The Grossest Thing Ever!

As dental professionals we talk about it. Patients actually ask about it.
What is the grossest thing you have found in a patients mouth?

Is it the usual? Popcorn, chewing gum? Maybe it's the Oreo Cookies or the Gummy Bears in the deep occlusal grooves. Or is it mustache hair(or you hope?!) These are usual and customary. What defines gross? The dictionary lists the following definitions.1) fat and coarse looking;burley, 2)flagrant; very bad ,3)dense,thick 4)lacking in refinement; vulgar; coarse. Well these definitions will not help me to describe the" thing" found in a patients mouth. Gross to me is indescribable and this thing was! Plus it makes a catchy blog title.

So what is the grossest thing Ms. SmileScapesUSA contestants have ever found? Let's find out. SmileScapesUSA will survey the contestants and report the results in a future blog.

My finding happened last year in my 32nd year of practicing hygiene: I scaled out of 6mm+ pocket distally on #17 (wisdom tooth lower left)" something." Something I could not identify. It wasn't hard like a bone chip. It wasn't soft like food debris. For lack of a better description it will say it was somewhat spongy.

For some reason I could not bring myself to ask the patient what he had recently eaten. So I placed the unknown thing on gauze and proceeded with the cleaning. Upon completion I walked into the Dr's office to ask him to come do an exam. I proclaimed my 32 years as a superb hygienist and told him I found something in the mouth that stumped me. I had not discussed this with the patient and the "thing" was on the gauze on the bracket table.

I walked into the operatory a little after the Doctor and found him and the patient engaged in conversation about the restaurant he dined in the night before and how fine they prepare octopus.

Mystery solved, ooh, ick, mmmmmmmm, an octopus tentacle!!!

So Ms SmileScapes contestants tell us your gross story. For that matter any hygienists out there email janet@smilescapesusa.com and let your grossiest "thing" be told!