WedgeGuard – your new best friend

WedgeGuard – your new best friend

How can such a simple little thing save you time and get you out of a whole lot of tight spots? Read on…

Class IIs and IIIs

WedgeGuard prevents iatrogenic damage to the adjacent tooth, a consequence in the majority of Class II cavity preps¹. Without having to worry about the adjacent tooth, you can concentrate fully on preparing the cavity – and there’s no need to slow down when breaking the contact point.

It also prevents unnecessary trauma to the papilla, thus helping keep the cavity dry and clear of blood.

Detach the guard after prep and continue to use the wedge. You can slide a matrix down beside the wedge to continue with the restoration. Keeping the wedge in place prevents reactive hyperemia, further reducing bleeding.

Crowns, onlays and veneers

Use WedgeGuard during prep for crowns and onlays. It’s also useful for protecting the adjacent tooth when using air abrasion to clean a tooth before etching and bonding.

Before bonding the restoration, detach the guard and leave the wedge behind to fill the negative spaces in the embrasure during cementation. This makes interdental clean-up much quicker.

References:
1.  Lussi A and Gygax M (1998). Iatrogenic damage to adjacent teeth during classical approximal box preparation, Journal of Dentistry 26:435-441.

Helpful hints

Get WedgeGuard through a tight contact

Push firmly, wriggling the WedgeGuard at the same time. In almost all cases it will pass through the contact. If it still won’t go through, there are three options:

• Drill through the occlusal enamel into the carious lesion to weaken the marginal ridge then fracture off the ridge.
• Use a diamond strip to shave a little off the contact point.
• Place a V3 Ring on the teeth for half a minute or so to create sufficient separation.

Maintain good occlusal view and access

Sometimes when doing an MO, the view of the occlusion may be slightly obstructed by the guard. If this happens, use a bur to trim the top of the guard.

Bend guard for easy detachment

To make it easier to detach the metal guard, try bending the pinhole end of the guard 90 degrees towards you before placement. That way it's easier to grab the hole with the tweezers after prep, when you’re ready to detach the guard.

Easy guard removal

Use a finger or an instrument to press down on the head of the wedge while detaching the guard. This ensures the wedge will not pop out of the embrasure.

Place a matrix beside the wedge

With the guard detached, the remaining wedge is effectively a Wave-Wedge, retaining all of that wedge’s award-winning abilities to seal the matrix at the gingival margin. Because of the wedge’s smooth surface, in most cases it is possible to slide a matrix between the wedge and the margin without removing the wedge first. If the matrix will not slide past the wedge, withdraw the wedge slightly to allow the matrix to slide into place, then push the wedge back in while pressing down on the matrix tab.