Debbi Viger, RDH, BHS
Debra Viger, RDH, BHS, has 30 years of clinical dental hygiene, dental office management, and treatment coordination experience. Embracing a complete approach to efficient dental office operations, she successfully encourages offices to work at peak performance levels with a renewed sense of purpose and enthusiasm. She is past president of McHenry County Dental Hygiene Society and past chair of continuing education. She has published in both RDH and Access Magazine.
Debra is currently a Director of Outreach, teaching daily home care techniques, nutrition for dental health, and desensitization for the developmentally delayed and autistic community. Through her program, she has demonstrated that all patients are special and need unique treatment options. This programming is easily shared including the video training. Reach out for further information to nviger8 [at] aol.com.
Debra is currently a Director of Outreach, teaching daily home care techniques, nutrition for dental health, and desensitization for the developmentally delayed and autistic community. Through her program, she has demonstrated that all patients are special and need unique treatment options. This programming is easily shared including the video training. Reach out for further information to nviger8 [at] aol.com.
Hygienists’ Opinions Sought: Consider Applying for Colgate’s Advisory Board
Have you thought about applying for a position on the Colgate Oral Health Advisory Board (COHAB) for 2020? I sincerely hope everyone knows about this opportunity Colgate provides for hygienists. The board is made up of a small number of diverse dental professionals. The number of years practicing, location, area of interest, and practice type are all taken into...
Tips for When Patients Question or Refuse Radiographs
Note: This is Part 1 of Debbi Viger's series, Special Needs: Everyone Has Special Needs
All of us are special in some way and require adjustments to our treatment and our daily life. Let’s just embrace that concept for a moment, take a deep breath and strive to create excellence for ourselves and our patients. So often we read in blogs...
A Patient’s Story of Tori Removal
NOTE: This story and associated photos are all used with express, written permission from the patient.
Who among us has had a patient that taking radiographs is a freakish nightmare!? Is it a gag reflex? Ropey, copious saliva? Fear of radiation? Or, the dreaded tori that leave no room for the sensor, let alone the tongue and food!? Recently, I...
Environmentally-friendly Dental Home Care Options for Flossing
Hey, all you floss-loving, pick-loving, tooth-brushing enthusiasts, we have a problem here! How often are you in a parking lot and see a discarded floss pick lying on the pavement? It happens all the time. People toss garbage as if it doesn’t matter. We need to educate our patients on excellent home care as well as the proper disposal...
Dental Botox Case Study: Long-term Relief for TMJ Patient Continues
A year ago, I began the Botox journey with my ridiculously overachieving masseters! Unwilling to wear a nightguard and clenching by day as well as during the night, I knew I needed some sort of untraditional relief. Anti-inflammatories, warm moist heat massage, and mindfulness were solutions without results, and my jaw muscles buffed up in a way I wished...
Colgate’s Anywhere Anytime: Offer Immediate Relief for Sensitivity During Dental Treatment
Have you started using the miracle in a tube? Every day we treat patients with dentinal hypersensitivity that makes the appointment uncomfortable or fearful. Worse yet are dental patients who choose not to seek treatment because of perceived pain that may occur. We now have a treatment option that is fast, affordable, proven, and long-acting.
Anywhere Anytime by Colgate is...
4 Tips to Using Dental Lasers in the Hygiene Operatory
Does your state allow hygienists to use laser as an adjunct to dental treatment? If yes, are you laser certified? If you have access to a laser, look up a class, and get certified! Not only is learning something new super fun, but the laser is also beneficial and straightforward to use.
For many, lasers seem daunting and slightly scary,...
What Hygienists Need to Know About Basal Cell Carcinoma
When greeting your patients, do you look them in the eye and evaluate their face overall? It is important as you walk with them to notice their gait and general appearance.
I recently had a new patient present and noticed a small reddened area along her lower lash line. Before placing our darkened, protective glasses, I inquired about the area to...
Oral Care Training for Assisted Living Staff: Toothbrush Storage
This is Part 2 of the Oral Care Training for Assisted Living Staff. Part one explored the steps of creating a program to educate staff in general tooth brushing and basic daily home care in assisted living settings. Part two explores training staff in toothbrush storage and sanitation.
Toothbrush storage and sanitation play a vital role in any residential or...
Oral Care Training for Assisted Living Staff
Ever think about assisted living patient care? These patients oral health is often overlooked as the staff is incredibly busy meeting daily needs, and often undertrained in the importance of thorough plaque removal. How can we step in and fill the dental needs to these so deserving people? Setting up a program for daily home care is not nearly as difficult as...
Finding the Perfect Office: It Begins with the Interview
What kind of office are you in? There is the kind where it is a utopian bliss, and the team truly is a team of well-intentioned, happy people working cohesively to create the ultimate patient experience. Then there is the office that targets the hygienist because of the income disparity and requires a patient be seen every 40 minutes,...
Pet Oral Health: A Dental Hygienist at a Veterinary Conference
Pet oral health has become a huge topic lately with so many hygienists being animal lovers, as well as oral health experts. We know that each state has different requirements allowing hygienists to complete professional pet prophylaxis, and it all seems quite obscure as to what the exact requirements are. Attending a recent veterinary conference in San Diego, California,...
Veterinary Dental Hygiene: Every Hygienists’ Dream Prophylaxis
It seems in every blog, Facebook group, or gathering of hygienists, someone brings up pet dental. While the end result of clean teeth and healthy tissue is the same for humans and pets, and the instruments are similar, the procedure is quite different.
Puppies and kittens begin their dental examinations at the very first preventive appointment, at about 6-8 weeks...
Our Own Special Dental Hygienist Needs: Finding Career Happiness
Our own special dental hygienist needs must be met to keep the motivation for our career alive. So many of us have been there; those days when you just don’t feel your hygiene heart is 100% in the game. What to do? Give yourself a two-week maximum to roll in lethargy, and then make a conscious choice to either...
How to Create a Stress-Free Appointment for Patients by Utilizing Desensitization
We all have those patients who simply hate what it is that we do. Whether it’s updating health history, laying back in the chair, probing, too much water, bad flavors, or scaling their teeth, they hate it all. Desensitization is the process used to overcome each of the objections to create an appointment free of stress and which can...
The Very Special Education Process of Medical History Disclosure
Note: This is Part 5 of Debbi Viger’s series, Special Needs: Everyone Has Special Needs. Read Part 1 here, Part 2 here, Part 3 here, and Part 4 here.
Each of us experiences the patient that just disagrees with everything. The challenge, and often most rewarding portion of our appointment, is getting to yes. Often it starts in the reception area, was the wait...
The Great Fluoride Debate: Patients Who Refuse Fluoride
Note: This is Part 4 of Debbi Viger’s series, Special Needs: Everyone Has Special Needs. Read Part 1 here, Part 2 here, and Part 3 here.
Every patient who sits in our chair has preconceived notions of what is right and what is wrong. Some patients feel that chemicals are evil, toothpaste is potentially life-threatening, and a fluoride treatment is not...
The Education Process of Prophylaxis vs. Scaling and Root Planing
Note: This is Part 3 of Debbi Viger’s series, Special Needs: Everyone Has Special Needs. Read Part 1 here and Part 2 here.
Why do some patients have such a difficult time wrapping their head around the difference between a traditional, preventive “cleaning” and treatment for disease? Every hygienist goes through this at some point, trying desperately to explain prophylaxis vs....
The Happy Visit: How to Treat a Child at Their First Dental Appointment
Note: This is Part 2 of Debbi Viger’s series, Special Needs: Everyone Has Special Needs. Read Part 1 here.
If every patient is to be treated as special, young children need to be treated as super special! It is most important that young children learn to love the dental office. We can eliminate fear and apprehension by setting the future of...