Dental life : Chapter 1- Inlay Preparation MO on lower 6

Assalamualaikum,

It has been like more than 2 years that I hadn't been writing anything in this mundane blog of mine. The last 2 years I'd say was a bit tiring to an extent that 8 hours of sleep wouldn't be enough to compensate the sleep that I was deprived of.

Since I am now a second year dental student and constantly learning new things, I think what better way to retain all the knowledge that I've learnt than to write them all in here. Note that, all the facts are merely based on my experience and I am so sorry that what I'm going to write next wouldn't be of the correct information. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong or to ask me anything.

Continue on...

This was my preparation on 36. I'm not too satisfied with my work but it'll do for now.

As the title suggests, today I had to do an inlay preparation on tooth 36(Note: I'll be using FDI notation as a simple way of expressing the tooth I was working on. In this case it was the second lower left molar) and let me tell you, it was absolutely tiring. I think it was because of the constant correction that I had to do on the same tooth that it drained my spirit wholly.

So what I learned today? To prepare an inlay tooth preparation, I had to make sure that there wasn't a single undercut present. This is to ensure that the inlay fitting would be possible. The walls of the cavity have to be divergent and this was the main problem of my cavity preparation just now. It wasn't exactly diverging. It was stated in the criteria that I had to make sure that degree of the walls would be 6-10 degrees. And that I did multiple times.

In the midst of making it diverged, hell break loose when I had to almost redo all of my heartfelt work since the cavity I did was almost 3mm. Well in the criteria it was stated that I have to prepare the intercuspal distance to at least 2mm. But the next time I make the same preparation, I have to make sure that it wouldn't be too big. And make sure to orientate my bur correctly from the very start.

Since I was too in a rush to finish early that I didn't pay enough attention to my hand orientation that it almost cost me a tooth today. So what bur I used today? It was  a high speed diamond tapered shape bur. This is very important in order to form the desired divergent walls as stated in the criteria.

Other than the obvious not so diverging walls, I had to make multiple modifications on the buccal margin on the mesial of the tooth. It didn't loose the appropriate contact from the adjacent tooth. So I have to make sure that it did. I used the same bur to round it of a bit and whilst I was doing that I accidently form an acute cavosurface angle on the buccal margin. This is a definite no-no in cavity preparation. Why? Well for obvious reasons of course, there would be an undermined enamel and I must remove it entirely and prepare the angle to an approximately 90 degrees.

I used a hatchet (A hand instrument which can cut enamel) to smoothen the side of the walls and remove the acute angle I made whilst using the hand rotatory instrument. It's best to use a hatchet since it'd be easier to control and so that I wouldn't injure the adjacent tooth. Using a bur would definitely do so unless you have an undeniably mad skills technique of controlling the bur.

Definitely today was a challenging day for me, I almost redid my cavity preparation but thank god I didn't and I had to remodify the model a couple of times before I could get the signature from the dr. But it was all for a good learning session. I'll make sure to not make the same mistake and to practice harder and get better marks in my labwork. :)

Ouhh,, just so you know I have two labworks for now. The first one involve operative techniques and the other one is for prosthetics. So today is my optech lab and tomorrow's gonna be my prosthetic lab. So pray for me for tomorrow's work. I want it to go as smoothly as possible. Will share with you the news ASAP. Goodbye for now!