So this may be a bit of a delayed post, but on the 4th of September I attended a #Tubuleslive event: Successful impressions with Dr Akit Patel.
Despite it falling in my first week back practising dentistry in 4 months, the evening was informative and together with the study days that week helped me to get my brain back into dentist mode after such a long break!
Here are some of the main points I took away from that evening from the view of a foundation dentist:
- In order to provide your patient with a successful extra-coronal restorations, the impression you take must be of good quality
- There are varying of techniques that can be employed, but for quality and convenience's sake, a single stage, single material technique such as Impregnum would be preferred
- Often, impressions taken by GDPs are deemed unsatisfactory by lab technicians, so learning how to take a good impression and appraise it effectively is crucial to reducing costs and to prevent disappointing patients
- It is vital to manage the gingiva effectively in order to record the margins of the preparation clearly and there are different ways to do this which can be combined or used in isolation
- Mechanical management with retraction cord or pastes, chemically with solutions or by surgical means
- Although ferric sulphate is a popular solution to manage bleeding gingiva, it can cause discolouration so aluminium chloride should be used when in combination with Impregnum
- There are different cords types out there, but braided or knitted are the best and are the easiest to manipulate
- Whilst many practitioners use stock trays to take the impression, it would be better to have a special tray made which the correct spacer for whichever material you are taking the impression with. When using Impregnum, metal unperforated trays should be used and there is no need for adhesive
- When using Impregnum you should block out any undercuts - it would be rather embarrassing if you got the tray stuck in the patient's mouth!
- Always remember to take an opposing model and ideally a bite registration and if applicable, choose the shade of the restoration prior to taking the impression
Whilst I still feel a little bit rusty when it comes to impression taking for extra-coronal restorations, I would definitely recommend attending CPD events like this to expand your knowledge.
It can feel intimidating to be in a room with people with much more clinical experience than you, but these people can give you valuable advice and always welcome questions - no matter how trivial you think they may be.
The next #Tubuleslive event is coming up on the 2nd of October with Professor Francis Hughes: The Well Elderly - A Major Challenge for the Periodontist.
I am planning to attend, so if anyone in London would like to come with me please let me know!
There is also an introductory event planned for October 15th for Young Dentists if anyone is interested.
To see my other posts about previous #TubulesLive events see here.
