Kiddos

Today for my morning patient I saw a recall patient with maintained mild and moderate periodontitis. I was able to get 2 quads of a class III and 2 quads of a class V because her upper quads had some slight subgingival calculus and she had quite a bit of BOP in those areas. For my afternoon patients, I had saw two adorable sisters, and Jamie saw the other two sisters. These were probably the best 1A appointments I have ever had, the kids were so good and I could tell that my speed has really improved since the last time I saw two 1A's. I learned a good trick taking x-rays when the child's tongue will not let you slip the film near their teeth. Joy taught me to place the film up near the maxillary molars, and then have the child bite down. It worked well for this little girl who was not wanting to bite down at all. It was a very good day overall. I am happy that I am pretty close to having all of my requirements and PE's finished. We never believe the professors when they promise us that it "will all work out somehow," but it always does! I think we need this promise in huge letters on the clinic wall. I can't not believe how close we are to graduation. When I think about graduating I feel 80% excited and 20% freaked out. Some days I do not feel ready to be out there doing dental hygiene on my own. Other days, I realize how much I really do know and how much I have learned in these two years. I also know that increased confidence will come after time in clinical practice.

A much needed easy day

This morning I saw a recall class V patient. Her tissues have responded really well to periodontal maintenance and she has good home care. Also, her probe depths and bleeding sites have really improved, except there are still two sites where there is a 10mm pocket and 7mm pocket. I placed arrestin in those two areas. Instructor Wold gave me a good tip for placing arrestin. She recommended I use the probe first to visualize the best angle to go into the pocket and then go in with the arrestin syringe the same way I went in with the probe. It was rewarding to see a patient I had seen earlier in the program and to see the improvement at her recall appointment. It proves to me how important patient compliance and home care is in non-surgical periodontal therapy. For my afternoon patient, I saw an older gentleman who had 4 mandibular teeth and had lost the rest of his teeth because of periodontal disease. I think he must have been pretty lonely because he talked the entire appointment. He had not been into the clinic for a cleaning in about 4 years so I discussed with him the importance of a frequent recall for the maintenance of perio and keeping his remaining teeth. I was given one quad of a class V for him. I also was able to get some conventional PA's and my Velscope PE. Overall, it was a good day which was much needed after this very stressful Spring Break. My goal for the rest of the program is to really pick up on my speed and watch the clock so that I am aware of the areas that I can save time.

Found a board patient!

I found a board patient on Thursday! YAY! I can finally breathe for a minute. This morning I saw back my class two patient. He requires anesthesia so I had his treatment plan broken into two appointments. I did miss some spots today. Alexander walked by as I was scaling and reminded me when I was scaling anteriors to really be right over the patients nose and staying up up on my fulcrum. I did some really good OHI for this patient. He has so much gingival inflammation and bleeding from the calculus and biofilm that were in his pockets. This afternoon I saw my board patient to get his x-rays taken and to scale a quad. Alexander classified him as a class III because his bone loss is right between a class II and III, and because he has so much subgingival calculus. I will be cleaning the upper left for the board. I also learned that when I was probing a couple of his teeth, I was tilting the probe a little too much which was giving me a deeper reading. I learned that the probe still needs to be mostly parallel with the long axis of the tooth, but slightly dipped into the col on the interproximal areas. Alexander commented that his calculus was definitely heavy enough and it was a bit tenacious. He also has bulbous crown anatomy which makes the scaling a little more difficult. This worries me, but at this point I just need to be grateful I have a board patient. His anterior teeth were very sensitive to the ultrasonic, so next time I will use more anesthetic on the infiltrations. I really hope everything goes okay for the clinical board. We got all of our instruments ready today after clinic. It is all happening so fast, I can't believe the real boards are here. Wish me luck!