I Hate Rubber Dams

One of the most tedious things that I have to do before starting on the treatments is the application of the rubber dam. It easily takes up about 15-20 minutes. Imagine all the time wasted.@)#(U*@#&^#$. Imagine this, metal rubber dam clamps flying all over the place like metallic butterfliies because it springs away from the rubber dam clamps forceps. Curses can be heard from the other classmates and you can see other students punching more holes into the green rubber dam after tearing their previous ones.

You have to slowly select the appropriate clamp for the teeth and this takes up quite alot of time too. Sometimes the rubber dam clamp positioned on the tooth will snap back and you’ll find it at the other end of the room.

Then when you finally get the rubber dam to go around the selected tooth held down by the rubber dam clamp, you pull your hair out in frustration again as the metal clamp snaps back into position and flies out of the mouth, clanging on the floor.

I’ll stick to wads of cotton in the future to absorb moisture. Grrrrr.

Anyway, this short post is my quota of procrastination for the day:

On Friday, we were thought how to do restorations for Class III and Class V cavities. Class III cavities are cavities on the approximal sites of the tooth. Class V are cavities near the cervical region of the tooth(towards your root, on the side of the tooth that faces your lips – the labial aspect).

I suck so bad at doing the Class III cavities because it’s damn difficult to have a good look at the back of the lower anterior teeth with a mouth mirror when the rubber dam is pressing back up on your mouth mirror. Grr. All the more reason not to use rubber dams when I am working next time. I mean I know I should.. but..:\…cotton wools are more convenient. ;\

And here I am, applying the phosphoric acid for the acid etching process. This improves mechanical retention of the composites(used for restorative purposes!)

Ok! Look! look! Quite proud of this one, can you see the Class V cavity I made in the cervical region?

And here I am, adding the composite by increments. Oklah, learning how to manipulate the extremely viscous material. Think toffee candy type of consistency.

Cool picture of me doing my lightcuring. Not bad right, the other hand is taking a photo. Wahaha.:P

And when Lie Yuen was free, she came over to help me take a photo of myself ‘at work’.

After polishing the surface of the composite with a stone bur.. this is the effect! I’m quite happy with the turn out. But it’s of course relatively easier to do than the stupid approximal cavity. I didn’t take a photo of the approximal one because confirm damn fail one.

And while studying, I finished making the hearts and stars from the coloured strips I bought eons ago.

Procrastinating makes you do pointless but beautiful things like uploading visually pleasing photos scoured from other websites. Here’s one of the cupcakes design from cuppacakes.blogspot.com. Everytime I look at my phone, I feel the need to buy these babies more and more. 🙂 I’ve downloaded a whole lot of photos from rosylittlethings.com too. Hehe. Makes good wallpapers.