tips and tricks

If a patient presents with a fracture involving dentine, it is probably not enough to smooth off the tooth. Restorative procedures involving will involve air and water spray and exposed dentine will be very painful especially in a young patient. Drying the tooth with a cotton roll and applying vitrebond liner over the dentine can be a very effective way of allowing pain free restoration without LA.

Indirect: anteriors up to the premolars. Esp in canal shapes that are abnormal e.g oval shapes where the direct post system won't fit snugly. Indirect posts in multirooted teeth require either split posts or telescopic post Direct: generally posteriors. Less broken down teeth often have undercuts as more of the walls are present. therefore the internal anatomy must be prepped to remove undercuts to allow insertion and removal. Once the external anatomy is prepared for a crown, the remaining wall will be quite thin and may  fall off. In this case, a direct post will be more conservative and if done in composite resin then the remaining thin walls will bond to the core material and is less likely to chip off as compared to amalgam where there is no bonding.

You can apply apical force with a file, there is minimal chance of fracture if you apply apical force only without rotation. You might bend the file in one itself but it probably won't break. It is when you start rotating as well that files separate. When there is a curve at the apex of a root canal, curve the file in the apical region (a) as if you enter with a straight file it will hit the outside of the canal curve and feel like a hard stop (b). If you curve the file you must have the curve facing the same way as in the canal (A radiograph will help) but to get a more precise feel you must apply apical force only, withdraw vertically, rotate slightly (Not locked into the canal) and reapply apical force. At a certain point in the rotation you will find a spot where the file progresses further than all the other positions. This means you have negotiated the curve. from then it is short vertical filing motions. If you pull too far out you may lose the location. Once the file is w...

Today I feel like I've achieved something at dental school. I prepped a 25 (45min) and 26 (45 min) for PFM crown, impression and temporised in the 3 hours allocated. Dr. Thomson seemed pleased. I hope to only grow from here and I am sure that in the future, achievements in the future will seem small to me but it is a milestone nevertheless. (They were good preps too)