The day I hit 25 years of the same bite check and found a 3mm shift

Tbh I never thought I'd keep a log that long. I started back in 1999 because my dad did it for his practice. This month I was going through old notes and saw that patient X had a 3mm change in their molar relationship that I caught on the last visit. I almost missed it because I was in a rush. If I hadn't kept those records, I'd have no clue when the shift started. Has anyone else tracked occlusion over decades or did I just waste 25 years of my life?

2 comments

2 Comments

anna71719d ago

Same thing happened to me back in 2014, caught a 2.5mm shift on a patient I'd seen for 11 years. Only reason I noticed was because my old notes had a diagram with the exact mm numbers. That log is the difference between guessing and knowing, trust me.

kevinw9418d ago

Guessing vs knowing is exactly it, @anna717, that mm number makes all the difference when you're trying to spot a slow change over years." The diagram idea is smart too, I started doing the same after a close call, now it's just habit to sketch it every visit.