Sealants & Flouride

Today we learned how to prepare and place a sealant on appropriate teeth. It was a fun day even though my cold sore is still healing so I couldn't be worked on, plus I have had sealants and fillings so I don't have any teeth to be sealed. Then we talked about fluoride and learned how to demonstrate a fluoride treatment. Both fluoride and sealants are a preventive procedure that benefit patients of all ages!

Polish please?

Well today in clinic it was unfortunate because I have a cold sore on my lip, which means I cannot get worked on! :( I was able to learn the skill and practice on my pod partner, but I couldn't have my teeth polished! We used the air/powder polisher! It spits out water and sodium bicarbonate powder that removes stain. It is very messy but it works really well! Then we used the regular prophy cup with toothpaste and I feel like I have literally done this a million times! WE only have 3 more PE's to learn and 6 to pass off! I cannot believe we will be seeing our first patient on November 21st, that is so soon! I am getting excited to start feeling like I am a legitimate hygienist!:)

Eaglesoft Treatment Planning

Today we learned how to treatment plan on Eaglesoft. I have worked with this software before, so I feel very confident with this PE. I was able to pass off my Oral Diagnosis PE which included charting and recording. Today is test #2 for Costley, so we will be getting out of clinic early to take that test! Wahoo!

Watch out! Kayla Keller is on her way to becoming a dental hygienist!

Today in clinic we had another practice patient day! It was really fun because I feel like the more I practice, the better I get :) ha ha go figure! Crazy how that works! I have been able to practice probing, posterior curet, anterior scaler, and exploring! I still don't feel like I could go and clean a patient without having an instructor to come and help me! :) But I am well on my way there :)

Practice Patient Day

Today was kind of like a practice patient day. We had our pod partners in our chair and we did an extra-oral exam and then an intra-oral exam. We probed one quadrant and came up with a periodontal statement. Mine was, "pt is generally healthy with localized marginal gingivitis". Then we had them rinse with disclosing agent and took their BFI and PFI. Then we had the instructor come and check us off to make sure we did it the right way. It was fun, it is a lot to remember and I hope I can remember everything when I start seeing patients! I passed off my posterior curet scaler today :) wahoo! It was a great day in clinic!

Oral Diagnosis

So today in clinic we went over oral diagnosis. Though technically we are not able to make a "diagnostic" decision, we chart "suspicious areas" and chart all existing work that has been done. Thankfully I had lots of practice doing this in my office, so I feel pretty confident in it. I practiced my curet scaler PE because I hope to pass that off next time we have clinic. I need to remember my lateral pressure when I am doing mesial and distal because it helps to make the toe and face of the blade be at a better angle. If that makes any sense at all :) We are moving fast and we are about half way through the semester, I can't believe our mock patient day is coming up!! I am excited!

I have a BFI of 86% :)

Today in clinic we learned how to properly give OHI and demonstrate proper brushing and flossing techniques. We learned how to explain periodontitis and dental caries and used flip charts to help get our point across. After we put the disclosing agent in our patients mouth we counted the areas that had pink and purple. Pink means that it is new biofilm and purple means it has been there for awhile. You count how many areas and then depending on how many teeth they have, you find out their Biofilm Free Index. The disclosing agent wasn't that bad, but it didn't taste that good either! I passed off my Anterior Sickle Scaler PE wahoo! :) Good day in clinic! We were paired up with random people and that was way fun because we have been so used to working on the people in our pod, it was fun to have a switch up!

Curet Scaler

Wow, beside the pounding headache I have today, it was a pretty good afternoon! I feel more comfortable withe the curet scalers than I did with the anterior scalers from Monday! I get frustrated when I have to be very hard and aggressive on my typodont and then when I get in my pod partners mouth I forget to be soft and less aggressive! I enjoy the curets and I am excited to start doing more scalers!!

Anterior Instrumentation & Sickle Scalers!

Today we learned how to use anterior instruments, we worked with the Nebraska! Anterior instrumentation will be a little harder for me to grasp when it comes to the wrist action because I like to do the finger action, probably from watching the hygienists I work with, but it causes bad tension on your fingers and hand. So I really need to work on the wrist and arm motion and avoid the finger motion. I am so happy that I passed off my probing and exploring last week, I felt ahead of the game, but now we already have 4 new ones that we have learned and I need to focus on passing those off! Work work work! Life is good :)