Product Review: Memosil 2, The Magic Matrix

If you've read about some my recent posts with Aspire Dental Academy, you'll have read about some tips when placing composites. From that day I learnt a nifty trick with a product called Memosil.

Memosil is a transparent addition silicone - therefore it can be light-cured through which lends it to some pretty cool uses in dentistry, such as:

Occlusal stamp technique for posterior composites
Anterior stamp for provisional restorations and demonstrating wax ups
Anterior stamp for the placement of composite build ups or veneers
Fixation material for x-ray measuring spheres when planning for implants
Transfer matrix for bracket constructions on plaster models

After our study day with the Aspire team, I tried out this material on a couple of wear cases I was treating in practice.

I had a patient who had generalised anterior tooth wear which looks to be attritive in origin. He was interested in building his teeth back up, so after I stabilised the patient's oral health, we decided to use composite to increase his OVD.

I asked for a wax up from my lab and used the automix system to squirt out the Memosil onto the models to make matrices as below:

My memosil matrices in place on the model

The matrices removed from the models

After showing the wax ups to the patient and agreeing the shade I carried out the build-ups in the following way:

Rubber dam and clamp isolation 5-5
Cleaning teeth with US scaler and roughening of dentine surface with a rosehead bur. Ideally I would have done this with a sand-blaster if it were available
Isolate individual teeth with floss/Teflon/Mylar strips
Etch, prime and bond EVERY OTHER tooth (this is really important as you don't bond the teeth together)
Place composite into the Memosil matrix, full seat in the mouth and cure according to your curing light's guidelines. This will take a while unless you have a ValoLight!
Remove index and cure again
Finish/polish interproximally with whatever system you wish. I used fine diamond burs, interproximal strips and hand scalers to remove excess composite
Repeat with all the remaining teeth
Use KY Jelly to cover all composite and cure once again to prevent staining
Polish using your preferred protocol
Check occlusion, make sure contacts are even and the patient feels comfortable with new OVD

I also provided my patient with a mouthguard to wear at night time to slow down the wear of the composites.

Here are the before and after pictures of the patient I treated:

Patient on initial presentation after I provided a gross scale

Immediately post treatment

These are my favourite before and after pictures of a patient I've treated! Cases like this give you real satisfaction and are very fulfilling.

You can see how I've opening him up and his posteriors are not occluding, but the patient felt comfortable and using this Dahl principle they will begin to move back together. This will of course need lots of maintenance and monitoring, but is much less destructive than other restorative options such as full coverage crowns.

If you have any cases like this, consider getting some of this product to help get a great result which is a really easy and quick way to treat wear cases. It's also a much cheaper way of making a matrix than asking your lab for a suck down splint. A cartridge costs around £45 and that will probably make 10-15 matrices.

To see more about the product, click here.

Let me know what you think of the product!