Class III

Man did I ever get lucky, my awesome peer pal did an OD on a class III patient and then gave her to me. She is the cutest little Spanish lady ever. She speaks broken english and believed every dental myth that I have ever heard in my life. I wrote a novel on OHI and still didn't cover everything. I know we are not supposed to overwhelm the patient but she kept asking me questions. I tried my best to answer but I am not sure she totally understood me. I will try to convey the dilemma that what today.
Long discussion #1: She is missing all of her maxillary molars except #14 which is extremely mobile. It is also the last chewing surface she has left when eating. She has the worst gag reflex and has a partial she can not wear because of it. She also has an end to end bite that has made her mandibular anterior teeth ultra sensitive because of the pressure from chewing all of her food up front and the increased pressure that has resulted. She has no insurance. Should she get an implant so she has chewing surface or orthodontics to fix her end-to-end bite and sens. ant. teeth? I just don't know, try explaining that in broken English. I felt better when my instructor didn't know what to tell her either. After trying to explain everything to her I still don't think she understood my English.
Discussion #2: She just can't stand soft toothbrushes, they just don't feel like they are doing anything. I tried to explain the myth behind that with the sweeping analogy.
Discussion #3: She brushes with baking soda and peroxide everyday. Abrasive, that is all.
Discussion #4: She pushes so hard brushing that the bristles are flat against her teeth, pull out the sweeping analogy again.
Discussion #5: Yeah she LOVES the proxy brush! Score one for the students
Discussion #6: This was my favorite. She said "After you clean my teeth the gums will all grow back and grab onto the tooth" This was also the hardest one to explain. Perio is a hard thing to explain with pictures and hand gestures. I went on and on and on about it and thought I had it pretty thoroughly covered when she pretty much repeated the same comment. I think she zoned my English out cause she couldn't understand me. Yeah for google, I will be searching for the perfect Spanish perio sheet before she returns again. The most hilarious part is she is not a new patient to the clinic. She has been coming her for years and looking through her previous apt I found out that she has had perio explained every single time. I WILL find a way to get through to her!
She also needed to be inclined quite a bit and I had quite a learning experience not being able to see or figure out chair positions at all. There was more but I am sick of typing so to sum it up it was quite the learning day. I am glad I had it.

My new goal: LEARN SPANISH!!!