9/30/10

Today was a crazy day, with class three patients all day. :) I found a mockboard patient that will be a little easier to get a good grade on! One of my patients had not been in for 20 years and had calculus overhanging on the gums and some crazy spurs. I finished two quads on him today and my hands are pretty soar. I need to make sure that i'm going along the linguals and buccals to get under the calculus. Also, I used my orange ultrasonic and loved it. I'm becoming more comfortable with using the ultrasonic and blue boa. I still have some major difficulties getting to the wisdom teeth! I took some PA's on my patient this morning to assess the bone levels. She had a hard time and had a bad gag reflex. I have the hardest time getting the second molar. I have heard it is a good idea to have the patient slightly open and push the x-ray back further to get that second molar. I'm going to practice getting the second molar and really going interproximally with the tip of my instrument this next week. As the instructors would say, "Today was a good experience.":)

9/16/10

Today went pretty good! I had a class 5 patient and a 1B patient. So it was not a very difficult day. My 1B patient had marginal gingivitis and the tissues were pretty inflamed along the linguals. I got to practice adaptation.:) I did miss one spot on the interproximal surface. I noticed that when the professors explore they tilt the explorer back and so it will angle more into the interproximal surface. My patient also had alot of psuedopockets, that had moderate plaque. I have been trying to keep my instruments more organized as i clean. Also, I have been trying to scale in a routine, so that I don't have to keep picking up and putting down instruments. My goal is to keep organized this semester and have a routine that I can use for calculus removal!:)

9/9/10

Today went pretty well. I saw a recall patient that was generalized maitained perio. I did learn that when seeing a diabetes patients there are many questions that we can ask to make sure we are thorough. I asked my patient when he last took his blood sugar, and what the reading was. Also, you can ask them their target range. If they don't know it, the manuel states that average target range is 80-120. Another question we should ask is if they know their A1C. This is an overall reading of how their blood sugar has been for the past 3-4 months. When scaling I missed one spot on the lower linguals. It was under the gums. Professor Perry showed me that you can use a horizontal stroke with the sickly scaler to get the calculus. I usually use my indiana which is a toe and think that works pretty well! Overall, today went pretty good so far. I hope the afternoon goes just as good:)