One of the countless ways in which our lives have been affected by the coronavirus is dental hygiene. In Norway, people are struggling a lot with their teeth as a result of lockdowns. Many more are reporting icing, pain, and discomforts than in the past, and health clinics are starting to have problems treating all the patients in need of help.
In this article, we will share two possible reasons why Norway’s dental hygiene is suffering as a result of lockdowns.
Bad habits
School, restaurants, events, and parties have for a long time presented special occasions for “looking good.” People – especially women – spend many minutes or even hours in front of the mirror, perfecting the way their hair looks, how their skin glistens, and how their teeth shine white.
When lockdowns came in, however, the efforts people made to look better decreased. Since they no longer meet dozens or hundreds of people each day, they don’t feel the same pressure or motivation to spend so much time on their appearance.
In one way, this is a great thing; for thousands of years, an excessive focus on how one looks has been associated with self-centeredness, shallowness, and even unhappiness.
On the other hand, however, there is one area which is suffering greatly because of this tendency: our teeth. Not having the same reminders every day of how important it is to have white and shiny teeth, many people have slowly but surely begun to brush them a little more poorly over the weeks and months.
In turn, caring less about toothbrushing has led to an increased number of dental clients reporting icing and pain in their teeth. Majorstuen Tannlegesenter, the most popular Tannlege Majorstuen in Oslo, Norway, is having more business than they can handle. They are drilling, filling, and fixing teeth at a breakneck pace, and they still can’t handle the demand of Oslo’s citizens. They are now in the process of hiring more people to handle all the demand.
Long waiting lists
The record number of people in need of dental treatment has increased the waiting time drastically in Norwegian dental clinics. As a result of the lockdowns, clinics are struggling to keep their most loyal customers. On the one hand, they want to be able to treat everyone in need of their help, but at the same time, they simply don’t have the capacity to do so.
Many clinics are now nervous about whether their lifelong customers will seek other clinics in the local area because they have a few days or weeks less waiting time. This means that people who have received help in treating their teeth at their clinic for many years, perhaps even decades, will now possibly become lifelong customers somewhere else.