Electric pulp tester
I got to use an electric pulp tester in the student clinics a couple of weeks ago and to be honest it was the first time I had used this since I myself was at dental school. I always saw it as cumbersome and anything that involves extra work is hard for me to take on board. I knew the theory that it was more useful in calcified pulps, but since graduation I have just tried the cold spray as a pulp test and if there was no response, I just shrugged my shoulders and moved on. I have found more success with using a cotton roll to soak the cold spray rather than a cotton pellet as it holds more cold and cover a larger surface area on the tooth. For some reason, the students favour cold spray on one of the very dense Q tips they have at the clinic which I find almost useless as the density of the fibres hardly hold any cold and the tip warms up very quickly. For very calcified pulps, the pulp tissue is receded further into the tooth, is less responsive to stimulus and have sclerosed dentin