Some Patients to Remember

Today didn't quite go as planned. I had a brother and sister (ages 16 and 13) coming in. I knew I was going to have to bust my butt to get them done, but I had high hopes that it could be done. Those hopes were shattered the second I looked into each of their mouthes. I couldn't believe it. I first saw the girl. She had a pretty good case of some gingivitis, TONS of plaque and multiple caries! She had a few good things for me to see, including a retained root tip. Prof. M. helped me to get a plan set up for her to try to get her on the right track. The good news is that I didn't have to retake any of my BW's! I was pretty stoked!
I was running pretty behind when I brought the brother back. The mom had mentioned that he had just gotten his braces off, but I certainly wasn't expecting what I saw. He had decalcification, and caries EVERYWHERE! I honestly didn't even know where to start. He had so much plaque, I couldn't even get accurate probe measurements. The funny thing was, that the mom acted like it was a normal thing after getting braces off. I tried to set some OH goals with him and he was totally uninterested...his comment was "i'm just not a motivated person." Boy oh boy, I wish I could teach him some motivation! If he was my child I would be making him pay for that ginormous bill their going to get from the dentist. I just don't understand the thoughts that go through people's heads sometimes!!! We ended up just doing a full mouth debridement to try to get some of the plaque off. He is just going to go see the dentist to be scaled and polished because we ran out of time. I was actually kind of glad, because he had so much dimineralization, that honestly I didn't want to touch any of his teeth with my scaler! As Prof. M put it, these kids really need to meet their toothbrush!!!