Since art is subjective, I won’t go there. These photos are mostly cakes collected from all over the web, and were just worth sharing. Enjoy!
Delicious dentin, savory enamel, and yum, PULP CHAMBER!
I’d like a slice of interproximal decay, please.
Mrs. Toof had herself a bunch of babies. But some of them don’t look like Mr. Toof.
George needs perio treatment and a few implants. Wait, you’re in London? Nevermind, these are good British teeth.
A cake with a busted lip? Naw, just the 35th anniversary of Rocky Horror, time-warped next week especially for Glee fans.
Too much CSI on TV these days.
Really creepy and not something I would want to eat or stick my hand into. Fortunately you can click on the photo above and see that this ended up being really artistic.
Minimalism at its Halloween coolest.
I can just imagine the staff arguing about who gets to chew on the dentist.
Annoying Orange, meet your nemesis.
If you know of any other tasty dental endeavors, feel free to link them below in the Comments, especially if you’re creating them for Halloween. Just don’t make me look at another puking pumpkin carving. Why not, you ask? It’s the smell. It reeks even though it’s only a picture.
The next time your patient makes a yuck face at you with the accusation that the stuff that just hit their tongue has the most awful flavor EVER, you need to be sure and come back to this blog to share your experience so that your offending dental material can be rated accordingly.
For now, you’ll have to settle for this Top Ten, which was created by someone who is so meticulous about isolation that they never (!) get complaints about the taste of the following products:
The Top Ten Worst-Tasting Dental Materials
10. Air polishing powder
Some people like the taste of baking soda, which is why this is at the high end of the list. Others, you’d think that you’d hit them with the entire Pacific Ocean with the way they wretch from the spray. Young Dental has one of the better products in this category. And most patients actually do prefer it to the grit of pumice prophy paste if an operator is good at managing an air polisher.
9. Impregum Penta impression material
Fortunately the second generation flavor is much better than the first. But what is with the aftertaste? It’s not like you can use a rubber dam when taking a full mouth impression.
8. Vizilite rinse
Sour flavors seem to go over worse than salty ones. And because this cancer-screening pre-rinse is essentially vinegar, you may get a dirty look right before you start checking for the dirty bombs that are cancer cells.
7. Jeltrate Plus
Yum. Unflavored alginate with a splash of antimicrobial quaternary ammonium compounds to give it a little bit of awkward je ne sais quoi.
6. Compounded tricaine topicals
This is like benzocaine on steroids. Because it is not available in a commercial formulation, you’ll have to have a pharmacy compound the gel for you. John Hollis Pharmacy whips up a pretty mean cocktail of lidocaine, prilocaine and tetracaine at a decent price. It tastes pretty bad, but when patients rave about your painless injections afterwards, you’ll want a tube of it in every operatory.
5. Parkell Mucohard relining material
Not only does it taste foul, it gets bonus points for heating up while it’s curing in your patient’s mouth. This PDF from Parkell even cautions against leaving the patient alone for fear of spontaneous combustion.
4. Septocaine
Even a few drops of the local anesthetic inadvertently dripped onto the back of the tongue will make your patient want to chew through the stainless steel of your syringe. Be careful or else you will be switching back to lidocaine.
3. Viscostat hemostasis gel
Great for getting a lot of bleeding under control. Unless that bleeding is on the tongue. Then, not so great. Ultradent has addressed this notoriety by bathing their latest Viscostat with mint flavor ribbons. But I’m sure you can still taste the caustic astringency that would make bleeding to death not seem so bad.
2. The goo under a loose crown that you just removed
Can we all gross out at this one for a moment? And hahahahaha, they can’t blame this flavor on you. Which brings us to:
1. RelyX Unicem cement
Stag-nasty payback for that loose crown you just had to smell. RelyX gives you the ultimate in sourness and bitterness that lasts and lasts (but so does the bond).
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Why more dental product manufacturers don’t try to mask the noxious flavors inherent in their materials is a question that can’t be easily answered with chemistry or economics. If you’re not one to wait on this development, let your patients choose the flavor of their next crown seat or impression tray instead by carefully slipping them a few drops of one of these flavoring agents that are especially created for that purpose.
Pearson Dental Supply Flavorings
Practicon Flavorings for Alginates
American Dental Supply Flavor Kit
And when you ask your patient how everything tasted, they can honestly tell you it was just peachy. Or grapey, their choice.
Now it’s your turn. Which materials taste the worst to your patients? Leave a comment below to cast your vote.
Looking around your dental practice, you wonder where the ideas for all those gadgets came from. Do you need help uncluttering the deja-vu from your mind?
Run your mouse over the product images to get a sense of their origins.
| Unfortunately, the Luxatemp guns do not fire over long distances. That and they’re kind of runny. |  |
| Make sure that you’ve placed the right kind of suction tip in your patient’s mouth. |  |
| Laser dentistry. So easy, even a toddler could do it. |  |
| Enamel Pro paste appeals to hygienists who never grew up. Oh, the colors that end up in our children’s stomachs! Thankfully patients aren’t supposed to swallow this. |  |
| Who says you have to sit still while doing dentistry? The Evolution Chair also provides for good spinal alignment. |  |
| Hey, with an LCD screen, you can find the bottom of anything! At least the Vector Root Apex Locator comes with its own hook. |  |
| Never mind. |  |
Throw away all your battery-powered unmentionables and welcome a familiar friend to your bedside drawer!
The Oral-B Pulsar disposable electric toothbrush is the discreet answer to better pleasure, vitality, and all-around good vibes.
Once found only in the oral care department of superstores, the Oral-B Pulsar has now been endorsed by a pioneering gynecologist and may soon be the first product on the market to simultaneously receive the ADA Seal of Acceptance and the ABOG Standard of Therapy Seal. “Never before have we realized that a single product can fulfill two needs – perhaps even at the same time if the spouse is an enthusiastic brusher,” said one dental hygienist who wishes to remain anonymous.
Furthermore, the low cost of the Oral-B Pulsar opens the door to many more users who could not otherwise afford a vibrating device or who would stoop so low as to think of handling a toothbrush in this manner.
Readers of this blog who want to be further humored are highly encouraged to first read this actual news article from the Palm Beach Post, then to go play with the Pulsar Flash Video on Oral-B’s website. It will definitely change the way you look at power toothbrushes forever.
