Dentistry technology seems similar to battery technology in that these developments never seem to filter down out of the lab, ever. The only thing new that's been added to my dentist visits is that little graduated paperclip looking thing that measures depth between your teeth and gums. Other than that, every dentist visit I've ever been to has been basically identical, as far as technology goes.
I get that much of it works, so there's not a lot of need to throw it out, but where's the progress? My eye doctor visits add new technology regularly. Not often, to be sure, but still regularly. My eye doctor visits now are quite a bit different in many ways than they were when I first got glasses.
There's a point where I started to wonder if dentists in general are worried about becoming obsolete. That's conspiracy theory, of course, so I don't take it seriously. But I do wonder all the same.
My dentist, a younger generation who took over the practice from a retiring dentist, has installed a Cerec crown milling machine. It was amazing to see the tooth modelled in 3d using a series of photos, then I watched my dentist raise the ridges of the tooth to create what would become the crown. After a few clicks he sent it off to be made - in the next room! In literally 10 minutes he had a crown milled from a block of dental porcelain or some kind of hard ceramic, ready to be fitted in my mouth. See a video of the process here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajj4zkXHe6U
Yes! My dentist back in the Netherlands had this technology in 2004 and both of my crowns were made that way. When I came to the US in 2011 and had to go through the ‘old way’ of getting a temp crown, sending mold off to lab, coming back 2 or 3 times over the course of a month I was genuinely amazed it hadn’t caught on here. I finally found a dentist in the Bay Area with new technology.
My wife got a new crown using this new technology but managed to get it chipped in a manner of months. Her dentist reordered a new one using the old method and it is still good so far. Maybe she just got unlucky on the first one. Anyway I've had multiple crowns using the old method and have been pretty durable.
Both of my crowns from 2004-06 or thereabouts are still in very good shape. Your wife may have been unlucky indeed, or maybe they used different/weaker materials.
From what i've read, this tech has a lot of potential for savings: Instead of a few appointments, a long process, you can do the work in a single appointment. And you also don't need the materials for the temporary crown.
So this is a classic disruptive technology, in a market where people pay out-of-pocket(if not in the US , in many other places). so why haven't this disrupted the old way?
I too have an anecdote involving a recent dental grad who took over a local practice; he removed the cerec machine installed by the previous owner, and not long after I experienced two failures due the low quality of the crowns produced by that machine. Replacing them with traditional crowns did take some time but they fit and feel much better.
Hm, maybe exactly because of that? Dentists are reluctant to lose these extra appointments because of extra revenue? :)
Don't know how it would affect total traffic though.
I had a crown put in two years ago, and my periodontist and I were talking about how this would be the next step. He had already done detailed 3D modelling of my jaw, mouth, implant site, and had a 3D model from my existing teeth that were removed. Glad to see it actually happening!
My dentist usually breaks out photoshop in my visits. He makes his crowns in-house right in front of me with 3D imagining tech he helped develop. One time he let me mess with it and that's when we found a bug in the undo feature...he had to start a 20 minute process over.
He breaks out so much new tech when I visit my friends and family think I'm crazy for going to him. I refer to him as my mad scientist.
Are people still getting braces glued on is it going the way of the molded clear plastic things? They were the hot new item being advertised back when I was getting my teeth fixed.
Was curious and googled it, Invisalign has some limitations (mentioned in "Not ideal for") like moving teeth vertically and rotating canines or premolars. So even aside from the price tag (which I assume used to be even higher) it wouldn't have worked for me.
Would've loved to do without the wires popping out and stabbing me in the mouth, it wasn't a favorite part of my childhood. So much orthodontia.
Would be great if you're doing it as an adult, I wonder how most kids would do with the "must wear 22 hours a day" part. If I could've taken my braces out I probably would have. OTOH I had a couple other removable mouth appliances and managed with those, so maybe it's just because braces are awful that I wanted to get rid of them.
I had invisialign for 2 years before switching to regular braces. Metal braces can generate much more force in more directions, which was necessary for completing my treatment (very stubborn teeth). They're dead simple and reliable. But my ortho is very advanced and helped it along as much as possible - I used this pulsing mouthpiece at night called AcceleDent which helped my teeth move quicker. We also talked about an option called Propel? which essentially made small bone perforations which encourage teeth movement.
My takeaway is that teeth are very stubborn and don't like to be moved quickly. And that once moved, they really want to go back to the way they were. There is a lot of new tech, but you've gotta find the right ortho. I shopped around until I found a forward-thinking one who was willing to try new things, and got spectacular results within a reasonable timeframe.
Thanks for confirming what I have been told. I was going to go with Invisalign, but then my dentist said my teeth would most likely need braces. He said I should go to an orthodontist, or he could offer Fast Braces. I was not under the impression that a dentist does this type of procedure. I like the guy and he didn't push his procedure on me but it looks like he is a general dentist with education in cosmetic. http://sbdsd.com/dr-javaheri/
I checked out their site https://fastbraces.com/ but it looks like it caters to dentists. It's about 50% of the price at least that's comparing a quote from an orthodontist. I just don't know enough about it.
"My takeaway is that teeth are very stubborn and don't like to be moved quickly. And that once moved, they really want to go back to the way they were. There is a lot of new tech, but you've gotta find the right ortho. I shopped around until I found a forward-thinking one who was willing to try new things, and got spectacular results within a reasonable timeframe."
That's my belief too. I had my metal braces removed a year ago, I have to wear retainers overnight, and I'm still finding the retainers quite a tight fit when I first put them in, especially if it's later in the evening than normal. My orthodontist says this indicates there's still some movement of the teeth.
> There's a point where I started to wonder if dentists in general are worried about becoming obsolete. That's conspiracy theory, of course, so I don't take it seriously. But I do wonder all the same.
If they are, someone should hold their hands and reassure them, or something. I haven't been to a dentist in about 6 years, mostly due to procrastination - though I can afford to have work done, I don't have coverage for it.
I'd be a lot more enthusiastic about going if I thought they could actually fix something, instead of announcing that they want to drill more holes in my teeth every time.
You need to stop putting this off and just get in there. If you let it go long enough, then your teeth and gums will become permanently damaged and you'll need cleanings every 60 days instead of 120, for the rest of your life. If you hate going into the dentist now, just wait until you're on that schedule. I narrowly escaped this fate, but it happened to our project manager.
If you have a lot of cavities to fill, I would advise knocking it all out outside the country. I went to a dentist in Medellin that did an amazing job, basic cosmetic and restorative work on my whole mouth plus the plane tickets and a 21 day stay in an AirBnB totaled out cheaper than my Atlanta dentist wanted for one inlay.
Yeah you really should go, you have to have these teeth till the end, best to look after them the best you can.
I was kinda like you, I hadn't gone to the dentist for maybe 2-3 years, and have just gone and have gotten 1 filling that had half fallen out, re-done and another new hole fixed. And was told to switch to an electric toothbrush as I was brushing away my gums (which I highly recommend, if anyone is still using the hand brushes), which is kinda irreversible and potentially really bad if it goes too far.
And there are a tonne of other things your dentist will be checking each time. Paying ~$100 a year is a small price to pay to keep your teeth healthy.
Get your ass to the dentist right now. Gum disease looks symptomless if you don't know what to look for, and it makes all your teeth literally fall out by breaking down the bone in your jaw. Maintenance is a PITA if it goes too far. The few hundred bucks you'll pay today is nothing to the thousands you'll pay if you need to get things fixed the hard way.
Probably you're not at that point, but please go and check.
Can confirm. I didn't bother going to a dentist for about 3 years in my late teens / early twenties (due to complacency as my childhood dentist in the UK was the laziest man alive & just sent me home every year saying "your teeth are great"). On my first visit to a dentist after moving to Australia I needed 8 fillings and had periodontitis, which has resulted in painful & expensive treatment every 6 months for the last 20 years.
Many of Invisialign's patents ran out last year [1] and there have been a few 'startups' cropping up in this space doing discounted Invisialign-like work.
There was a CT scan of my mouth, and then a bolt was selected and a ceramic tooth created that would accurately fill the gap. It works just like a real tooth, except it is slightly chunkier (but it's chunkier in the direction that points inside my mouth, so I'm the only person who can tell).
It felt pretty high-tech to me, although the article mentions that the first titanium dental implant was placed in 1965.
Apparently implants have been made for over 100 years, even before titanium was 'discovered' in the 60s.
The best bet we have to replace that are root-analogue implants [1] - essentially a physical 3D-printed copy of the whole tooth, including roots. Unfortunately information is scarce (as you can see in that wikipedia page), it's not even mentioned in the main 'Dental implant' article. There is a single dentist in the entire world [2] actively offering these implants, and going at it for 20 years.
We tried very hard to get even one sentence into the Wikipedia article, to no avail. The editors insist on secondary sources of information (articles in magazines or newspapers), which apparently must be in English. Sadly, all news pieces so far have been in German.
We were equally unsuccessful in raising interest among popular science journalists.
There's really no information about this group or their product. What little I did find seemed to indicate it's a scam or at least not very vetted. Can you contradict this with some good information?
It's been clinically proven over 14 years now. Papers published in top journals. A very comprehensive set of cases on the website, with before/after photos and X-rays (nothing like this exists for any other implant company!).
The founders are medical doctors, one a maxillofacial surgeon, the other a famous heart surgeon, both associated with the Medical University of Vienna.
Lastly - you'll have to take this on trust - I have a BioImplant. It's a front incisor (one of the worst places to get an implant). That video on the website front page - that's me! I've had it for about 5 years, and it's faultless.
2) If an implant fails can it be removed and replaced?
3) When do they expect FDA approval? Why haven't they received it after over a decade?
4) Why is it only a single tooth procedure? Have they never tried to replace a row of teeth?
5) Who are the primary customers to date (how many and where from)? If these are foreigners traveling for the procedure, why don't they offer details on how to go about scheduling the trip/travel and the procedure/stay?
1) It's never possible to get a guarantee! Everyone's medical situation is different, so the outcome is very dependent on the individual. My situation was bad, and this was clearly explained to me at the time. (I followed instructions to the letter, and took good care of my implant; it all worked out.)
2) The first few weeks are critical: if the implant fails (ie. falls out), the procedure can be attempted again. If it's a complete failure, no damage was done, and one can opt instead for a regular screw-type implant.
3) FDA approval: other zirconia implants are already approved. A few years back, we got quite far with the BioImplant application, but other (medically unrelated) issues intervened, which I can't really discuss here. However, I agree: it's a top priority.
4) It's currently only medically proven for single tooth replacement. Research and trials are needed for multiple teeth.
5) The patients come from all over the world, wealthy and otherwise. I don't know exact numbers; I seem to recall it's in the hundreds, but you should phone to be sure. The other details: schedule, procedure, are all sorted out by telephone or email. Usually an X-ray or CT scan is the first thing to send.
That's not always the case. A secondary source is any web URL. They just don't want original research IN the article. Citing material in foreign language is usually not a problem.
The editors for the implant page are extra picky. We certainly had a lot of problems even introducing simple edits - and any mention of root analogue implants (not naming BioImplant) was an insurmountable issue.
I think the reason is that there are too many implant companies, so competition is fierce. The editors are rightly suspicious of product placement or promotion. However, where there is legitimate innovation in an otherwise stultified field, it's important to draw attention to new developments. Perhaps it's time to try again for an entry!
I've been eyeing BioImplant for a few years now, wondering why they don't get more coverage. Any stories on that? A panacea would be something like this with an bio-engineered PDL.
There are many implant companies, all vying for attention. It's difficult to fight through all the noise. The top academic journals are another barrier: their main concern appears to be to maintain the status quo.
Popular science journalists didn't express any interest when we approached them. I was very surprised by this!
Lastly - and probably most importantly - the company really needs to get a decent PR person on board!
Mind if I ask how much these cost? I've been wanting to get my whole lower replaced due to significant wear and this would be a great excuse for a trip to Vienna.
The upfront cost is comparable to that of a (reputable) regular implant; a few years ago, in my case, this was in the region of €1800-2000. Then, after a 12 week healing period, you need a crown, which is a separate cost (and usually dealt with by your local dentist).
However, you also have to factor in the long-term cost: there are no surgical complications, and no follow-up treatments to deal with infection, as would typically be the case with typical screw-type implant. This is a huge win.
Also note: BioImplant is currently a single tooth replacement, so it's not possible to get a row of adjacent implants. (At least, not yet - I understand this is more an issue of research than practicability.) Make sure you go through the FAQ on the website! (http://www.bioimplant.at/faq-2/)
This is very interesting - thank you for sharing. I am looking into the possibility of a dental implant and I am very uncomfortable with the idea of a titanium screw in my jaw bone. I think a trip to Vienna will be on the cards later this year.
Do you have any details of the implant manufacturer?
I'm curious because this sounds rather like an 'anatomic' implant; the world leader in this technology is this small (but awesome) company in Austria: http://bioimplant.at
Probably not, actually - I have a similar thing and was told that although the MRI machine won't rip the metal out of your jaw like it would for ferrous metals, the titanium will essentially act like a little antenna and obliterate the image
Not sure if this is considered part of dentistry, but when I got consultations for jaw surgery, they used some sort of wand with a camera to build a 3D model of my mouth. I thought that was pretty high tech.
I went to a dentist after many years (no good, I know) and ended up getting some fillings. I was surprised by how much more pleasant the experience was than the last time I had them put in, in the 1990's. The ceramic fillings seem to be a remarkable improvement over amalgam ones. There were also little things, like having a TV, and a pair of glasses to protect my eyes from the glare of the lights.
I've heard people complain about the lights before, but have no idea what they're talking about, my dentist uses these lights that seem very directional, they don't shine on my eyes at all, I just need eye protection from stuff that gets flung out of my mouth while they're doing there work.
My experience with dentists is that they're less about preventative care and more about expensive procedures. It's unfortunate that our health care centers are profit focused.
I don't mind profit motivation, but (at least in Canada) it's combined with all sorts of protections that lead to zero competition and dramatically different costs across jurisdictions (which is Provincial). I'm in Alberta and a lot of procedures from check-ups to fixes cost 2x as much as next door in BC. A few years ago I "shopped" some dentists looking for rough estimates on a general visit (with the provision I wasn't going to hold them to a quote, just wanted to know how much I should be prepared to spend) and most looked at me like I was crazy.
Profit-driven without competition is the worst of both worlds.
A family member is a health "insurance" actuarial. He said supply and demand does not work in health care. As an example of the ton of data insurance companies have demonstrating this, when a town/region has a higher number of dentists per person, prices do not go down, but that community's dental costs go up. Why? More procedures. And they tend to not get caught because when you get a 2nd opinion in the same town you have the same 'do more procedures' incentive. To have a chance of finding out, you'd have to get your 2nd opinion outside that region.
If 2 different dentists recommend different set of procedures (involved different teeth) - my understanding is that all these procedures are not needed and it is time to change both these dentists.
Plus the never-stated but not-quite-secret that uncontrollable factors like genetics and mouth chemistry dictate a lot of what's going to happen, regardless of how well you care for your teeth...
I think mouth chemistry is at least somewhat controllable, via what you eat. It'd be nice if dentists knew more about that aspect, so that they could advise about it beyond "don't eat too much sugar".
> Dentistry technology seems similar to battery technology in that these developments never seem to filter down out of the lab, ever.
What?
Batteries have made enormous strides in the past two decades. Surely, you remember the days of almost everything running off AAs, which took hours to recharge (If they were even rechargable), and tended to leak their contents at the slightest provocation.
Or, alternatively, you could shell out large amounts of money for lithium-ion batteries, which wouldn't hold half a charge after ~50 cycles, and which would be at 1/6th their original capacity after ~100 cycles.
If anything, battery technology has been a monumental success story. No, we don't have batteries based on unicorn farts that charge in 20 seconds, and hold more energy then gasoline. But what we do have is pretty damn amazing.
Batteries have seen incremental yearly improvements of a few percent in capacity, recharge time, cost, weight, and number of recharges, which looks impressive over several years. GP is talking about the articles that come out every month or two saying "new battery with nano-particles/graphene/etc has 20x the capacity of LiOn [in the lab]."
Most people's primary experience of lithium-ion batteries is in their mobile phone. From that point of view, they were already cheap and commonplace at ~the turn of the millennium. Most people's perception is that in the last 18 years they've got substantially worse. Obviously, the power and capability of the phone has gone up dramatically, but it's pretty obvious where the perception has come from.
I'd think the secondary experience is in laptop batteries, and I'd hazard a guess that there's a similar but less extreme story: perception is similar battery life (perhaps because most life extensions come from low-power modes, so anyone actually using their laptop doesn't reach the claimed numbers for modern laptops?).
Of course, a third major factor is that people tend not to notice incremental improvements as much as step changes, and tend not to "upgrade their battery" in a comparable way.
All told, in relative terms there's probably some truth to it; other technology has progressed faster. But I wholeheartedly agree things have got better.
When I was younger, I got mercury fillings. Those weaken the teeth, need regular replacement, and I suspect are marginally toxic.
When they were literally crumbling away later in life, the dentist told me to wait before replacing them, as new filling materials coming down the pike.
So I did, and got all the old fillings drilled out and replaced with epoxy ones that match color with my teeth, will last the rest of my life, and hold the weakened tooth together.
I wish I'd had that paint available these days when I was a kid, that is painted on the tooth and prevents decay.
It takes a certain type of personality to become a dentist.
im sure that everyone can do their own thinking on that subject.
but I have had the gamut oof good to bad dentist experiences;
good: father in law (who was a dentist) was a great man
bad: dentist accused me of having braces (I have perfect teeth - never had braces) -- then charged my insurance for a bunch of procedures which werent performed (I only had a cleaning)
I think it depends on how often the dentist updates the office equipment. I'm sure that stuff isn't expensive and why upgrade when what you have works?
I've gone to dentists in totally new buildings and saw some things I didn't see at my old dentist who had been there for years.
You also have to factor in familiarity, ie does it make sense for a dentist to pick up a new tool with slightly better outcomes if they’re going to make more mistakes while they learn on it?
Frankly I think a lot of it has to do with money. Not sure exactly what ophthalmology tech you're referring to, but when I go to the eye doctor they have a few machines that offer additional services for an additional fee. The doctors buy these devices in the hopes they will collect enough additional "per click" rev to be profitable. A lot of ophth, as well as derm, is cash pay, so companies can develop and sell these products to doctors who then market them to patients for a relatively low cost and avoid having to get insurance coverage to pay
Dentistry has these things too. I think some whitening products are an example. Turns out you don't actually need to be a dentist (from a technical / clinical knowledge perspective) to sell these products, so a lot of random retailers started selling them for a lot cheaper. Dentists got mad, and in these situations the ADA or regional dental associations can drive legislative change. Not saying this always happens, and it certainly isn't unique to dentistry, but these economic issues often dictate what tech gets marketed and what doesnt. If the tech offers a real and meaningful clinical improvement however (whitening does not count) then the tech gets to the market eventually
The issue I see with this approach is that 1) the risk / benefit is not super great, and not better than standard of care from what I can tell. Fillings work pretty well, and if there is any risk you can get cancer or other bad things happen from this regenerative med, it wouldn't be responsible to prescribe it. Further, marketing this would require expensive clinical studies, and you'd never be able to charge enough to recoup this cost. Unless there is a significant clinical benefit, no insurance company would pay for an expensive med vs a simple filling.
This is why most drug developers using cutting edge tech target areas of significant unmet need, like late stage cancer. If it works, you really provide a ton of value to patients (extending health span and life), so insurers will pay you for that value. If you are offering a "cooler" alternative to something that pretty much works, not so much
* the evolution of dental curing lights from cumbersome, active refrigerated, and wired into really light, portable, wireless flashlights/pens
* the introduction of sodium bicarbonate jets for cleaning, polishing and whitening teeth
* the introduction of the ultrasonic scaler
* the change from dental amalgam (mercury-based), for fillings, to cast resin or ceramic
* the introduction of whitening treatments
* the changes from really bulky braces to relativevly slim ones, transparent and low-profile brackets, new techniques that do away with external head-gear for a lot of cases
I'll add digital on-site radiography processing, i.e. an x-ray is taken by the dentist, the film is processed and scanned in the next room over, and available on the touchscreen in the dentist's room 5 minutes later. That was a week's return by mail 15 years ago.
I've also heard of crowns being 3D imaged and milled from a ceramic blank while the anesthetic takes effect, but only from one person.
The paperclip to measure gum pockets is a bad idea.
These paperclips have the potential to infect healthy gum tissue with nasty anaerobic bacteria from pockets that are already infected. Unless you use one clip per pocket, of course.
If you want good measurements of disease progression, it's much better to use e.g. a BANA test that estimates pathogenic bacteria counts. Or if you are really fancy, sample some gum pockets and get a bit of 16S sequencing done with a MinION.
He's saying you can autoinoculate the patient from one pocket to another by using the same probe across your mouth without sterilizing between teeth. It might hasten the spread of periodontitis to areas of the gums it might not have spread to otherwise.
Translation only, I have no data here aside from that my hygienist does seem to use the same probe without doing much between teeth when my gums are measured this way.
Bacteria already have a great chance to move around the mouth. Healthy pockets are healthy not because they haven't been exposed to bacteria, but because they are place bacteria can't get a foothold.
I assume you're being facetious, this just isn't true. Brushing and flossing won't re-align teeth, correct major problems for which you have a genetic disposition, address factors beyond your control like the chemistry in your mouth, extra or absent teeth, dry mouth or physiological factors like how you sleep or the impact of respiratory considerations.
Sure, brushing and flossing helps, but to say it eliminates dental professionals is absurd. That's like saying a healthy lifestyle means you'll never need a doctor or visit a hospital.
Do you have scientific evidence (or "proof") of this claim, assuming you're referring strictly to dental caries, and perhaps receding gums?
I don't believe it, whatsoever. In fact I challenged some friends (a dentist, an orthopedic surgeon, and a biochemist -- all researchers affiliated with prestigious institutions) to provide that scientific evidence, and after a year they all concluded that standard dental advice is simply wishful thinking. Since it is the recommendation of dental associations, a practicing dentist must give this advice, but that doesn't make it true.
Hmm... could be an complete apples and oranges comparison but I remember waiting on my brother do his root canal for a couple hours in the 90s and around 2012 or so it too me 15 minutes.
I guess that has nothing to do with tech. I had a canal treatment a couple years ago that took almost two hours, fully modern clinic (own cerec mill and all).
Speaking of new dentist tech, this is something that has been bothering me (reposting from my answer above):
I've been looking into root-analogue implants [1] - essentially a physical 3D-printed copy of the whole tooth, including roots. Unfortunately information is scarce (as you can see in that wikipedia page), it's not even mentioned in the main 'Dental implant' article. No drilling required, the implant is literally pushed into place after removing the tooth [2].
There is a single dentist in the entire world actively offering these implants [3], and going at it for 20 years. The idea and results seem solid, you can find several papers from other researchers confirming that it works. Last year a company announced a similar root-analogue implant (though titanium instead of ceramic) in the Netherlands, but haven't seen anything since.
Current root canals are filled with 'gutta-percha', a natural latex used since the 1800s, quickly blacken and are a common source of complaints. I have a single filled tooth and it seems to collect way more plaque than its neighbors. It really feels like an ancient tribal practice rather than modern medicine.
There is a product called Novamin that can help remineralize teeth, currently owned by GSK. They took the competition out of the marketplace, and AFAIK only put it in certain "Sensodyne Repair & Protect" toothpastes, which also contain fluoride; unfortunately it isn't available in USA, but is available in Canada, Thailand, and China (and probably other places also, that's just where I've purchased it). Another source is SHY-NM toothpaste which is sold only in India. One can brush with these toothpastes, or use a dental tray to soak the teeth in Novamin.
Above age 35 or so, rather than direct dental caries, the bigger risk for many people is receding gums (gingival recession), which also leads to tooth decay, hot/cold sensitivity, tooth loss, infection, and so on. To try and prevent this, people go to their dentist for scaling and root planing ("conventional periodontal therapy"), which are fancy terms for what is, to me, medieval treatment -- scraping the teeth with metal instruments that readily damage the enamel and dentin. I believe Periogen is a far superior alternative, which is administered using a waterpik and is able to reach significantly below the gumline. Periogen dissolves dental calculus chemically, without the risk of damage that comes with the instruments used in conventional periodontal therapy.
Another treatment that promotes healthy gums and discourages tooth decay are probiotic lozenges; the exact formulation differs from brand to brand, but in general the idea is to replenish the microbial colonies in the mouth with species that are helpful rather than harmful.
As far as I can tell, the simplest and most effective preventative measure against cavities is to vigorously wash the mouth out with water after eating or drinking anything, every time, no exceptions.
I'm increasingly of the opinion that teeth just need to go. They don't heal, so all your efforts are only to postpone their decay. The pulp and nerves only serve to help them grow and then only provide a liability. Modern implants seem overall superior. If you have the money and tolerance for short-term-pain i'd advise just yanking them all and getting implants.
Edit: I'd like to apologise. I was raised in a rural area without floride or proper dental care. My teeth are in a place where no matter what I do I will be losing almost all of them over the next decade. I am frustrated.
My wife is a dentist so, using similar reasoning, I once asked her why people don't do this. She said the problem is that implants ultimately connect into bone and that connection fails over time -- your body is designed to renew the connection from jawbone to tooth but without a tooth it eventually degrades.
Edit reply to your edit: I am sorry about your teeth. It is amazing how dental education still isn't pervasive -- she gets teenage patients in Oakland who've never been told to brush their teeth and who will lose them all at a young age. Modern dentistry can work some wonders, so long term I hope you are doomed only to some discomfort and costs and not more severe problems.
They don't heal, so all your efforts are only to postpone their decay.
Uh, no. Your enamel can't be replaced. However, your dentin is regenerated constantly, in the same way that bone is regenerated. People with really good genetics can even over-generate dentin. Not only have I read about this, I know this firsthand, because I have developed "spurs" on the corners of some teeth where the enamel has gotten chipped. Dentin isn't as hard as enamel, but it's still pretty darn hard. Plenty hard enough to chew with.
Please don't give that advice. The current implants have a lot of long-term problems. I hope there will be a solution but at this point you would be crazy to remove healthy teeth.
Despite the clickbaity title (well, the paper book equivalent), it talks about how your teeth naturally do regenerate in the proper conditions, and what those conditions should be [1]. I've been personally using the system for a few years, and the last couple times I went to the doctor, no cavities have been found and my teeth are healthy.
1. If you want to skip the why and get to the how, you can read this web page and other links on it for more detail: https://drellie.com/my-system/ The only thing I do differently is include flossing using floss sticks.
Do implants last longer and/or work better? My understanding is that they try to save the original tooth because implants just push the problem down the road a bit farther, but you have to replace them again later.
This is correct. Implants are no match for the real thing. They wear away your jaw bone over time. Dentures are the same way. You're just buying another decade until you have no teeth.
This is completely incorrect. I have had a tooth implant since 2001 and it has not 'worn away my jaw', quite the opposite. Teeth implants preserve jaw bone.
I'm pretty sure this was the strategy before something resembling modern dentistry and basic oral hygiene became common place... As in, people would get all their teeth pulled out and made into a set of dentures for their 20th birthday due to the inevitability of the pain and loss after that age if they didn't.
I empathise with your having to deal with dental problems... Everyone experiences it at some point and no one enjoys it. But I think this is the right strategy for science, perhaps it wont help us directly, but it will help our ancestors.
I recall a crackpot that pulled every last one of his own teeth and replaced them one at a time with polished rocks from his own gravel driveway.
I think it was a video segment on The Daily Show, with Beth Littleford as the correspondent. So that would have been quite a long time ago, somewhere from 1996 to 2000.
Having wisdom teeth pulled is a whole different story. Years after I had those out, I had two premolars removed under local anesthesia. A couple of hard pulls and it was over, and they never even hurt after the novocaine wore off. (Well they hurt if I poked the bare spot, but otherwise they were just fine.)
"I'd like to apologise. I was raised in a rural area without floride or proper dental care. My teeth are in a place where no matter what I do I will be losing almost all of them over the next decade. I am frustrated."
I am in a similar boat. I first learned about flossing in my 20s. My mouth is now full of crowns and fillings and it's just a matter of time to get implants or something else.
Unfortunately dentistry doesn't have any "good" approaches. All of them are just various degrees of "bad".
But you can slow down the decay a lot. The best thing I have ever done was to get an oral irrigator. It has helped my gums a lot so my teeth are pretty stable now.
You're getting downvoted like crazy, but I agree at least conceptually even if implants aren't quite up to the right standards yet. Get me some that will last the rest of my life with no side effects and I'm on board.
To be fair, false teeth and dying in your 60s are normal in many parts of the U.S.
Where I grew up people still put Dr. Pepper in baby bottles, and become grandfathers at 35. That sh*t doesn't just happen on TV.
Though, now that I think about it, it's only in the past 30 or so years that soft drinks have become so cheap that people drink it almost exclusively. When I was a little kid poor families could only afford to drink watered-downed Kool-Aid, if that. So the soft drinks->bad teeth thing is probably a recent development, which fits with the increase in diabetes, too. Not just soft drinks, but the affordability of high caloric foods, generally. But false teeth were still far more common than even today.
Sorry for the snippy response. In my (possible) defense, it was before your edit. The really sad thing is that while even well-cared-for teeth do fail eventually, that time is typically after one turns 70yo. I was also raised on spring water, but my well-informed parents made certain that we took vitamins that contained fluoride on a daily basis.
These are solid, chewable vitamins. Presumably the action of chewing is enough to handle the topical application? I think there was a prescription from a dentist, which presumably would prevent children who have fluoridated public water from overexposure to fluoride.
Dental tech is antiquated and the dentists want to keep it that way so they can keep doing the same things the same way without any new capital investements so they can minimize any capital risk.
In case it makes you wonder how they can keep doing that they spend more money lobbying than any other industry. They are right up there with the NRA. Suprising but true
When I was in college I had a hole on the side of my molar, it was a cavity that had started as small dot, and gotten bigger. I didn't have insurance.
So I took a toothpick and cleaned out the gunk and washed it out with peroxide. (just on the toothpick) I kept it clean with a tooth pick, and intentionally swished spit around the tooth regularly.
Eventually the hole filled back in.
I know teeth can "heal", but I think "re-calcify" is a better term I ran into the past few years. But like anything else on your body, I think it hits a point where there's nothing you can do about it.
I knew a lady that drank so much coke that it ate her teeth away, nothing that lady could do about fixing her own teeth.
The headlines are certainly annoying but headline annoyance is its own shallow water, so let's try to avoid getting stuck there. Not pointing at you personally—it's a collective phenom.
We've updated the title above to a representative phrase from the article body.
I remember twenty years back a new technique where the destructive bacteria were replaced with friendly ones. Never made it to market I guess, would have made half of dentistry obsolete.
The downside is that they weren't allowed to sell the genetically modified version, they had to derive it from natural bacteria and formulate it to be a daily supplement instead of a permanent replacement.
That's amazing, I was really curious about exactly this. I remember reading an article in Wired many years ago (maybe around 1998?) that suggested that researchers had developed a bacteria that would kill the bacteria that create lactic acid and would convert the sugar to something else not harmful to our teeth. The article suggested that tooth decay would be a thing of the past by now. I was just wondering about what ever happened to that.
Do the tablets work? Seems like they'd be a bigger deal.
They were facing a full FDA trial for the whole thing. Certainly a perverse incentive not to fully develop the product :)
Considering how poor the sales of the tablet have been, I'm sure they'd rather be charging $20,000 per treatment. They actually sold the entire tablet business for $2m which is pretty abysmal compared to the value of 'curing tooth decay forever'
I even think I recall info coming out about results from a mouthwash developed by the Australian military that regenerated teeth.
I've been waiting ever since.
As somebody who has left dentists and hygienists completely quizzical about some of the mineral decay on my teeth (in spite of my praised hygiene habits), something like a periodical regenerative treatment or a regular mouthwash would make me so happy.
In the interim, I've been recommended and given a Japanese toothpaste that contains some extracts of dairy (cheese?). I can't remember for the life of me what it's called, but it's supposed to help with some of the enamel and mineral issues. If anybody knows off hand what it's called. I think it begins with an M...
I used to be that guy; brush and floss after every meal from one checkup to another, and there was still buildup. Very morale-crushing. No longer.
Only habit change: I dropped net carbohydrates to 20g per day. I did that for a chronic condition, but the change in dental health was a pleasant side effect. My dentist told me he's never seen such a dramatic difference. Gum-inflammation was causing gaps between my teeth, and that receded to where he couldn't detect it any longer. I went from a teeth cleaning once every other month to once every four months, and that is only by personal choice to get what little buildup he can find (the cleanings are nearly perfunctory, about 10 minutes now). Yet my dental routine has worsened, as I no longer brush and floss after every meal (going to one meal a day at the end of the day also gave me time to brush and floss after that).
YMMV. I suspect a large genetic component, and dropping carbohydrates will impact dental health for some even with a modest drop to 1-200g net carbs per day, and not at all for others even down to 20g net carbohydrates.
> [...] Here we describe a novel, biological approach to dentine restoration that stimulates the natural formation of reparative dentine via the mobilisation of resident stem cells in the tooth pulp.
I spent many thousands of dollars for crowns made inside the dentist office with 3d printing and regretted it. The crowns hurt for months because of the material they were printed with, fit poorly and half of them failed within 4 years. Sometimes new technology isn't better.
I've never had a cavity or major repair procedure for my teeth, and I don't understand why. I'm not particularly obsessive about my teeth. Are cavity resistant teeth some kind of genetic trait? Does drinking milk regularly maintain healthy teeth?
Likely a large genetic component. Also the bacteria in your mouth could (possibly also due to your own genetics) be different. I've also never had a cavity filled, I'm 32 and have one spot on an x-ray that dentists disagree on so I've left it.
Pretty normal "healthy" american diet, I guess. I eat meat and most other things. try to eat healthy whole foods and less processed stuff. Rarely drink soda but do eat sweets a few times per week
Who will now live forever as we have cured them of every form of cancer.
I am quite conflicted about science news of this nature. "Study looks interesting!" covers 95% of these stories, but doesn't have the same jazz to it as the headlines we get.
To be honest, I've consumed thousands of these stories. Not a one of them provided information that I ever found valuable. They just took up a few minutes of reading and provided some fodder for online conversation.
I recall a biology seminar speaker [1] saying (only half-jokingly) that we can already cure any disease whatsoever as long as it's in a mouse. It's just the rodent → human transition that's difficult.
[1] Can't remember who exactly. Would have been at the University of Delaware, probably around 2012.
I get that much of it works, so there's not a lot of need to throw it out, but where's the progress? My eye doctor visits add new technology regularly. Not often, to be sure, but still regularly. My eye doctor visits now are quite a bit different in many ways than they were when I first got glasses.
There's a point where I started to wonder if dentists in general are worried about becoming obsolete. That's conspiracy theory, of course, so I don't take it seriously. But I do wonder all the same.