Do dentist cleanings here hurt by default?

Every dental cleaning I’ve got here has been pretty uncomfortable, with the dentist or technician going ham trying to scrub the plaque off my teeth. I’m wondering if they are just that way here or I need to find another dentist.

18 comments
  1. Depends on how your dental hygiene is I would say, though I’m sure it also varies from dentists to dentists though.

    My first time coming to the dentist here in over 20 years of not going to one and less than stellar oral hygiene, I had some pretty serious plaque build-up near the gums and on the back of the teeth that required a lot of scrubbing and it was very painful and bloody.

    Now that I actually do take care of my oral hygiene, routine cleanings are completely uneventful with no pain whatsoever.

    If you’re on point with your dental hygiene and the dentist is still basically drilling in your gum to get to the plaque, might just need to find another dentist at this point.

  2. It’s uncomfortable. It shouldn’t hurt so much that you need to post about it though. No offense meant.
    Try another dentist. Some have more skill and care than others.

  3. Not my experience. It’s usually a little uncomfortable but not painful at all, and the hygienist always tells me to alert them if something DOES hurt.

  4. I guess depends no how high your pain tolerance is. I’ve been to a couple of dentists and they all feel the same to me.

    They do tell you to lift your hand if it hurts. I did a couple of times and they were apologetic and proceed to do the same thing again lol. I guess it’s on me for not coming often.

  5. I’d say less painful than back home. Everywhere I’ve been here uses ultrasonic plaque removal which feels like almost nothing. My last dentist back in Canada just used metal scrapers.

    If you tend to build up plaque quickly, ask if you can go more often. I go every three months because “why not”. It’s a few thousand yen extra per year and totally worth it.

  6. Some dentists have a more modern ultrasonic scalers, which are more gentle and you barely feel at all. It’s not great at cleaning hard buildups, so they may need to switch to the regular tool briefly if you’ve not been taking care of your teeth or getting regular cleaning.

  7. The procedures here are the same as back home. In my experience, it depends on the dentist themselves. I do have a dentist I dread going to because I have to be mentally prepared to deal with those shoots of nerve pain when they focus on that one tooth for 3 minutes.

  8. I got mine done couple of weeks ago by bluff clinic in Yokohama. The lady was good and she said my teeth were decent shape so I didn’t feel uncomfortable. Could be your teeth? Maybe it’s sensitive?

  9. The last dentist I went to was in the UK and they seemed like they wanted to just get me in and out as soon as possible and was told my teeth are fine. I plan to visit a Japanese dentist soon and am dreading what they are going to say and do.

  10. Depends on a few things: your discomfort tolerance, your dental hygiene, and the dentist themself. If you think your dental hygiene is great and your discomfort tolerance is normally good, than try and seek out another dentist. If both hurt about the same, maybe you should re-examine your dental practices or ask what you can do to make the experience more tolerable.

  11. My husband is a dentist and his staff go after the plaque pretty aggressively when they clean my teeth, although he told me he could give me a shot of novocaine if I needed it.

  12. As people have said before, if your hygiene isn’t up to scratch… it’ll hurt until you fix it. Once you get a good maintenance routine down it’ll get better

    During my last visit I almost fell asleep. The sound of the drill was oddly hypnotic lol.

  13. No more than than most other countries I suspect. The dentists I’ve been to have all been cakewalks.

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