Mental Health

Dental schools and dental hygiene programs can be great places to start, as they offer comprehensive care at low costs. 

Another option is to find local clinics offering low-cost care through findhelp.org or 211.org. 

Many private dental offices also offer in-house dental membership plans. You pay a monthly fee, similar to insurance, and receive certain services based on the plan you selected (e.g. a certain number of cleanings, exams, x-rays per year). These plans eliminate the middle-man and are often less expensive than dental insurance and provide better coverage. An example would be kleer. 

Several of my followers have found success creating Go Fund Me accounts or reaching out to local churches and community groups regarding benevolence funds for assistance as well.

The best place to begin is asking your community for recommendations through Facebook, Nextdoor, subreddit, or a similar platform. Ask who people like and where they’d take their family members. Also ask who is best with patients with dental trauma and/or anxiety. Word gets around, and a query like that should give you a nice list to start with. 

 Once you have a list of potential offices, call and ask what accomodations they make for patients with your specific situation (e.g. anxiety, past dental trauma, phobia, etc). You can ask them to note your chart with specific requests (e.g. I wear headphones for treatment, I don’t want to engage in small talk, or I don’t respond well to lecturing and prefer a collaborative approach to discussing needs/goals). 

Newer graduates (the past 5-10 years) have likely received “Motivational Interviewing” as part of their training, which is a lecture-free way of discussing treatment needs and setting goals together. If you really want to avoid lectures, request a hygienist and/or dentist familiar with the MI technique. A great book for a provider looking to learn more about MI is by Miller & Rollnick. A helpful workbook that utilizes MI for a patient or provider to explore a current goal is this one. 

Figure out what your particular barriers are: is it sensory (paste texture/flavor), the task is tedious or boring, remembering, getting started, exhaustion, or any number of things. Then make changes to help overcome those barriers. Working with a therapist may help you determine these barriers.

One of the tips that has been most helpful to the greatest number of people on my social media platforms is to purchase pre-pasted toothbrushes and place them all around the house. It decreases the number of steps required and makes it easy to brush wherever you are, whenever you remember. That said, give yourself permission to brush at the “non-ideal” times (morning and night). Perfection is the enemy of good enough! Brush when you remember. Lots of people keep brushes in the shower, and joining the two care tasks together can be very helpful!

I address several more of these barriers in videos on my “Tooth Struggles” playlist at my @TheMamaDentist  TikTok. Check them out!

I have a shop at the top of the page where I provide affiliate links to Amazon for products I mention. Many of these products are also available through their company websites, and it’s worth exploring those sites to perhaps find better pricing if desired. 

The most common products people ask me about are the fun flavored SLS-free toothpastes (most often hello and tanner’s tasty paste). They can all be found in the toothpaste category in my shop. The second-most-requested product is the triple sided toothbrush, Surround, by Specialized Care Co. Which can be found under toothbrushes in my shop in both adult or toddler sizes.