Dental Info

Acrylic dentures ,as a opposed to cast framework partial dentures, are used for patients whose remaining teeth have a guarded prognosis due to mobility, bone loss and /periodontal disease. Patients who are candidates for these often do not want to remove their remaining teeth and may not find implants an affordable option. Since these "transitional" dentures are made from acrylic, adding additional teeth is a relatively easy procedure that involves taking a pickup impression and sending this with the denture to the lab so that they can pour up a new model and add a replacement tooth to the denture.  These all acrylic dentures are a common choice for patients who don't wand definitive comprehensive treatment but instead just want to replace their currently missing teeth.   The other day, one of our residents filled out her Rx to the laboratory for fabrication of an acrylic partial denture. These partial appliances are all acrylic with the acception of hand bent wires t

 Patients often present with dental pain and would like to get a diagnosis and appropriate dental treatment. They often complain of a tooth ache, which is not very specific, since There can be a number of causes for tooth pain and there are many differential causes.  Often my residients and students try diagnosing using the dental radiographs as their primary tool. Dental radiographs are just one of the items in our tool box. For me , the first thing I do is ask the patients a bunch of questions... When do you have pain? do you have pain on biting, pain after eating, hot or cold sensitivity  or prolonged pain. The answers to these questions have a lot to do with narrowing down why the patient is having pain.  I definitely look at the radiographs to see if their is an obvious problem in the quadrant they are feeling pain( perapical radiolucency or a large carious lesion).  If a tooth is sensitive to cold it means that it is vital and any teeth with root canals in the area can not be th

 Our study club just watched a lecture on how he does examinations of his patients..It makes alot of sense. 'First he goes over problems he sees and gives a tour of the mouth to his patient. Then he explains what could happen if the problems are not addressed. Only after this initial tour does he go over possible treatment options.  I use a similar approach with my patients. I find that this allows patients to better understand their problems and why I recommend specific treatments. Also the last part of the exam is the cost of various treatment options as well as the pros and cons of each choice. I find that hearing about cost of treatments , especially if given at an earlier point of the exam can keep my patient from "hearing" my explanations, since once they hear the cost they can fixate on picking an inferior but less costly treatment plan. After all, who wants to spend thousands of dollars completing their treatment. This is especially true if they don't unders