My First Class IV

So I know you are all probably going to think i'm nuts after this post, but I don't care, I love this! This past week in clinic I got my first class IV patient which means he had LOTS for me to clean. This man didn't speak English very well and had NEVER been to the dentist. Jackpot!!!! I have been waiting to work on a hard patient because I feel pretty confident cleaning easy patients. So Wednesday was my lucky day!! This man had serious periodontitis. It's sad to say, but he will actually be losing some teeth because it was so bad. The bone that was holding his teeth in was completely gone in some areas. So it was basically just his gums holding those teeth in his mouth. But it was so exciting to see in person!! We learn about these type of patients, but rarely do we see the ones that are THIS BAD. My instructors said he is one of the hardest patients I will probably ever have. The calculus on his teeth has been there for at least 15 maybe 20 years, so it's going to take me a long time to finish cleaning him. It took me 30 min just to clean THREE teeth!! And i'm still not done with them!! But i'm so happy that I was lucky enough to get him as a patient. I will learn so much from working on him!:)

I know it might not look like there is too much to clean on the back of his teeth, but there is 6-7 mm if calculus underneath his gums that I have to clean off. Yikes!!!