hey this is dr amanda with straight smile solutions www.straightsmilesolutions.com
and today we're going to be talking about
power chain different types of power chain how you put it on
how you select the right type of power chain so i really wanted just to go over
something that seems to make people kind of confused
and go over the different types of power chain to start sorry i haven't even
opened this yet i didn't realize it was going to be so sealed
okay hang on they sealed this so well okay here we go so i got three
identical colors of power chain but they're very different types of power
chain today um and remember whenever you buy power
chain you need to check to make sure your
power chain is active i always do the check test first
to make sure it's active so i mean it should be active when you buy it but you
could like have bought like a really old piece
so i like to go ahead and cut a little piece off
on every one that i get and check it
okay help if i had a good ligature cutter here there we go
okay so when you test power chain you should be able to stretch it
and it should rebound to exactly the same size it was
if it is stretched out like that it's no good okay or if it changes kind
of color or blanches it's no good okay throw it away power
chain should be replaced every year or two throw it all out get all new ones
okay just be like it's a consumable so for
that reason i don't think that you need to have um
all the different shapes of power chain i would just have
one in each color so let me show you what i mean by that
so this is long power chain you can see how
there's like a little line in between each of the loops it's like circle line
circle line see that long power chain you don't need this i
just got it for demonstration purposes no reason for that this is continuous
power chain and this is short power chain so it goes
long then it goes short and then it goes
continuous the only thing i stock is continuous because to me it makes no
sense so short is like a circle then a smaller
line than a circle than a smaller line so you
can see that right there right there's no reason for that throw that
away okay all you need is continuous get continuous in the colors you want
they make like 50 different colors personally i think that's a little
ridiculous just get like one one blue one or two shades of blue
one green you know you don't need five shades of green um
you can build on it but you know it's a consumable you need to throw it out
every year too so it's going to get expensive if you're stocking every
single color but just by eliminating the short and the um the long
you know that eliminates two thirds of your power chain purchase so you just
saved your budget significantly and if you want to just get continuous
in all colors and that's fine but then you have to get the single ties to match
it and you need to throw these out eventually right
so okay so let's explain the why behind this so
i just make my continuous work for me even if i have big teeth or big spaces i
just leave extra spaces you know like i said it's going to save you a ton
of money if you do this so we'll show you what we mean by that
okay so this is night we do the test it works good works
well okay so again if you watch my other videos on power chain
you know that my opinion on power chain is that you shouldn't really be power
chaining unless you're on the right kind of wire okay
so power chain is really except for in a few
limited exceptions power chain is meant to be used on heavier wire so i don't
even use power chain to close space unless i'm in at least
at least 17 25 night tie i know that might be a little different than some
stuff you hear but all kinds of strange things can
happen so it's better just to keep things consistent
so this is a 1725 upper nighttime okay so let's say for example we already
leveled we already aligned the teeth are straight as you can see here sorry she
broke a bracket here let's pretend like it's back
on let's say we had some spaces here and we were going to put
some power chain in the front or let's say we were going to put power chain
just to maintain the spaces so in this case you're going to take
your wire you're going to kind of estimate where it is you can get those
wax marking pencils if you want to mark it i wouldn't use a marker because
that's gross if it's being reused but you know you're
estimating about right there right okay then you get your
what happened to my distilling cutter okay i had one it disappeared okay
i had one at some point but we're going to go ahead and
uh i've got a terrible lead cutter here i'm having bad luck with pliers today i
might have to put a pause and go get some more
okay i'm gonna do that i'll be back
okay i'm back so i got my distilling cutter hopefully this one works
we're gonna go ahead yay it's a nice one okay
we're gonna estimate it's always better to overdo it than to under do it
and then we're gonna use our wine guard plier to put it in the hole
i mean this is not really in a patient so this is a little easier but
i'm gonna go ahead and put it in the tube remember these tubes here they have
two holes this is the auxiliary hole you're probably not going to use this
um matter of fact you may not even have that on your bracket
put it in the hole that's closest to the tooth
that's for like extra special stuff oopsies
okay
so just put it in the hole and you do not have to bond your sevens or your
second molars i don't normally do that until the end
but this type of dot has them bonded so if you haven't bonded you need to run
the wire through it did i make this too short i'm gonna be
mad if i made it short okay so okay we'll just act like we're only
going through the sixes the molars okay remember your lines here
you might have three lines you might have two on top they need to be
centered okay so see how i'm kind of sneaking it around so that my my three
lines are centered see it okay that's super important or you're
going to get a weird arch shape all right put it in there okay so
it's okay i can trim my wire a little bit more after i tie it in
okay so let's just say we're gonna put chain on the front teeth only okay so i
always cut a bigger piece of chain than i think i need i don't count the links
because i like to have it to work with and i do it with my fingers so remember
if you're not going all the way to the sixes or the molars you need to just be
going mesial to mesial and you put a single
tie on the distal which i didn't i don't have here but i can get
it later i'm doing this looking through the lens
a little tricky so i generally do it with my fingers you
can do it with if you want with the plier okay
and then you're gonna go ahead and stretch it now don't go nuts like if you
have to stretch it this far and this hard the first time you might
break a bracket so it's okay just to have a little bit of pull
remember i told you i only use the continuous chain
so i don't anticipate that i'm gonna put one link on each tooth if they're big
teeth or if they're spaces i might leave extra
links and just do it by feel so eventually
you're gonna be doing this by feel okay so i'm doing it right now
i put it on a little crooked make sure don't make sure you don't
um twist it when you do this and by the way it's significantly easier doing this
on a patient so yeah you can probably put the whole
link on here let's go ahead and it's also easier if you have nails
okay see got the whole thing on there mesial
starting on the mesial now this one i think it's going to be
too tight if i try to stretch that all around so i'm going to put
two links on eight and nine on each one just so
there's some pull but it's not like crazy tight so i'm
gonna break a bracket
okay and then you can put another link on here
yeah it looks nice too it's like a nice little pattern
so actually it's okay for me i could stretch it but then it's going to look a
little uneven if i do that so let's just do this make it look even
see it looks pretty nice and then we can probably do one link
on tooth number seven and then we'll go to the mesial of tooth
number six
and then we'll stop and put a single tie on the rest of the teeth including the
distal of six and eleven are upper threes
okay
i can always use this to do it too sometimes that makes it easier
but you see how i just stuck with one continuous
power chain the continuous and i didn't have to use the worry about
short or open or anything like that or long whatever
you want to call it okay well i'll finish that later but in
any case you can see what i mean okay so it looks really nice we just stuck
with one brand just the continuous i don't use the
short or the long and that's up to you if you want to do it it's just buying
something three times and i personally think there's just no need for it so
anyways i just wanted to show you what it looks like when you do it so
you know actionable tips here you don't need to buy these
i just bought these for demonstration purposes short
and long okay some people call long open okay
you don't need these you can just get this in the colors you want
remember throw it away every year too do the stretch test
if you're not going all the way to the sixes okay
then you need to just go mesial to mesial and put a single tie on the
distal so if i'm going to finish this up you'll get a single tie
get a single tie get a this pass go back single tie single tie single tie single
tie okay and nice and tight you're just gonna do
it by feel it shouldn't be enough to make the patient cry
or where you have to struggle and shake to put it on
then you're you're pulling too hard you're really really pulling too hard
it's too much force you're gonna change it it loses
activity after maybe i don't know three to six weeks three to five weeks
three to five weeks so power chain patients you might want to see a little
more frequently than you would initially with single ties
because it's going to lose its activity you know and we want to try to keep the
force slow and low continuous so
not like big big tides so that's pretty much it that's my tips for power change
all right thanks so much