Cracked Amalgam Fillings

I see a lot of cracked old amalgam (metal) fillings nowadays.


I am not saying amalgam fillings are bad...in fact they are very very strong and last for many years. Its a great material to use to fix up teeth!


However once they are cracked, they start to leak and bugs can get inside the tooth, eating the tooth away


I have been helping alot of patients coming in with painful tooth and almost always see cracked amalgam fillings


Below is one such example seen today:

As you can see, the filling inside the red circle has lots of cracks in it and about to fracture.

I removed the entire amalgam filling and this is what I saw:

Found some deep decay on the way but overall I could save the tooth


Now, time to place white filling.

After placing is beautiful white filling on the tooth, I have place some natural amatomical groove to replicate the structures of the real tooth.

Below is the final result:

Looks alot better, I reckon!

My advice is, our body is like a complex machine. We need to maintain our body and replace parts that are faulty. If you see any fillings that are old and cracking, don't hesitate to fix them up. I am glad I was able to save the tooth above today. If the tooth was left like that longer, then it would have cracked even further to the point of no return.

I am back! AS A DENTIST

Okay, I admit I am not the most efficient and reliable blogger.


After creating a blog for dental school life back in 2010, I made ONE post and then no updates for ...hmmmmmm...6 years!?!


Yikes, time just....flew....wow



So here I am, back at blogging again.



Fortunately, I didn't fail any years in dental school and I didn't repeat any years either.
I graduated like a good, diligent dental student, and in December 2011, finally got my licence to be a fully qualified dentist! Yay!


Time flew again, I got married, and now in 2016, I am the proud owner of 2 dental surgeries - Carlingford Court Dental and Dentist@North Rocks


Here are my website links:

Carlingford Court Dental:    www.carlingfordcourtdental.com.au





Dentist@North Rocks: www.dentistnorthrocks.com.au



So, hopefully I get more efficient this time round, and update my blog at least few times a week.

I will be uploading my life as a dentist and random ramblings as usual.


Until then....take care and see you soon :)

My very first denture

No, its not for me its for my patient.

In 3rd year dentistry we each get assigned with a patient who needs upper and lower set of dentures. We have had practices on making dentures however this was the first time making one for a real patient.

And believe it or not, it took us 6 months to make a denture.

I'm not saying students were so incompetent that it took us half a year to make a denture for ONE patient. As students the most frustrating thing is not inexperience or lack of knowledge, it is tutor checking.

Yes, EVERYTHING SINGLE FREAK'IN step must be signed and checked by a tutor before we proceed to the next step. This is to ensure that we don't screw up or do something completely wrong to our patients - which is fair enough - but it just makes the process bloody slow.

Photos of upper and lower denture for my patient

Complaints aside, I'm glad that I persevered and finally met the day where I can proudly issue a complete denture to my patient. I took shots of the completed denture before I gave it away to my patient to commemorate my acheivement. I'm quite happy with how it turned out. Dentistry is 'art', it requires extreme detail and patience to contruct a beautiful set of teeth to satisfy my patients.

The moment I saw my patient smile with the dentures I made for him, that just made my day.

Introduction

Welcome to my blog.

I will be talking about my life as a dental student in this blog.

This blog will contain lots of random thoughts, events in dental school and ramblings about my daily life. I will not be posting stuff in chronological order because I will be writing stuff as I remember it.

A life as a dental student is certainly stressful and sometimes damn frustrating but it has its charms. What keeps me going is the satisfaction of witnessing my 'art' in dentistry plus I get my various snippets of joy from treating my patients which makes it all worthwhile.

I hope you will come to understand what I mean.


-Caffeinated Dentist-