Gutta-percha - Fill Your Roots

 

Gutta-percha is a natural latex material obtained from Palaquium trees native to South East Asia. The sap is collected from trees which have been felled and left to coagulate. It has thermoplastic properties making it suitable for many uses including underwater cables and household electrics. It is used in dentistry as a permanent root filling.

Dental gutta-percha was first used over 170 years ago by American dentist and firearms inventor, Edwin Maynard. I was surprised to learn that he would practice in endodontics at a time in history when it was more usual to remove a troublesome tooth. It’s good that he did, as his legacy lives on. Gutta-percha is one of the most successful and widely used options in endodontics. It can completely seal a root canal which prevents bacteria entering the area and reduces the chance of complications.

If you’ve had dental treatment involving root canal therapy, you’ve probably got gutta-percha in there.

I was a trainee dental nurse when everything was old-fashioned by today’s standards. Modern surgeries look easier to clean and sanitise than the creaky contraption of a dental chair that I had to look after. We had sterilisers in the surgeries that had to be kept boiling all day long. Some instruments were sterilised by flaming with methylated spirits in a kidney dish – not so much that the flames reach the ceiling – such instruments included those used in root canal surgery which had to be thoroughly scrubbed first. To the best of my knowledge, these items are now single-use and disposed of immediately. My colleague, Helen, taught me very well, with lots of patience. We were the same age, but she’d left school before me. I could soon mix Kalzinol on a marble tile without too much mess and make amalgam filling to perfection. Dealing with root canal stuff and gutta-percha took longer to learn as it wasn’t an everyday thing. We shared joy, laughter and grievances about our boss. We did our Dental Surgery Assistant night-school course together and, upon completion, we were proud to wear our yellow belts. This was in the days before dental nurses were required to be qualified. Our careers took different paths. Helen stayed in dentistry, I moved away. We were good friends and kept in touch until Helen passed away a few years ago.

My Haiku, about those times,

It was my old days
When surgeries were basic,
Smelled of Kalzinol.

Trainee Dental Nurse
Eager to learn and succeed,
Finding my way round.

The knowledge of teeth
And all that makes their unique
Physiology.

I mixed a filling
With a small, flat spatula
On a marble tile.

What’s this pink stuff for?
I’ve not seen root canal yet.
Lethal looking files.

It’s gutta-percha
For completing root fillings.
We don’t see many.

Appointment for what?
What’s an apicectomy?
Ah! Fascinating.

PMW 2023

 Thanks for reading, Pam x

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Beware: Idle Hands

When origami used to be mentioned, like many others, I would think of paper cranes, butterflies and fish. However, these ‘first-to-mind’ associations changed a few years ago after reading Don Paterson’s Rain.  Now, when origami is mentioned, I think of a single poem from that collection: a blank poem consisting of just a title (‘Unfold’) and a name (Akira Yoshizawa). The poem is in memoriam and once the reader discovers that Yoshizawa was considered to be the grandmaster of origami, this poem, which initially seems to say nothing, takes on a very different meaning…

Yoshizawa once said “When you fold, the ritual and the act of creation is more important than the final result. When your hands are busy your heart is serene.”

Such sentiments have woven their way into therapeutic practices; Occupational Therapy (OT) exists within most psychiatric hospitals – or did before Cameron began his destructive reign – not because clay ashtrays will cure mental health issues, but rather the process of making may offer an hour of distraction.

Ideally, inpatient services would offer more than clay-shaping and paper-folding – talking therapies that give the chance of real change – but, in rundown wards where daytime ‘routines’ centre around the blurred chatter of the television, money becomes the reason for why more isn’t offered. So, for the moment at least, all we can hope is that OT remains in our hospitals, giving brief relief, until the government realises that those with mental health issues deserve more – that their lives are worth more than the subsequent costs.

*          *          *

To bring this post back to poetry I’d like to share a poem with you from The Naked Physician: Poems about the Lives of Patients and Doctors (Quarry Press) and reproduced on The British Journal of Psychiatry’s website.

Origami – Poems by doctors

(Arthur Clark)

At first, a long time ago,

there were only the folds of your armpits

and your buttocks and groin and eyes,

then the folds of the palms

whereby Madame Ricardo purported to know your future.

Much later came two folds on the forehead.

The folds at the eyes extended,

the ones between the nose and lip grew deep.

More folding. Vertical folds crossed the horizontal,

summers folded onto autumns, and the year

was folded by year and put on year away.

Vast sorrows were folded onto minor triumphs,

tucked under the slip of memory and lost.

Then I began to see the process,

in long shadows, by altered evening light,

as a process, and how each folding

brings you closer to perfection of the finished piece.

Thank you for reading,
Lara

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