Drs. Stephen Dalseth, Pascal Dalseth, Todd Weber, and Sara Michel and team strive to make our patients feel comfortable and safe in the office at each appointment. We love being able to give patients a beautiful smile. Here are a few great stories from our office:
We met a new patient who came to Dalseth Family & Cosmetic Dentistry to get a required check up before deployment. He was so anxious that he refused to come in past the doorway. We allowed him to sit in the doctors chair and talk about his concerns until he felt comfortable for us to take a look in his mouth. It turned out that he needed a lot of work done. Every tooth he had required some type of treatment. He knew that his anxiety and deeply rooted fear of the dentist caused him to have very infrequent visits to the dentist and his needs continued to pile up. We started out slow. Scheduling a few things at a time. Always making sure that he was comfortable. His treatment needs resulted in him having a total mouth reconstruction. He was deployed and spent a few years overseas. He told us when all his work was completed that we gave him his smile back. He had been embarrassed about the condition of his mouth for years and always held his hand over his mouth when talking and knew people thought he was crabby all the time because they never saw him smile. Its great to see that he is comfortable and trusting of our care and his renewed self confidence.
We have a patient that has a terminal medical condition. His doctors haven’t given him very long to live. His disease has ravaged both his body and mouth. Now most people would think that your teeth would be the last thing on your mind if your going through this. When he came in and told us that he wanted us to fix his smile he said his reason for going through the work wasn’t for him but so that in his last days with his family they get to see his nice smile. He always comes in with a warm smile and kind words.
We had a patient who struggled her whole life with mouth pain and what she thought were “ugly” teeth. She was terrified of the dentist and extremely embarrassed to have anyone see her teeth. She worked in a field that required that she have constant contact with the public and knew that not feeling comfortable to smile hindered that. She was a great candidate for implants and eventually had her mouth restored to great function and an even greater appearance. Not only was she able to smile the way she always wanted but she is one of a very small number of women that was happy to be able to gain weight since she no longer had any mouth pain.
We see an older gentlemen who has Alzheimers. His wife is determined to make sure that his teeth are given the proper treatment. His memory of recent events is not as sharp as it used to be but he has a million stories to share about the life he’s led. He has taught us how to hunt and prepare a deer. He’s shown us the pictures to support his story. They are a sweet couple who always ask about how the staff and their children are doing despite their own trying circumstances.
We saw a little girl for a cleaning one day. She was neither shy nor anxious. We giggled our way through the cleaning and she requested a certain toothbrush that we didn’t have on hand in the room. When I stepped out of the room to get it she thought it would be funny to play hide and seek. Fortunately she wasn’t a very good hider and her pigtail gave her away.