
Capturing an accurate impression is one of the most challenging things I do. When you need to capture twelve teeth accurately at the same time it compounds the difficulty and the stress. This was our mission today. The cords were placed and everything was set out for the impression. My main assistant was sitting chair side to help me, and a second assistant was ready to load the tray.
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Just as we were about to begin my assistant asked, “what if I start on this side pulling the cords as you begin on the other side?” I stopped and thought about this for a moment. We had a plan, I would pull the first four or five cords, dry and begin injecting at the right side. My assistant would then begin pulling the cords left and drying moving from right to left so she was just ahead of where I was injecting the syringe material.
With another assistant filling the tray, we began our plan, and it worked flawlessly. She was pulling the cords and drying about two teeth ahead of where I was injecting. To me it seemed way less rushed and I felt much less pressured knowing I didn’t have to pull all twelve cords, then dry, and then finally place the syringe material.
We will definitely be keeping this new approach as part of our system for taking multi-tooth final impressions.
I’ve found that when I am planning to impression more than 6 teeth, I chill only the syringe material in the refrigerator the night before. This increases the working time – in my experience about 2 additional minutes. It is yet another way to not be rushed while taking impressions for multiple teeth.
This is excellent, I have never tried to chill the material before. Does it work for both VPS and Polyether?