New Year, New White Teeth

For some reason, a new year brings a flood of questions from patients about whitening. What's the best product? Is it damaging? What do you personally like? Of course, we could talk about whitening for an hour with our patients, but who has time for that? We've created a quick guide for you to print off and give to your patient, all about the different types of whitening on the market, average costs, time it takes, and how much it will work. 

Download the newest free hand out today! And keep an eye on our shop- we'll have lots of new downloads coming soon!

Spear Education Giveaway

A few months ago, I was out for a walk and ran into my neighbor down the street. She is the mom to two little ones. She expressed to me she was tired, which makes sense! However, she mentioned that her little boy, who is 2, was a horrible sleeper. He woke up in the night crying, moved around in his crib all night, was irritable during the day and wouldn't nap. Being a new mom myself, I didn't have any advice for her which I felt horrible about. She had been to her peditrition and they had no solution as well. I casually mentioned if he'd been the dentist yet because hey, you never know.

Fast forward to a few days ago. This friend gave me a call to tell me all about her son and the updates with his sleeping. Turns out seeing the dentist was just what he needed. She scheduled an appointment with a local dentist, and on examination, he saw large tonsils and a blocked airway. A referral to an ENT occurred, surgery happened to remove his adenoids and tonsils, and his sleeping has vastly improved. I was in shock and so impressed that they checked his airway and found the root of his sleeping problem. I unfortunately didn't know much about airway problems in children and felt horrible! As a hygienist I should've known and been able to give more advice to help with my friend's child inability to sleep.

Lucky for me, Spear Education reached out to us at Hygiene Edge and asked us to try out their education system this month. They offer live events, on demand CE courses, and a community of dental professionals to talk and collaborate on cases. They have an amazing course on pediatric airway, how to screen patients, what questions to ask parents, and what do to next if you suspect airway issues which I learned so much. I'm excited to talk to my office about adding screenings for airway issues to our regular hygiene visits and helping people like my dear friend!

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Want to try out Spear Education for yourself, and up to 10 others in your practice, for 6 months? Enter to win by commenting below on what your favorite CE topics to learn about are. 

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Contest Details: Winner, and up to 10 others in your office, will receive 6 months of the Spear Education online access. Winner will be announced on the blog our social media outlets by January 26, 2018. Winner will have 30 days to claim the prize. 

2017- A Year in Review

2018! How did this happen?

I’m definitely excited for a new year, a new start, and new opportunities in dental hygiene and with Hygiene Edge! But, before we jump into this new year with two feet, let’s reflect on 2017, shall we?

Last year was definitely one of our best years at Hygiene Edge. We learned so much, grew so much, and realized that Hygiene Edge is not just a hobby, but a passion that we love. We’ve loved getting to know more amazing hygienists and chatting all things dentistry with so many like-minded individuals.

Here are some of the highlights of 2017:

1.    Speaking! We were able increase our reach of dental hygiene through speaking at events all over Utah. We talked with hygienists about dental fads and myths, what we needed to know about them as professionals, and how to answer patients tough questions. We also chatted about local anesthesia, how to give local anesthesia to pedo patients, and how to numb for different dental treatments like wisdom teeth. If you’re looking for a speaker for an event, reach out to us! As much as we love the internet, we love interacting with dental hygienists face to face even more.

2.    Expanding our shop. When Hygiene Edge was first started, having our own shop wasn’t even in the plans. As we’ve grown, we’ve seen a need for classic dental gifts and easy to read hand outs and cheat sheets that weren’t covered in company logos. Hopefully the (few but soon more!) products our store has helped you in your dental hygiene practice.

3.    Meeting/emailing/chatting/messaging/Facetiming hygienists from all over the country. Personally connecting with hygienists, business owners, and students from all over has been amazing! We’ve learned so much from each conversation and it’s amazing to hear how Hygiene Edge has helped others.

Now, for our 2018 goals! We decided to include both a professional and personal goal this year, not only to help us keep them (gulp!) but to show that even though we love dental hygiene, we have lives too.

Hygiene Edge Goals:

1.    Grow our shop. We want to include more amazing guides and products to help your practice of dental hygiene or dental hygiene school go a little bit smoother. On crazy days, even the tiniest thing helps!

2.    Attend a national conference. Dental Hygiene Conferences on a national scale are definitely worth the time any money. So, we are planning our year to attend at least one to meet more amazing hygienists. Which one is your favorite?

3.    Be okay with where we are. There are days when we’d wish we were bigger, we could spend more time on making videos, or have contact with more companies and most hygienists. This year we are going to be nicer on ourselves and take one day at a time. We’ve loved growing to where we are now and we definitely want to grow, but at our own pace.

Melia

Professional: Attend American Dental Hygienists’ Association Annual Session this summer. Do some simple stretches between each patient.

Personal: Adopt a baby. I’ve talked about my daughter a bit on Hygiene Edge before, but I don’t know if I mentioned I had a lot of health problems with pregnancy and she was born at 31 weeks. Because of that, we are hoping to adopt a little one to grow our family. You can learn more about it on our Instagram (@davidandmeliaadopt) or our new website that should be launching in the next little bit (www.davidandmeliaadopt.com) if you’re interested in following along and spreading the word!

Jessica

Professional: Graduate with my masters of education in under 2 years! I started this month on my master’s degree which will be amazing but a lot of work. I’m excited to see where it will take me in this profession.

Personal: Write in my journal daily. Keeping a daily record help me foster gratitude and keep perspective on what really matters.

Shelly

Professional: Make an amazing board review course. I’m lucky enough take over this year’s board review course at the school I teach at (Utah College of Dental Hygiene). Making amazing course for my students that will hopefully help hygienists all over the country is my goal.

Personal: Put down the phone and be present with my kiddies.

Candi

Professional: Start Vlogging! And do at least 10 vlogs this year.

Personal: Date my husband!

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What are your goals for 2018 either professional or personal? Let us know so we can help support each other!

Great Morning Huddle Tips and Tricks

Team huddles in the morning can either make or break your clinical day. They can either be a great team and production-building tool or bore the entire office. If you have meetings or are thinking of holding them, make sure you follow these few tips to make them worth the time.

1.     Have an agenda. Having an agenda will make sure the meeting flows, everything is covered, and the meeting stays on topic. Put someone in charge of creating this agenda but allow everyone to contribute to it beforehand if they have ideas on how to improve your office.

2.     Discuss that day’s schedule. Discuss new patients, openings in the day where hygiene patients with needed restorative work can be scheduled, and any personal information coming up about patients, like birthdays or celebrations.

3.     Review marketing techniques for the office. Talk about any current promotions your office has, what is happening on your social media, and remind everyone in the office to ask for referrals and online reviews.

4.     Start and finish on time. You loose staff attention if you go over the allotted meeting time anyway. We are expected to stay on time with patients, we should hold the same standards with our personal meetings.

Does your office have regular morning huddles? What works for your office?

The Clip Mirrior By DH Essentials

The Clip Mirror is a mirror that attaches to the slow speed suction. This way you can suction and see at the same time. Check out our latest video below to see it in action. 

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If you want to win one for your practice, lets us know in the comments below where your favorite area is in the mouth to use indirect vision. 

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Things we love about it:

 It was created by a fellow hygienist

It has a super clear high-quality mirror face

It snaps on quick and easy to the suction, and is sturdy

You can learn all about it from DH Essentials HERE.

Winner will be announced by January 19, 2018

BOGO on Instruments

Hey there hygiene friends. Just a reminder that today is the last day to

buy one instrument get one freeeeee. 

Of the LM sharpen freeeee instruments. Check them out HERE.

Things I love about them are the wider handle, that helps relieve my carpel tunnel hand.  The different colors of each instrument for easy identification, and best of all, that you don't sharpen them. YAY!!

December Favorites Round Up

Do you follow us on Pinterest?

Did you get new scrubs for the Holidays? What is your favorite brand to wear?

This cute watch is on sale! And will brighten up a slow and dark January. 

This study is interesting. Did you have a hard time with dental or dental hygiene school? I definitely have flash backs of break downs. Could it be PTSD?

Looking for something to do on your days off? Why not take in a few CE's from Viva Learning.

If you're setting your goals for 2018 this week, maybe look into joining the ADHA to help the profession?

The ADA just released their 2018 brushing calendar for each month next year.

Winner!

Congrats to our winner of the two LM Sharp Diamond Instruments. 

K. Hastie

Please send an email to hygieneedge@gmail.com for the details on claiming your instruments. 

You have 30 days to claim you prize. 

No More Sharpening

Yay, no more sharpening!! LM Instruments has created an instrument that you don't  sharpen.  Now, I know you are saying... I will sharpen them anyways, but NO  I am serious when I say DON'T SHARPEN these.  Some of the features we like are:

1. Obviously that you DON'T sharpen them. They are sharp and they will stay sharp. So don't do it!

2. You replace them as often as you do your current instruments. For example, if you currently replace your instruments yearly then you will do the same with these. It really depends, just like your other instruments, on how often you are using them.

3. The wide silicone handle is very ergonomic! It WILL feel new at first, as these are the widest handled instruments I had ever used, but the adjustment time is short, like 1 day short. 

4. ENTER TO WIN THESE

 Head on over to our Facebook page and hit the  "share " button.

(Winner will be announced by December 22nd.) 

5. Check them out in our video below.

Hygiene Edge's Favorite Things Winner

Congratuations MacKenzie on winning our Favorite Things giveaway!

Please email us @ hygieneedge@gmail.com with your shipping information.