Holy Halitosis!

This morning my patient showed up and I had an interesting dilemma from the start, he couldn't read, nor did he know what was going on with his health. Luckily his son was there to help me out but it made it a very awkward appointment trying to communicate with a spanish speaking patient that didn't seem to be 100% there. To make things better, even right after the pre-procedural rinse he had some pretty powerful halitosis due to his class III status of Periodontitis. Probing was miserable with the smell and then x-rays were really frustrating because at first he didn't want to pay for them but since he was going to be my mockboard patient I needed certain images of the teeth I'm planning on submitting. To add to it, he had a very small vault making PA's pretty difficult. I only had a little bit of time for scaling and since he had never had a cleaning, his calculus was so tenacious I didn't even get to finish a quad (holy first-year flashback!!!) Oh well, at least for mockboards I will have a patient in the chair for now.

My afternoon patient went much smoother. She's an amazingly sweet woman who was very helpful and had gone from being a classII with active infection and lots of bleeding to a class V with no bleeding and everything perfectly maintained. Her tissues looked so good! I got her all done with BWX and a PA, very nice!!!

INJECTION DAY! DUNH DUNH DUNH!

Today was the day I've been more worried about other than boards. We learned maxillary local anesthetic injections. I wasn't too worried about giving them (which was so much fun and way easier than I thought!!!), but I was terrified to receive them. I'm the girl who passed out when I got my wisdom teeth out because I knew they'd be giving me an IV to put me to sleep for the surgery! I didn't even feel the IV but I was so scared and nervous about it my poor little brain just couldn't take it! I'm here, alive, and it didn't even hurt, I didn't cry or jump or even gasp a little bit! I didn't even know I was getting the very first one (the PSA) I couldn't even feel it at all. To all those first years who are nervous about this day as I was, don't worry anymore, if I can make it, anyone can! Good luck, bring on the mandibular lab!!!

VA Luck... thank's Kami!

Well, at the VA I've been lucky enough to have a bunch of really good patients so to be fair Kami was trying to give me the easier patients and saving the harder ones for the other girls. Of course, my morning patient: 4 quads of a class III and I got him finished!!! In the afternoon Kami only gave me 10 teeth of a class V which was kind of down about until I was available when the dentist wanted a student to clean his patient who was 3 quads of a V and 1 quad of a II... I finished him with zero mistakes in about an hour only using my hand instruments. Woo hoo!!!

An x-ray filled day... thanks to Facebook???

Well, I walk into clinic this morning and look expectantly at my phone hoping to have a message from my boyfriend telling me his dad is still coming in to be my patient this morning, but of course, all I saw was a blank screen. My phone was dead!!! Argh! So I borrowed Pam's phone to call Ben and he gave me his dad's number. He tried to cancel on me but instead I talked him into coming in just for some x-rays to help speed up his appointment next time. I got 4BWX and 4 anterior PA's taken and it all went pretty well. I'm excited for him to come in and get cleaned... it looks like he'll be a good experience, I've just got to get him when he's available. Before my patient showed up, I got on Facebook knowing that my friend Britney would be online and available for synchronous communication (thanks Kami!) Of course she was online, but she was busy in class already so I was racking my brain thinking of what to do when I noticed how many of my friends were on facebook. I started talking to a bunch of them and finally Chris decided to come in and save the day! He let me take 4 BWX on him and now he wants a cleaning and I bet I'll be able to clean him really quickly (crossing fingers).

This afternoon, my patient showed up perfectly on time and was a good solid class II. What a great experience! Her lower anteriors were so crowded and the calculus kept breaking off in little pieces so it took forever to clean them!!! Somehow I was able to finish scaling in an hour, and I got her out a little early and helped everyone else clean up.

Hopefully next week goes well, and even more so I hope that this Friday isn't as bad and scary as I'm fearing since we're practicing Local Anesthetic on each other! YIKES!!!!

Rock Climbing meets Scaling... OUCH!!!

I've been trying to get into rock climbing lately so I've been going to the gym or climbing out doors about 5 days a week for at least 2 hours at a time. I can't believe how sore my arms are now after climbing harder than ever last night and hand scaling 3 quads of 1B and 1 quad of a II. Thanks to my amazing boyfriend's amazing mother who saved me since I couldn't get anyone to come in this morning. I know she doesn't like the dentist at all but she still came in for which I am very thankful... hopefully she doesn't hate me now for picking at her for about 2 hours!

In the afternoon I worked on a very nice class II who was spanish speaking so it was a very nice experience. He'd been in recently for a screening so all I had to do was probe and get started! I finished him in 2 hours!!! It was so awesome. However, now I'm SORE!!! My back and neck and forearms are so tired I'm ready to just go home, talk my boy into giving me a sweet back rub and going to sleep... but of course I'm trying to be healthy again so instead I'm going to the gym... at least until he gets out of class! Thank goodness today is over!!!

VA day 2: not quite as amazing...

Today wasn't as good because all I got was a 1B in the morning with a pano and BWX and then a class V with only 6 teeth in the afternoon. I finished early this morning giving me a nice long lunch break but now I've been done for an hour but I still have to wait for the students I rode up here with that are just starting to scale... Lame! It's not that their slow at all, just that I had a very easy patient with no x-rays and no exam and only 6 teeth while their patients need x-rays and exams and such plus they showed up late making the process even more delayed. Oh well, sometimes you win, sometimes you don't win quite as much...

"Oraqix" ~SLOW!!!!

My morning patient today was actually kind of difficult, he was a pretty difficult class II with super sensitive gums and tons of bleeding! I had to probe quad by quad after anesthesia because he had so much inflammation and therefore sensitivity in his gums. My patient doesn't like the N2O and had a really hard time getting numb from the lidocaine. He told my instructor (who was REALLY SLOW) that he usually doesn't get numb easily but she still only used 3/4 carp of lidocaine for his LL quad! I'd have used at least one whole carpule, but I can't do anesthesia yet... Just as I expected, I went to scale with my ultrasonic and my patient who wasn't numb even though my instructor claimed he was, lit up like a christmas tree. I felt so bad, but I was hoping that I wouldn't have to wait for her to come back and give more LA. Instead we had to wait while Instructor Snow went and found the Oraqix that is "so great for numbing the gingiva!" When she found it, she didn't know how to assemble the applicator so after playing with it for about 5 minutes, she decided to start looking for someong to help her. AAAGGGHHHH!!!! Oh my gosh I got so tired of waiting and I could tell my patient and his daughter were getting impatient as well.
Then on the UL it was the same story only she decided to just use the remaining 1/4 carp of lidocaine for the entire quad! And then to use the oraqix to numb the rest. That would be a fine idea on a patient for whom the LA worked but instead my patient was wincing with every move of my scaler. (I promise I'm not that bad at instrumentation!) I missed some spots on the top because I was too shy to dig in with my patient in so much pain. Then... on the pt. encounter form she noted that I need to be brave enough to dig for all the calculus and she actually had the nerve to write "maybe some more anesthesia?" What the heck??? I probably could have finished the patient in one appointment had my instructor not been so skimpy and slow with the numbing... and exams, and checks, and x-rays, and signatures, ets... Also, when I was trying to walk my patients out, she was just starting a scale check so I asked if I could get another instructor to sign it instead (usually the other instructors would then tell me to just put their initials on the paper for them) but instructor Snow was trying to tell me that I had to wait and make my patients wait for her to finish her "very thorough" scale check so that I could get her signature before they left. I just had Professor Bossenburger sign it instead... Thank you!
The afternoon went much smoother, Dr. Naylor was my instructor and she helped me out so much! I had a class V patient that actually had a good amount of calculus, and I was able to finish her in one appointment. Dr. Naylor showed me some nice tips and tricks and helped me get the few spots that I missed. It went very quickly and we got it all done, 4BWX and all.

First Patient Day of 2nd Year.

Well... today should be interesting. I'm sure I'll be able to complete my afternoon patient since he is relatively young and I'm not expecting him to be that difficult. My morning patient, however, will be a bit more interesting... the patient is in her 30's and has some kind of disability that requires that her mom do all the talking for her, although I'm not quite sure what that is, the best part is that her mom only speaks spanish! What a workout on my poor brain that tries so hard to be bilingual. We'll see how it goes! For now she's late because her mom had to take one of the grand kids to school and when I called she was thinking of rescheduling because she would be late today. I told her to just get here as soon as possible, so hopefully it's soon enough.

She came on time... but she was not an easy patient, she couldn't hear nor speak like I said and she was so sensitive that even x-rays were a bit of a chore with her. I couldn't probe until she was numb and she had some 6-7mm pockets in there filled with really heavy dark black subgingival deposits all over the place that I struggled to get out even with the ultrasonic!!! At least I got another quad of a class III done with a lot of help from Professor Kami Hanson who helped me realize all the crazy bad habits I have like fulcruming on my middle finger and rocking toward the heel instead of the toe... always room for improvement. She'll give me plenty of practice breaking these habits and working with the gracey's because she'll be back in a few weeks for a couple more and then again in October possibly for a Mock Board Patient!!! Yes! I hope that works out like it sounds like it could.

My afternoon patient was younger than I thought but he was also a lot tougher than I thought. He was a class II!!! He was a smoker and had a lot of build up and stain so I got some more good practice with the ultrasonic and some fine maneuvering with the hand scalers thanks to Professor Alexander. She also showed me that I am not reaching far enough interproximally nor am I rotating the tip toward the tooth like I should.