Confessions of a dental student

Well today I dropped some serious Benjamins (that means hundred dollar bills, right?) on my first pair of dental surgical loupes! For those of you who don’t know, these are the funny glasses that you’ve probably seen your dentist stylishly sporting. These glasses magnify things so the dentist won’t screw up your teeth. Below is a picture of the loupes that look similar to the ones I got. I opted against the giant headband-light (also pictured below) that, while offering some practical benefits, makes one look like a spelunker.

These look like my loupes.

Hawt.

Speaking of the realm of dentistry, I have a couple of confessions to make.

Confession numero uno:
I get a strange satisfaction from removing calculus from teeth. Last week I had the pleasure of participating in my second clinical rotation in my periodontics course.

>>>>WE INTERRUPT THIS BLOG TO BRING YOU A SPECIAL (QUICK) LESSION IN DENTISTRY<<<<
Periodontics is the study of the tissues that surround your teeth such as the gums (known to dental professionals as the gingiva), bone, and the periodontal ligament, the flesh that attaches your teeth to the bone. Calculus is a hardened buildup of plaque. Plaque is nothing more than bacteria poop. Calculus cannot be removed by brushing.
>>>>LESSON COMPLETE. YOU MAY PROCEED<<<<

I got to further refine my probing skills, and I also got to remove plaque and calculus from my partner’s teeth. I especially enjoyed this rotation because my partner’s dentition was much more interesting than your run of the mill, perfect dental student dentition. Don’t get me wrong; his or her teeth were lovely. But this unnamable student had a permanent retainer and veneers, woohoo! Since we dental students usually practice on each other, and most of us really do have almost perfect teeth, it’s exciting to see something different every now and then. This student was very polite and patiently permitted me to explore his or her mouth and didn’t complain when I poked him or her with my probe a little too hard (in my defense, he/she poked me too hard too, and our professor poked us both even harder!! Ouuchh! Can we say bleeding on probing??).

Besides the obvious thrill of removing calculus, I got to try to utilize the mirror for viewing those hard-to-see places in my partner’s mouth. For you non dental peeps, yall seriously have no idea how hard it is. I’m sure your dentist makes it look easy. It’s not. I think my professor thought I was dumb because I kept on accidentally cleaning the totally incorrect areas of my partner’s teeth while I was using the mirror. I also kept trying to scrape the air, as I couldn’t tell forward from backward cause of that darn mirror!!

Bottom line, removing calclulus is fun, and mirrors make things difficult. If any of you need your teeth cleaned, I’d be happy to do it; however, I do require that you bring your own sterilized instruments as I do not currently have any to call my own.

Confession numero dos:
I am a little obsessed with Disco’s dentition. He’s been losing his baby teeth lately and I’ve made it my life’s goal to extract one myself. He is not a fan of this. He’s actually not a fan of dental exams in general. He wouldn’t be a fan of even brushing his teeth except for the fact that his toothpaste tastes like beef or something gross like that.

I’ve given up on pulling his incisors. I think he has just about all of his permanent incisors now anyway. I really want to get one of those canines, but I’m not sure if he’s going to lose those or not. Any doggie dentists out there care to help me out??

NOTE: I only attempt to extract teeth which appear to be loose enough to fall out on their own anyway. Also, I do not probe my dog with a periodontal probe nor have I ever caused him to bleed. Please do not report me to the Humane Society.

Another reason I’m obsessed with his oral cavity is the fact that it’s really colorful!! His hard palate is pink and black!! And his gums are mostly pink with some black dots!! Cute, right? (And for all those concerned, this is not pathological. He has little black dots all over his body. They are just hyperpigmentations.) Okay….maybe I’m weird. I would try to photograph Disco’s mouth to prove my point, but I don’t see him cooperating too well….

Well now that I’ve convinced everyone that I’m a weirdo, I best be off. I (hopefully) won’t be updating any time soon because I have three tests next week. Only time will tell….

Laura

First Post

Hey everyone, so I thought I needed just one more thing to distract me from my studies, so I decided to start a blog, woohoo! The past couple of weeks have been pretty uneventful for us. I've spent most of them preparing for my 6 exams (microbiology, pharmacology, physiology, dental anatomy lecture, dental anatomy practical, oral health promotion...yup...I know you wish it were you) that occured in just over a week's timespan, and subsequently recovering from them, as well as a cold (or Rhinovirus, as we would call it in dental school).

Last weekend was Valentine's Day, and it was our first as a married couple. As a present, Micah cleaned the apartment, which I have to say is the best present he could have gotten me!! I made him one of his favorite desserts, Key Lime Pie. We decided it would be fun to make pizzas together, so we did, and of course Disco was there to celebrate the lovely occasion with us. We dressed up and had a candlelight dinner. Here are some pictures of the event.

Micah rolling out the dough, under Disco's supervision of course.

Fresh mozzerella. Delish.

More cheese.

Yummy toppings.

Finished product, pre-oven.

Key Lime Pie.

Dinner is served.


Disco was totally stoked about V-Day.

All in all it was a delightful evening.

Well that about wraps up my first post. If anyone with blogging experience would like to fill me in on how to have prettier backgrounds than just these dots, that would be great!!

TTFN

Laura