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Spa dentistry: Open up and say ... "ahhh"
By Julia Sommerfeld
Seattle Times staff reporter
It's more unpopular than the front row at the movie theater. Worse even than
the airplane seat that won't recline. Second only to the electric chair in the
most-dreaded-seat category: The dentist's chair.
Few experiences in life, save for a pelvic exam, feel quite so deliberately
uncomfortable. Does that spotlight aimed at your face really need to be so
blinding? Is it necessary to use your hyperventilating chest as a storage tray
for their picks and pliers? And does it have to smell, well, so much like a
dentist's office?
No, no and no, says Dr. Shawn Keller. "There's just no reason for a visit to the
dentist to be as bad as all that," says the Redmond dentist, whose office smells
like fresh-baked chocolate-chip cookies. (He has his staff bake them in the back
throughout the day.)
Keller and a number of other dentists, in the Seattle area and across the
country, are trying to polish their field's reputation with a little TLC.
They're brushing up their pampering skills and enlisting the types of creature
comforts you'd expect at a plush day spa. In fact, the trend is called spa
dentistry.
As in, that light bothering your eyes? Here's a heated, aromatherapy eye pillow.
Bored? Slip on some virtual-reality glasses and watch a movie while you get your
teeth cleaned. How about a hot-paraffin hand treatment and a neck massage to
distract from that root canal?
This all in the interest of keeping patients happy and loyal and in the hopes
they'll tell their friends.
Smell the difference
The first thing you notice when you walk into Dr. Karen McNeill-O'Connor's
office in downtown Redmond is that it doesn't smell like a dentist's office. No
eau de antiseptic. Instead, you breathe in a mild vanilla and grapefruit scent
courtesy of aromatherapy oils diffused through the air system and candles placed
around the clinic.
As you listen to meditative music and wait next to the trickling waterfall wall,
your choice of Perrier, mango juice or a Frappuccino is served on a silver
platter.
One of her bevy of attractive, pearly toothed assistants gauges your taste for
the froufrou and, if you're game, tucks you under a fuzzy blanket and props your
neck and back with heated lavender-filled pillows. Then you dip your hands into
a tub of molten paraffin and place them in warm lavender-scented mittens for a
skin-softening treatment.
You can rest your eyes under a lavender (yes, lavender, again — for the soothing
aroma) eye mask or watch a movie through virtual-reality glasses. Oh, then they
do dentistry. ... OK, back to the fun part. Once you're done, they remove the
hand wax with a mini-hand massage and drape your face with a lemon-infused
cloth.
McNeill-O'Connor has instructed her staff to tread lightly with male patients
because she doesn't want to scare them off. "But men really like the
virtual-reality movies."
"This isn't just bells and whistles," she says. "Getting patients to relax and
decreasing their anxiety makes the anesthetic work better, and they feel less
pain."
For patients with anxieties about the dentist, a little pampering can go a long
way. Traumatized by an hour long bout under another dentist's drill a decade
ago,
Michele Abrams of Kenmore became a bit of a dentophobe. She'd lose sleep at
the prospect of a dental appointment, until she was introduced to
McNeill-O'Connor's softer touch.
"The nice touches — the aromatherapy, the warm
paraffin, the spalike atmosphere — they honestly make a difference. It's a
diversion from what's going on in my mouth," she says.
"For me it's nothing shy of amazing to know that I have an upcoming procedure
— two porcelain overlays later this summer — and am not feeling overwhelmed
with dread. I know I'll be pampered, and that takes the edge off."
Massage, DVDs and limos
Other area dentists offer an array of perks. Dr. Robert Berman, who practices
general and cosmetic dentistry on First Hill in Seattle, offers a complimentary
15-minute seated massage from his assistant, who is also a licensed massage
therapist. "The massage helps the anesthetic to dissipate so when patients leave
they feel good," he says.
Dr. Keller's office — in addition to giving out fresh-baked cookies (which sure
beat sugar-free candy) — has flat-screen TVs above each dental chair, and
they'll rent your favorite DVD for long procedures. He also gives new patients
free teeth-whitening trays and bleaching gel — about a $500 value.
Dr. Rhys Spoor, a downtown Seattle cosmetic dentist, has a lineup of niceties
similar to McNeill-O'Connor's and for out-of-town patients he offers a concierge
service, including arranging hotel and dining accommodations and limo rides to
the airport.
No one has collected figures on how many dental offices are offering such
five-star treatment. But in response to spa dentistry's growing popularity, the
American Dental Association held a course on creating a patient "comfort zone"
at their last annual conference. And a few months ago, at the American Academy
of Cosmetic Dentistry's conference in Vancouver, B.C., alongside exhibitors
displaying porcelain veneers and whitening systems was a paraffin hand-wax
distributor.
Dr. Mark Walker, president of the Washington State Dental Association, says the
association has no official stance on such extras as long as they don't
interfere with the delivery of dental care. Comforts such as blankets,
headphones and TVs are fairly standard in area dental practices, but he doesn't
predict most dentists will take the spa route.
The trend is an outgrowth of the increasing popularity of cosmetic dentistry —
procedures such as teeth whitening and smile-perfecting veneers. Dentists are
eager to find ways to appeal to such patients who are willing to pay out of
pocket for pricey, elective procedures.
"In cosmetic dentistry, you see appearance-oriented people who are used to being
at spas, so they are very receptive to this," Spoor says.
While the luxe amenities are gratis, they generally find a home at more high-end
dentists. For instance, though Keller and McNeill-O'Connor both do general as
well as cosmetic dentistry and take insurance, few insurance companies will
cover the full cost of the more high-end materials they use — for instance,
porcelain inlays instead of silver fillings.
The cost of things like cookies, DVDs and cozy blankets are more than paid for
with patient retention and referrals, says Keller. "Once people come here, we
know they are going to love us, and we've had so much word-of-mouth from this
that we save a lot of money on marketing," he says. In the year after
McNeill-O'Connor revamped her practice into a spalike sanctuary, her profits
went up 140 percent.
Spa idea that flopped
Bellevue dentist Dr. Mark DiRe thought he would take spa dentistry to the next
level by offering teeth bleaching at the posh Jeremy Todd Wellness Spa & Salon
at the Fairmont Hotel. "Our concept was that we couldn't duplicate the comfort
and environment of a spa in a dental office so it would make sense to do a
cosmetic service like bleaching in a spa," he says. But after his dental
technician sat around the spa with hardly any bites, he pulled her back to his
office and is now offering the spa service on a more limited basis. "We kind of
struck out," he says.
Turns out that while Seattleites welcome a slice of the spa in their dentist's
office, the last person they want to see at their spa is the dentist.
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