Handpiece Maintenance

Good morning and welcome to the Shatkin F.I.R.S.T.® Monday Morning Minute

Good morning and welcome to the Monday Morning Minute. I’m Fitz, and this week on our Monday Morning Minute, we have a very special guest, John the handpiece guy. John the handpiece guy has helped Dr. Shatkin over a couple of decades now. Easily, easy, repairing and helping him with his hand pieces. So when you do the amount of implants that Dr. Shatkin does, you’re going to need a good handpiece repair guy.

And this is where John comes in. But we also at Shatkin first get a tremendous amount of calls about how to service and how to lubricate handpieces. We want you to keep this beautiful aseptico handpiece for many, many years to come. So what John is going to do this morning is John’s going to take a minute or two and explain exactly how you use our brand new lubricant at Shatkin F.I.R.S.T.® to maintain the handpiece. So, John, tell us what you think.

Okay, so what we have here is a synthetic lubricant. And synthetic lubricants are best because they don’t break down in the sterilization process. And most lubricants that you see on the market are mineral oil based, which do break down in the sterilization process. So that’s why we recommend this lubricant. So what you’re going to do is after your procedure, you’re going to take your lubricant and what we call an E adapter tip. And that screws onto this, top of.

This, and this is sold separately. And how long will this last? This tip you can reuse with your new can. So as you replace your cans, you unscrew this tip and reuse it. Perfect. Excellent.

So the way you want to use this is you shake your can, and within 15 minutes after you’ve done your procedure, it’s imperative that you lubricate it in that time period. Because during the procedure, you get your fluids, saliva, blood will work their way up into the head of these handpieces. And if you don’t lubricate within about 15 minutes of the end of the procedure, what happens is that blood can dry, and then that gets very, I want to say, turns gritty, and that will start tearing up your bearings.

I think you explained to me once, it’s almost like rust. It can really play havoc on the intricate parts that move. It tears everything up. Yeah. So what we recommend then, of course, is within 15 minutes and I put the handpiece in a bag, like so give the can a shake. You put your tip in, and you want to hold both sections because it is under pressure. And you shoot your lubricant in. And as you can see, what came out, all that dirt, and you want to spray it again until clear lubricant comes out. And you can see how dirty that is. Yes.

So we’re just going to keep shooting it until the lubricant comes out. Clear. And that’s getting pretty clean right there. And what is the average amount of times you’ll have to spray it? Well, if you take care of your handpieces, it should be once or twice, but as you can see how dirty this one was, you’re going to do it multiple times until the lubricant comes out clear.

So you got a good five sprays out of that one before it became clear. Absolutely. Okay, so then what you do is then you just bag your handpiece, sterilize it, and then it’s ready for reuse. Okay. All right, that’s excellent. Occasionally we get the question, so they’ll lubricate it before or after autoclave?

You don’t have to lubricate after autoclaving because the synthetic lubricant withstands the autoclaving process. Got you. So no matter how hot that autoclave is that’s right. It’s not going to break up the.

So you only need to do it after the procedure, and then you lubricate, bag and sterilize and you’re good to go. Okay. I know a lot of you out there have the Aseptico 7000 motor and the Mount Blanc 20 to one handpiece that we just saw was pretty dirty. And thank goodness for the for the lubrication spray, how you can clean it up.

But so if you’re interested in keeping your handpiece healthy, which I’m sure you are, please call either Kevin, Nick, or myself at Shatkin F.I.R.S.T.® And we’ll get you a can of the lubrication spray sent out, and we’ll get you the spray tip as well. And yeah, I hope it was educational for everybody. John, we really appreciate you being with us on the Monday Morning Minute. Very kind of you. Keep on fixing Dr. Todd’s handpieces for him.