Me.

It's been a long time. Was it like 3 years ago? Had I lost interest in the one thing that I really love doing? I remembered when I first started doing this and I was a teenager and only wanted to follow the trend. And it was a trend to have your own blog. But I have always been obsessing on having my English improved and that I did. I think.

But I know there were times that I just felt bored and I wanted to look at my past and see who I was before and who have I become now. I can see that I have grown into someone that is much more responsible and less intuitive. I think more before I proceed with my plans. I am no longer a person who just plunges over a steep unknowing hill hoping that there'll be a pond below. 

I know life is a risk, but am I a risk-taker? I remembered when I was 17, I was this self-absorbed scrawny boy, (still am minus the scrawny part) who was oblivious to his surrounding. Who thinks that the world revolves around him only. But I am no longer that person or probably that dark side of me has slowly diminished, not entirely but it is a progress.  

So let's talk about this week. I am well-aware that the people around me hates me but I couldn't care less. Well to be honest, it does put a toll on me psychologically and eventually physically. I know I am a person who lives for the lives of others. Who wants people's approval. I don't want to be that person anymore. I want to be my own self. I do what I want and what I like.

FRIENDS

I wonder how people could live knowing that they have pretended to be someone else. How they could hide what their true feelings are. How they smothered words that aren't true.

But there are people who inconspicuously speak out their mind, ignoring the fact the words that they muttered out might even hurt someone else's feeling. Being polite just isn't in their nature.

I despise everyday walking into a crowd who smiled at me, talked to me, or even befriended me but in truth they don't like me, they kept on judging me, making weird remarks of me in their enigmatic thoughts. Masquerading themselves with this made mask just to please other people but deep down inside their just a thorn amongst the roses.

I've always wanted a lot of friends. I want them to be countless and never-ending. But I know that just wouldn't be possible. I want to have good close friends, who understand me, who are there when I need them or to never judge me when I make silly mistakes. But they don't exist. They only exist in my conjured imagination.

They yearn for my aid, ask me so many questions that were perplexing to even comprehend but I endured every moment of it, plead for me to listen and I did, but when I was sitting in the other side of the room, no one actually cares. I was on my own.

I know I am.

I need to be more conscious now. I need to choose the right friend. I no longer believe in anyone anymore. I'll make my own decision, aid my own self, listen to my own problems. and hoping that god will make everything go much better than it is now.

Dental life : Chapter 3 - Blocking Undercuts

Hi, now to blocking undercuts. After producing our own secondary cast we had to block the undercuts of the cast. The main purpose for this is to make sure when we reproduce the cast using a different stone which is die, the mould produced won't tear and ruined the negative impression. Because the next step to working cast is to produce a die cast where we will place all the wax components of the cobalt chrome. And next to that is the burnout process where we burn out the wax component out of the die. So these are the crucial steps of making a full cobalt chrome frame work.

Anyway, going back to the first process. We used this modelling wax to block the undercuts. And piece of modelling clay to the anterior teeth where there were severe undercuts. So it required something bigger than just a wax to block it.

Blocking the undercut was kinda easy but the hard part for me would be removing the excess using a chisel on a surveyor. Difficult for me to manoeuvre the handle where the chisel is held - it was going all over the place. 

Then after blocking everything we free the saddle area by putting in a wax. There were this stipple wax and it was green and very very thin. You place it on saddle areas so that you'd create space for the cobalt chrome and making sure when we add on acrylic, it would cover the entire cobalt chrome.

There you can see the stipple wax. It's very thin. And I made a square hole to provide a stopper for the cobalt chrome later on. And remember to first draw the outline before placing the components.

 So these are the steps for now. Later would be to duplicate the cast using another type of stone. It's a die stone which would be very hard and can widthstand very high temperature up to thousands of degrees celsius.

Okay that's all for now. Thank you!

Story of my life

Hi peeps. Here I am again, have not been true to my words for the hundredth time. Should have expected that I won't be that committed. Haha

Anyway, just to clarify, I did write something a week ago but I got frustrated because when I was writing and you know how I would do it, I wrote this long very beautifully narrated story (laughs) and stopped since I hadn't transferred the picture yet to my computer. But me being me who just loves to procrastinate, I left the post hanging on my laptop for several days. I did notice that blogger couldn't actually save my work so I just left it there because I was too lazy to even do anything about it.

And you guessed it.

I turned off my laptop and yup everythings gone. So that's the story of my life.

So enough of that, a bit of an update to my current life, I decided to join this contest about tooth restoration. I know, I'm just being too ambitious but the thing is, I just like joining competition. The excitement, the anxiety it brings just enlightens me. Partly because, I just like winning and I could meet new people.

This contest, specifically means something to me since it's about dentistry and art mashed up together. And I would so much love to go to that contest and meet new faces and maybe make new friends. Who knows I could learn something new, right?

Continue on...

So this contest has a few stages before I could even be dubbed as a winner, if I ever got the chance. The first stage, submitting the forms. I know this is a normal routine of any competition but just so you know, out all of the forms, they'll screen the best out of all. And from that stage, the best few will be posted their work on the contest FB and the most likes will be able to advance to the next stage. Best 15 to be exact. And from that best 15, best 5 will be chosen for the final battle and the winner will be chosen from those 5.

It's a tedious process indeed, I know. But it's something I'm willing to bet my time and money on. Though it's not something I'd hope to win but I'll just cherish every moment of the process.

Okay guys that's all for now. Anything I'll just update it here. Thanks guys for spending your time here!

Dental life : Chapter 2.1 - Secondary Cast

Yesterday was a whole day of franticness and chaos. Everyone was so engrossed with their works that a friendly chat in between seemed diliberately unnecessary. Well I think some have better luck than others and I am always thankful that I'm quite lucky myself. I wouldn't say that I really did have the right technique because sometimes I don't really. It's just that I'm really persuasive and maybe I like to gain sympathy from the person who marked my work which is definitely the worst trait of a working professional. I have to make sure the next time I do something, it's for the sake of learning and producing high-end products and not because I wanted to be better or faster than others. Well I am a student so learning is just an included necessity in the whole process. If I forget that part, there's no use in learning at all because I gained nothing.

After having to take the secondary impression, we had to pour immediately soon after because Alginate is known to distort overtime and it won't produce the exact imprint if not poured right away. So we (the girl I told you in my previous post) both rushed to the casting room and straight away mixed stone with water. We have to reach the right consistency for this particular procedure since having it too thick will not allow the stone mix to reach and fill in the whole area in the impression whilst too much water will just produce too much air bubble in the mix.

We opened the vibrator to allow the mix to flow smoothly into the impression. We brought our lecron (a two-end carving instrument. It looks a bit like a long wand with a knife on one end and a small carver on another) and used it to assist the flow of the mix into the cavity and made sure there wasn't any air bubble.

Air bubble will just ruin the whole cast and might just remove the necessary recorded landmark and details in the impression and made a hole in the areas. That's why it's so important to produce a well even out cast with no air bubbles on its surface.

Then we made the base out of plaster of paris and made a lump onto a tile. And turned the impression over and placed it onto the lumped POP. I've made sure that the orientation of the impression is already correct so that we would save so much time readjusting it later on. Make sure that the retromolar pad is higher and the orientation of the teeth is at the right degree. After a while, the whole thing set. And we opened up the impression and how relieved we were to see that there was little air bubble.

This is my cast. There were a lot of air bubble that I had to cover them up by adding a bit more stone. I have to keep on reminding myself that this procedure requires patience and scrutiny. If I forget to pour it down gently then I'll trap more air bubble. So I have the top with stone and Plaster of Paris (POP) as the base of the cast.

Occlusal View.
Note that this is my cast and not my friend's cast. Hers was much better and more refined. I wished that I had produced something better. There are a lot of uneven surfaces. and my recorded rests were not detailed. I had to use my lecron to refine the details which is a definite no-no in this step. I would not have the same end result as the patient's real cavity prep that I've done if I were to do it in real life. Since this is not done on a real patient, it's okay for now. 

.

What I like the most about helping people is the smile on their faces. And I know I shouldn't be telling others about my deeds. It's just that I think it's necessary since I learned a lot while helping people and I wanted everyone else to do the same. Actually you're not only helping other people, you're also helping yourself. You'll learn new things in the process as well. And maybe redeem the mistakes in your previous work that the whole thing would be another experiment to know whether if you were to do it any differently would it produce different result?  And also you would just remember everything better since you are doing the same thing all over again.

Well I think that's all for now. And pray that I'd be a great dentist. Amin. :)

Dental life : Chapter 2 - Secondary Impression Using a Special Perforated Spaced Tray

Assalamualaikum,

Hi diligent readers! Today I had my prosthetic lab and I have been meaning to include some pictures into the post so that you could see and understand everything better but unfortunately I didn't have the time to do so. Well the bell rang before I could grab my phone. - Should have brought the phone earlier. Sighhhh...

Anyway, I've finished my secondary cast a session earlier so today I pretty much had nothing to do. So me being me, I wandered around and trying my best to be helpful to others. Harhar. I decided to help a friend of mine since she had trouble taking the secondary impression.

To tell you the truth, impression taking is my number one weakness. I hate mixing the materials and the time constraint made the whole experience a lot worse. Just imagine having to mix everything so that it would be homogenous both in colour and consistency under a very limited amount of time. It stresses me out sometimes. I'm only doing it on a soulless phantom head for now but just imagine having to do it on a real patient. It'd be a nightmare if I've overmixed or too slow in putting it into the patient's mouth that it set beforehand. And impression taking is definitely a very messy procedure.

I've worked with ZOE ( Zinc Oxide Eugenol ) before and it's very messy and it sticks everywhere. So the next time I'd use it on a real patient, be sure to remind me to use vaseline and apply it on the region of the mouth so that it won't stick and irritate the patient. This time around, I was introduced to a new impression material; alginate, which is much easier to work with and the indication of it's usage is when there's undercut or when you are taking impression of a dentulous (with teeth) patient. Alginate is an elastic material so it would record better details and the only downside of it is that you'd need extra retention on your tray. That's why I had to prepare a perforated special tray. And adding adhesive to the tray will help immensely.

So coming back to today's story, one of my friend was having difficulty of producing the exact negative impression of the phantom's mouth that she had to do it multiple of times, up to a point of severe frustration. If I were to be in her shoes, I'd definitely be frustrated, heck I'd be very pissed but she wasn't. How I admire her patience and I have to make sure to be as patient as her the next time I face the same problem. Okay, so I helped her remove some of the excess of the previous impression material and reapply vaseline on the tooth and all over the phantom's mouth. Although alginate isn't sticky but it's necessary since there's no saliva in the phantom's mouth so the impression material might stick. In the real patient, applying vaseline to the teeth isn't necessary.

And she came with a new batch of impression material and we were set to do it. During the previous mixing I noticed that she wasn't actually mixing it properly. You have to press the material on the side of the bowl to make sure that it would mix thoroughly. And when you put it on the tray make sure to even the impression out using the spatula so that you'd be taking a nice impression later on. Those were the things I did with the next impression taking. Thank god, the end result was alright. I wouldn't say it was perfect but it was okay that doctor in charge passed her. 

It was all a good day's work. Then we produced the cast out of the impression. This part I'll explain on  another lengthy post. So what I learned today? I learned that we have to always be patient and always remember to put in the right technique. That's why paying a good attention to the technique during demostration is a must. Jotting down everything will be a bonus mark to the whole process. And I also learned that friends are very important. :)

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!