WITH WHAT?


Seriously, if someone is not regularly hosing off those lamp handles real good, it really doesn’t matter if the dentist is wearing three pairs of latex gloves at a time.
He [or she] is still putting other people’s germs (and my own) all over those things!

4 comments:

Stefanie said...

Eeewwww! I never thought of that before!

Cipriano said...

I know, I know.
I think wayyyyy too much!

Anonymous said...

You are not disturbed! Just hyper-observant, like me. Tell your dentist to cover the handles with plastic baggies that can be changed between patients. A former dentist of mine did that and I noticed.
By the way, I read your Blog on July 26, 2005....
http://bookpuddle.blogspot.com/2005_07_01_bookpuddle_archive.html
Yes, I, Stefania King, really do exist and I also am a writer.
I will send you an email.

Anonymous said...

It was only a week or two ago, I was reading about a case involving six people contracting HIV from a dentist visit in the US (all the same dentist/same day. Just remember, even a cleaning makes your gums bleed so forget about the saliva, that's small potato's!