crowns
You are viewing stuff tagged with crowns.
Crown
You are viewing stuff tagged with crowns.
First, heat. Now, storms.
It’s thundering right now. I’m sick as heck, and Mykala just got back for the evening. She was kind enough to make me an absolutely delicious late dinner.
Today, a doctor was extremely disappointed with what I had done with my crown preparation. Their exact words: “What were you thinking?” I did not appreciate hearing this, nor did I appreciate the way they had handled the entire appointment. I wanted to say this to the doctor: “Look, there are two possibilities. Either I messed this up on purpose, just to bother you. OR, I am still learning, and had I had a little more guidance, I’m sure the final product would have been well within your range of ideal. Now give me a break.”
One slip, and I gave myself four extra hours of lab work. Here’s how.
At the School of Dentistry, we are short on cash. (Our dean is also leaving, but that’s a story for another day). So, the students (us) do a lot of intricate lab work in order to make the stuff our patients need (crowns, bridges, etc.). That way, we don’t have to pay a professional lab to do as much of our lab work. This does the following:
Friday, I’ll be fitting a gold crown, a single tooth removable partial denture, and a multi-tooth maxillary removable partial denture. So tomorrow, I deliver over $2000 in dentistry.
If it fits.
These days, the most technologically advanced dental crowns are made from an interesting combination of materials. Before I get into that, let’s first talk about how your teeth resist breaking in twain.
The toughest building materials have a combination of strength and flexibility. Think about wood or steel: they have strength (compressibility, tension), but because their rigidity is not infinite, they also derive durability from their ability to flex and rebound under load.
We’re learning how to prep teeth for full gold, porcelain fused to metal, and all porcelain crowns. That is, we’re taking 60,000 RPM pneumatic dental drills fitted with diamond-studded burs and… cutting plastic teeth (funny, eh?) fitted in something called a typodont which is mounted in a very nice simulated patient (complete with cheeks, semi-realistic range of motion, etc.). Thing is, it is tricky work. The next time your dentist picks up a mirror and drill in order to place a filling in your back upper molars… be thankful they first practiced on a set of plastic teeth.