A Day at the Dentist

I love field trips, and today my field trip was to visit my dentist, Dan Roth and I got to have a crown put on one of my teeth. 

This is my dentist.   It was very interesting to watch him at work today..

First they drilled all the bad tooth away....  and then they took photos of the area with a computer.  The computer generated an image of the exact missing part of the tooth.  It was like making a puzzle piece that would fit right in.

Here it is on the screen: 

After the image is made, the dentist did the detailed work of triming it to the exact proportions he wanted it to be.  Then he sent it to another machine that would actually make the tooth replacement part, right in his office, which took about twenty minutes.

Here is the machine, called Cerac.  It is an amazing little piece of equiptment.

 Here is a close up of the window:

The square is the hard material that will be used to make the crown once the information is sent from the dentist to the machine.  Those drills will cut the material with computerized precision to the exact form delineated by the photographic information it was given.  This is what will make the replica that will replace the tooth parts that had to be removed.  It is like having a new tooth.

This is what the product look s like when it comes out of the machine.... well sort of. 



This is not mine, but one that had to be stopped during the process.  You can get an idea of what it is like when it is finished being milled.

Below is my tooth.

and the dentist polishing it up...

making it, "just right!"

While he worked, ever so diligently, the assistants and I had some fun reading "cowboy Poetry " and posing for photos...

And this was only their morning, the beginning of a very busy day. And hey, look at those smiles... and those TEETH!  It's good to know they can laugh and have some fun.  It was not a typical day at the dentist...  if you know what I mean. Dr. Roth got in a few smiles too.

All in a days work I guess.

And as for me, I have a new tooth, AND a FIELD TRIP,  all in one day! (Actually, it only took about three hours.)

Super!