Was my dental cleaning improper?

You could always tell the office manager that Ken seems like he wants to do well, but needs to be a little more assertive and upfront when he's explaining procedures so that the patients know he's doing everything necessary. My dentists of the moment (oh boy, one root canal this month and maybe one next month) are so informative that sometimes I have to suppress a "yes, been here, I know" moment, but it's understandable that they want people to be completely aware of what's going on. Also, set up a "hey, take your tools out of my mouth for a second" hand signal with your hygienists so they can stop and you can rinse/ ask questions when possible. Question everything, assume an active interest in what's going on. I have far-ranging drug allergies, and I know now to eye the vial and say "Hey, what's that, anyhow" before anyone puts a needle near my gums. The more they explain, the more you know what's going on, and if they're not explaining enough, just ask to consult with the dentist before you leave.

Planing and scaling! Hah! I've had that done TWICE, believe it or not. *rolleyes* I've been seeing the same hygienist for two years, and she does the same steps every time but always in a different order. Sometimes it's manual scraping first, sometimes it's ultrasonic, sometimes it's polishing. I think she does it to make her life more interesting. Either way, I leave with clean teeth. Your guy sounds like a newbie, fresh out of school. His awkwardness says to me that he just hasn't done the twenty thousand cleanings that your other hygienist has done. He'll get better with practice. I'm sure he knows he was terrible, after all, he's been to hygienist school or he wouldn't be cleaning your teeth in the first place.

I have had cleaning done for decades every few months. I have never seen a cleaning performed as you stated. I would assume he was new and inexperienced. Of course you should tell the dentist. And writing it will give you the best opportunity to not leave anything out that you need to tell him. His sequence is very odd and I have never had a cleaning or exam done in that way. Actually I can hardly believe that he was that incompetent .You really need to tell the dentist.

What saradarlin said. In my experience, they scrape whereever there happens to be plaque buildup. Sometimes that's all over, sometimes there's hardly any scraping. Also, I have never experienced pain from them measuring my gums, even the first time I went after not seeing a dentist for over ten years. That's not normal unless whoever is doing it is jabbing you in the gums really hard or your gums are very inflamed. As an aside, if you keep up with your cleanings, there will be much less of the expensive work to be done later.

Sounds ok to me. I have had this done a few times.

I can't speak to the competence of your hygienist, but I can speak to the relative comfort/discomfort of having gum pockets checked. When I first returned to the dentist after a seven year absence, having my gums checked was excruciating, and I had to have a scalar root planing done. (I actually needed an SRP, a root canal, two crowns, and 17 fillings. They knocked my ass out and did it all in one marathon 9 hour session.) When I returned for my next appointment, 2.5 months later, the gum check was probably about half as painful as it had been before. Now when I go it literally just feels like the hygienist is massaging my gums with a Q-tip. The whole point of the root planing is to get rid of the ick that is making your gums inflamed and painful. With that gone, the check is going to hurt a LOT less.

I would not write to the dentist about it. Reading through your review of his performance, you seem to focus more on his unconfident manner (the umms and uhhs, the fumbling, the re-positioning of instruments, himself, his chair, etc) than the actual cleaning process. He certainly sounds new, nervous, and awkward about it all....but aren't we all that way with some job or chore we're supposed to do, at some point? He will get more comfortable with it in time, and I don't think it needs to be brought up with his supervisor. I've been to the dentist twice for cleanings in the past year. His procedure does not sound odd to me. The only thing not in line with my own visits, is that yes....I was scraped with the metal hook before I was polished each time. But I was only asked to rinse once after scraping, and once after polishing both times. And they did not scrape me as much on my second visit as they had on my first. On the first visit, I had not been previously for a couple of years, so that cleaning process was longer. When they measured my gum pockets in the beginning, the first visit was much more uncomfortable than the second by quite a bit as I also hadn't been flossing before then. If you're still concerned about it though (perhaps my own experiences are not the norm), why don't you call the front office, say you have a couple of questions, and just ask what their normal cleaning procedures are? Without mentioning your last experience or Ken at all. Just say you're curious about their cleaning procedure, ask if they always scrape before they polish, and if they always scrape all of the teeth. If your experience is out of line with what they say (for instance, if they say "yes we always scrape before we polish") then okay, consider writing the letter.

Did the Dentist check your teeth after the procedures were complete? Whenever I go to the Dentist, after the hygenist does her/his work, the Dentist comes in and checks everything and will tell me if any further work needs to be done.

I've had the polishing done first when, after a preliminary look around my mouth, the hygienist decided there wasn't a whole lot of scraping to do. Sounds like that was the case for you if he only did a few scrapings.