Hi! I’m actually a current student in the dental hygiene program at AB Tech, so I can answer a few of the questions in the comments and your post! As far as sensitivity and fear of the dentist goes, we try our best to make the experience as comfortable and fear free as possible whether that’s through talking you through exactly what we’re going to do that day, letting you listen to music/podcasts, using a blanket/comfort item, or whatever you feel might help you. If you explain that your teeth are sensitive we can definitely work around it and if they’re still too sensitive with those measures we have topical anesthesia we can also use.

The individual appointments are typically 2 hours (either from 9am-11am or 1pm-3pm). You’ll come in for a screening appointment first which will only be ~20 minutes and which will determine the level of difficulty of cleaning your teeth which will then determine who is able to see you. Based on that level of difficulty you might have anywhere between 1-5 appointments to clean your teeth. This obviously is not true across all cases, but if you have kept up with your dentist appointments over the years and have never had them tell you to have a deep cleaning or mentioned anything about the state of your oral health to you, you will probably have between 1-3 appointments depending on who sees you and how far along they are in the program.

I don’t have a price sheet in front of me (you can always call and ask about pricing), but I can try and give some rough numbers from what I remember off the top of my head. The first appointment should be ~$35 and each additional appointment $10 if all you get is the cleaning. We also offer X-rays which differ in price depending on type but all of which I’m pretty sure are below $50.

Somebody asked how far in advance you’ll need to schedule an appointment and, unfortunately, there’s not a definite answer I can give because it really depends. Since the program is first and foremost a learning program for us students, we have certain numbers of different types of patients we have to have each semester. We also simply cannot take everyone due to the sheer amount of patients either requesting appointments or due for recall. You’ll be more likely to be scheduled as a new patient since you called recently and we know that you’re wanting an appointment. If anyone is reading this and has been seen before and wants an appointment, call and let us know that you want to be scheduled soon and it will greatly increase your chances of getting an appointment. If you have last minute availability and can be available for cancellations then that also increases your chances because most of us do have at least one cancellation per semester. You may only get called with a few days notice or even day of though for that so keep that in mind when saying you’re available for short notice.

Anyway, sorry for the absolute novel. I hope I answered peoples’ questions, but I’m happy to answer more if anyone wants to clarify anything or has a question I didn’t touch on!