Class IV

On Tuesday I had a new patient and she ended up being a true class IV. I wish I had her intraoral pictures to post on here so I could show you what I saw. Her four lower anterior teeth were so mobile that Dr. Naylor advised me to not clean the thick layer of calculus off of them or else they would literally fall out. Also, when I was probing #2, as I was withdrawing my probe from the pocket, #2 was slowly coming out with my probe. It was a very interesting experience. Her calculus was not too tenacious, but there was just so much that it did take me an hour to debride one quad. I felt really bad for my patient because on top of everything, she was deaf and so I had to write everything down on a pad of paper and explain to her about the infection and future loss of many of her teeth. She was very sad but she already knew because of the mobility. The good news is that she is excited to get her mouth healthy again and to look into dentures.