Looking to satisfy the demand for both speed and safety with motorized IPR, ContacEZ has unveiled its latest product—SupraDisc. Designed for use with Invisalign®, ClearCorrect, eCligner, Six Month Smiles®, and other orthodontic treatments, SupraDisc offers orthodontists and general dentists a new, safe, and efficient way to effectively perform what has often been a worrisome procedure.

n advanced dental decay was found on a 85 year-old male patient during a teeth cleaning and exam. The decay was developing below an existing crown on tooth #31, located on the mesial surface in the subgingival area.

Nothing sets a restoration up for failure more than underreduction. We are trained to be conservative before anything else, so I understand the intentions involved in underpreparing.

HAVE YOU EVER RECEIVED A PHONE CALL from your laboratory technician with the dreaded news that you didn't reduce one of your crown preps enough?

Crown preparations are hindered by the limited space in the mouth and small size of the coronal portion of the tooth. Excessive reduction of tooth structure causes hypersensitivity and can diminish retention, leading to a crown that recurrently falls off its abutment.

During proximal contact adjustment, it is important that dentists restore passive contact or microscopic clearance to relieve pressure between the proximal contact surfaces of crowns and the adjacent teeth.

Recently, a patient came to see me with a complaint of a broken front tooth. I found that tooth #9 had fractured at the gingival crest.

After the cementation of crowns, all the visible cement is removed and floss passes smoothly, making it easy to assume that all of the cement has been cleaned up. But as a final check, when an x-ray is taken, a little piece of resin cement is found just below the proximal contact area, hidden in the subgingival area and stuck to the enamel surface. 

For me, removing resin cement after cementing ceramic onlays to the abutments has always been a challenge, especially ceramic onlays milled in-office.

PrepSure is used to confirm that the proper amount of reduction has been performed on crown abutments—neither insufficient nor over-reduction—to avoid necessitating metal occlusion and prevent premature crown breakage. This, in turn, maximizes the longevity of the crowns and prevents hypersensitivity after crown seating. 

Sometimes a dentist is called upon to provide a crown under the clasp of an existing partial denture when significant dental decay has developed on the abutment tooth. 

I needed an instrument to guide and confirm the occlusal clearance mechanically to create ideal abutments every time for every patient. This avoids all the guesswork and any further waste of costly chair time, which could compromise an otherwise excellent patient experience.
And with that, PrepSure was born.

Through years of experience and research, I found that I had to consider two things when seating crowns: 1) Interproximal Relief (FAQ), and 2) Compensative Relief of the working stone die.

By using the Gray Final Polishing Strip, which is dependable, consistent, and accurate, you can easily determine contact intensity and confirm Interproximal Relief, which is essential when teeth are restored.

Tea or coffee stains between crowded, lower anterior teeth are very common and can be hard to reach with scaler tips. My hygienists worked diligently to remove tiny traces of stains that were inevitably left, but found the task very difficult. This on-going problem inspired me to develop the ContacEZ Pink Strip.

In my office, the broken implant body was removed successfully. 4 months later, a new implant was placed surgically on tooth #30. Then, another 4 months later, a new crown was fabricated and seated.

When seating crowns, Interproximal Relief (IR) should be restored as it exists in natural dentition. IR is the passive contact or microscopic clearance between teeth when they are in rest position. In my experiments, this clearance cannot be properly detected with floss, because floss is too thick and an inaccurate measuring device.

A new patient who came to my office had lost an implant-supported crown on tooth #2 because the abutment screw had broken. The patient's history showed that crown #2 was seated in 2008, and 5 years later crown #3 was seated in 2013.

After completing a new composite on Tooth #9, the incisal mesial corner is too sharp and needs to be leveled to match #8. The sharp corner is too small to use a rotary disc or bur without risking over-reduction of the composite, but the ContacEZ Black Diamond Strip is the perfect tool for the job.

After prepping a crown abutment, it is common to find sharp edges on the proximal surfaces of adjacent teeth. It is important to smooth and round these edges to ensure that the newly fabricated crown fits perfectly.