by Dr. Spencer Nadolsky
I was pissed a couple weeks ago when my dentist and his hygienist told me I needed to floss more. I felt like one of the patients my doctor buddies talk about who are NON-COMPLIANT, which means they don’t follow the doctor’s orders. “You really need to floss more” they said about five or six times without even asking me how often I DID floss. If they would have actually asked me, I would have told them I flossed at least every other day, which I thought was pretty good. Guess I was WRONG!
“Yeah you really need to floss more” – as my gums begin to bleed from their forceful flossing
The lessen of this story is two-fold. First, I will vow to try harder to not make my patients feel the way they made me feel. I will continue to work on encouraging and not discouraging behaviors in my patients so they don’t feel badly when leaving my office. Second, I guess I will need to work harder at flossing. Maybe I wasn’t the picture of perfect health I thought I was? Maybe we all have something to work on.
How will I change my habit of flossing every other day to every day? I will use my Way of Life app I spoke about in my last article Top 5 Apps for Losing Fat / Weight and just make a commitment to the easy action of flossing at night before bed. It only takes me about 3 minutes, which seems like a bargain for keeping my gums healthy.
So the next time I go into the dentist and he and his hygienist tell me I need to floss more I will tell them to screw off… or maybe I will floss twice a day to try to prove them wrong once again.
