Ending the Torture--How Long?

For everyone who has earned themselves a root canal and crown, you understand what torture can be. None of this lady's underwear tease for torture crap. When you talk about dental work, you are talking genuine existential torture without the need for exaggeration you see in ideological claims of torture.

Well, things are changing. It may seem that dentistry is the last profession to innovate--and that may be true. Even so, better late innovation than no innovation at all. Medgadget blog brings a fascinating story about rapid same-day crown manufacture and placement--in the office.

Digital dentistry, using high-end computer-aided design and manufacturing right in dentists offices, will take crown fabrication from the painful multi-visit ordeal it is now to a quick, 30 minute job. And according to the Dallas Morning News, the company that will bring this innovation to you isn't modest about their beliefs:

Anyone who's ever had a tooth reconstructed knows the routine. The problem tooth is drilled down, and a temporary covering is put on while a permanent crown is made. The patient returns in a few weeks to have the permanent crown put in.

For four years, D4D has been working feverishly to change that. With its now-patented technology, the tooth is digitized using a laser wand, and a virtual 3-D model is sent to a computerized milling machine that makes the crown, inlay, onlay or veneer in 30 minutes. The patient leaves with a new tooth.

Company founder and chief executive Basil Haymann says the system is undergoing user testing and clinical studies (including one just starting at Baylor College of Dentistry). It's also in the final approval stage with the Food and Drug Administration.

"I had to be a little insane," the 60-year-old says, "because I've put in tens of millions of dollars into a dream, which everyone told me was impossible."

Source.

Did you get that? The tooth is digitized with a laser wand, and a micro milling machine makes the crown in 30 minutes or less! This may be the beginning of a beautiful transformation of how ordinary people view a trip to the dentist's. I look forward to more innovations from dental researchers. Having rapidly decaying rocks in our mouths for masticating food may have been a good idea when people lived only thirty or forty years on average. Now that people look to live close to a century or longer, our mineral teeth as currently designed may not go the distance with the rest of us.