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Dental Tribune United Kingdom Edition

• Fill with up to 4 mm bulk increments due to lvocerin, the patented light initiator • Sculpt and contour with ease as a result of the material’s smooth consistency • Then light-cure for ten seconds using the short, 10-mm Bluephase Style light probe … • … and the esthetic restoration is done! Watch the Tetric EvoCeram Bulk Fill & Bluephase Style animation at: www.ivoclarvivadent.com/bulkfill_en For even more efficient posterior restorations Tetric EvoCeram ® Bulk Fill & Bluephase ® StyleThe bulk-fill composite The curing light www.ivoclarvivadent.co.uk Ivoclar Vivadent Limited Ground Floor Compass Building | Feldspar Close | Warrens Business Park | Enderby | Leicester LE19 4SE | United Kingdom | Tel. +44 116 284 78 80 | Fax +44 116 284 78 81 TEC_BulkFill_BluephaseStyle_e_A4.indd 1 23.11.12 12:49 November 20138 Practice Management United Kingdom Edition T he cleaning of water lines is something I would not normally write about but this is going to be a personal ar- ticle that I would like to raise awareness to. Last year I re- ceived a telephone call from a chest consultant who told me that he thought he knew why I was having recurrent chest infections, tiredness, and persistent cough. He had taken three sputum sam- ples from me and had grown Mycobacterium avium and Myco- bacterium intracellulare, other- wise known as a Mycobacterium avium-intracelluare infection (MAI) or MAC (Mycobacterium avium Complex). These bacteria are found living in house dust and tap water. They may infect wild or domestic animals as well as humans. I had never heard of it and was very self composed when he told me it was a type of lung in- fection caused by bacteria from the same genus as the one which causes Tuberculosis (Tb), but was non-contagious. Within a matter of days I was seen by a Tb spe- cialist and commenced treatment the following day. I was told that MAC mim- ics Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MtB) and is usually found in thin middle age women with low im- munity. He stated that he wished I had had full-blown infectious Tb as this would have been cleared in six months. Unlike Tb, it would take a treatment plan of 18 – 24 months (three times as long as conventional Tb) and relapses are common even after taking what was described as chemo- therapy antibiotics. I was ok until I saw that word then I freaked. How can this have happened? How had I caught it? Was I going to die? These were all questions I was throwing at him. He explained that this form of non-contagious mycobacte- rial infection can be caught from shower heads, soil, cigarette pa- pers, any form of sprayed water or simply by breathing the bug in. I was told I had been unlucky and his guess was I had breathed it in and slowly it had reached my lung and started to attack. The bug was already in the white blood cells which are responsi- ble for removing infections in the body therefore it was difficult to get rid of. MAC is resistant to many an- tibiotics; there are limited drugs that can be given but all come with extreme side effects which I was warned about. One drug can affect the optical nerve in the eye, the other, your liver. I re- member looking at the medica- tion and putting it back in the bag as the mere thought was freaking me out. The importance of clean water lines Jane Armitage urges readers to be aware of clean water lines ‘I remember look- ing at the medica- tion and putting it back in the bag as the mere thought was freaking me out’ page 10DTà