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Lasers for Pain-free Dentistry
Chris writes "Australian researchers say that frequency-doubling a femtosecond laser is the way to pain-free dentistry. Using two different Ti:sapphire sources it was found that the 400 nm second harmonic gave the best results. Lasers have long been touted as pain-free replacements for the dreaded dentist's drill. However, the hardness of dental tissue has demanded high-energy pulses for drilling. Previous attempts have resulted in unacceptably slow removal of tooth enamel, and have also damaged teeth. These previous efforts caused shock waves, vibrations and also heated up the tooth's softer tissue, causing significant pain to the patient. Because femtosecond pulses are so short, heat conduction effects are virtually eliminated."
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Previous attempts have resulted in unacceptably slow removal of tooth enamel, and have also damaged teeth.
Silly me, I thought tooth enamel was what you wanted to keep, not remove.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Dentist: What?
Patient: I 'ed, doo oo ekek e to tahk!
Dentist: I can't understand you.
Patient: Tak jis kra ow o ny nouh.
Dentist: Oh, okay (removes stuff from patient's mouth.)
Patient: I said, how do you expect me to talk with this crap in my mouth?
Dentist: I don't, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die!
The good and new comes from no quarter where it is looked for, and is always something different from what is expected.
I second the opinion of the fellow who posted a similar response below. I'd hate to be the guy they strap on the chair when they wheel in a volkswagen-sized prototype with steam pulsing out of vents, crazy piston-like thingamajigs, and electrical doohickeys shooting arcs. "We don't know if this will hurt, so let us know." *cue Ghostbusters backpack startup sound*
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
I agree: when was the last time dentistry actually *hurt*? I just hate the idea of someone cutting into me, and lasers / knives / drills / chainsaws all provoke the same reaction: AAAGH.
It's far simpler to cut out the sugar from your diet and keep your teeth healthy like that. I stopped eating sugar about 20 years ago and have had one trip to the dentist since then.
Do we really need more expensive hitech solution to stupidly simple problems?
My blog
Now all they have to do is make a portable version so the dentists can make housecalls.
So this is how Aussies do dentistry. While it's swell and all to be able to painlessly zap a hole in my tooth, it doesn't eliminate the fact that you'd be zapping a hole in my tooth.
The Brits, on the other hand, have gone for a no-hole approach. They're using a new treatment called Healozone, which involves fitting a rubber cap over the tooth and then smothering it with ozone, which eliminates all the bacteria in a matter of seconds. Painless, and much more cool.
--
The angel in the oatmeal.
The problem isn't the drill, or at least it never was for me. Sure, the drill is uncomfortable, afterall the dentist is generally pushing the thing around violently inside your tooth. That's annoying. It's the nerves that are the problem! First of all, there's the shot of novocaine (which is quite traumatic in and of itself). Then there's the drilling. Oops we hit the nerve (like the laser will never do the same thing?) and the novocaine wasn't as strong as we'd have liked. Time to do another shot of novocaine RIGHT DOWN THE CENTER OF YOUR NOW OPEN TOOTH (yes I did go through that). HOLY FUCK THAT HURT. I can't feel anything now.
Drill or no drill, it's the nerve stupid!
The idea of lasers in dentistry is old news, but "Discover" won't have had the details of this latest improvement (which is published in the 15th August 2002 edition of the Journal of Applied Physics (subscription required to read articles), so it is brand new news. Admittedly it isn't a huge advance, as subpicosecond lasers have been used before, but what they have done is work out exactly which wavelength, pulse duration and intensity is required to obtain fast ablation with no thermal collateral damage.
Honest politicians and the paperless office.
Ahh - My eye!
The doctor said I'm not supposed to get Slashdot in it!
Perhaps you forgot, but when you got numbed up, do you remember the huge fucking needle the dentist stuck in your mouth? And he said "Little pinch" and it felt like somebody stabbed you with a dagger in the cheek?
Lasers == no more big fucking needles
sounds like an improvement to me
Great, now I'll have a frickin' laser beam attached to my head...
I mean come on... lasers? I don't like this new wonderous technology from nowhere. Next thing you know we're all confined to our houses and martial law rules and a bunch of fucking lizards is taping earths water.
I for one will not stand for it, Im going to research red anti-lizard powder.
...if you can make a Tesla coil out of an old TV, can you make a few slight modifications to a CD-ROM to make a dentist's (finger quotes) laser...?
Come to think of it, Doctor Evil does look slightly like my dentist. Time to run, methinks.
Like car accidents, most hardware problems are due to driver error.
Aw, what fun is that? Steve Martin would be very upset.
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
My dentist has a laser, he loves it.
My tooth was cracked. To have the crown fitted properly, because of the tooth shape and the deep crack, he needed to get below the gum line. There was sort of an indentation in the shape of the tooth, so my gum was coming over where the cap needed to go. My dentist used his laser to cut back the gum and importantly - cauterize - the cut at the same time. That allowed him to continue the work, it didn't hurt for me. My dentist says he couldn't have done it as quickly or easily, that it would have been quite difficult, if he hadn't had his new laser.
I'm a big fan of brushing and flossing also. Who would have thought that a bagel would be so bad (bagels are a leading cause of cracked teeth - don't eat stale bagels).
Mike.
Mmmm......sacrelicious.
My dentist always asks me if I'd like nitrous oxide along with the "freezing". I always say yes.
If these lasers are painless I WON'T GET MY NO2!
-... ---
Until you accidentally move your head to the left during the process.
I feel sorry for the people who answered the sign at their university to finally get that aching tooth worked on. Does this hurt? (muffled scream) How about this? This?
The Brits, on the other hand, have gone for a no-hole approach...
Sorry, but taking dental advice from the Brits is like taking security advice from Microsoft.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Right up until they miss. "Oops, sorry about that small hole in your cheek."
Science may someday discover what faith has always known.
Remove this drill from my presence! All I ask for is a frick'n "Laser."
The cure for cancer is coming: Reovirus
Speaking of that, did you notice at the end of the first AP, his teeth were fixed? In one of the scenes where he is in the hotel room, he smiles and his teeth "glint" because he got them fixed for her. Then in the next movie, they were crooked again. Man, it must be genetic if cosmetic surgery can't even fix them. :-)
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Sorry, but taking dental advice from the Brits is like taking security advice from Microsoft.
Or diet advice from a Yank!
Wow. First laser eye surgery, and now laser teeth surgery.
I'll bet we all get spam in a few days telling us to INCREASE YOUR PENIS SIZE USING LASERS!
Who's your dentist? Orin Scrivello, D.D.S.?
It's not enough to bash in heads, you've got to bash in minds. - Captain Hammer
I can't give you a detailed comparison. I'll tell you what I've learned so far though.
First, some background. My education is physics and mathematics. My wife is a dentist. About two years ago, I attended a lecture by a visiting professor who was doing work building things like dental lasers -- the so-called sub-picosecond-pulse lasers. It was an excellent lecture and he really knew his stuff. Naturally, I came home all abuzz, and started talking to my wife about it.
It turns out that many dentists think the lasers may be cool and all, but they'll probably never use them for drilling out teeth. Cutting softer tissue, sure, but not drilling the actual tooth. She says that a huge part of the drilling process is feel. While you're drilling, you can feel when you're drilling softer, infected enamel and dentin versus hard, clean tooth. Taking that feel away would severely compromise her ability to be sure that she's drilled out all the decay, without drilling out too much of the tooth and possibly compromising its integrity or perforating into the pulp.
My wife has left for her office already, so I can't get her to comment directly. I'd love to hear from any other dentists, though. What do you think? Is feel really that important when you're drilling?
In any field, find the strangest thing and then explore it. -John Archibald Wheeler
LEIA: No! My bicuspid is fine. It has no cavities. You can't possibly...
DR. TARKIN: You would prefer another target? Some plaque perhaps? Then name the tooth!
Dr. Tarkin waves menacingly toward Leia.
DR. TARKIN: I grow tired of asking this. So it'll be the last time. Where is the cavity?
LEIA: (softly) Left back molar.
Leia lowers her head.
LEIA: It's on my left back molar.
DR. TARKIN: There. You see Darth Dentist, she can be reasonable. Continue with the operation. You may fire when ready.
LEIA: What?
DR. TARKIN: You're far too trusting. Your back molar is too remote to make an effective demonstration. But don't worry. We will deal with your cavity soon enough.
If the gov fedralizes dental work, then they can do missle defense and dental work at the same time off the same laser. Just hope they don't get the lenses mixed up.
Table-ized A.I.
Well, it would make sense that Gringos do a lot of dietary research and Brits do a lot of dental research.
No sig for the moment.
The big stuff--crowns, root canals, removal of old fillings, and all that, still requires a drill, often of the slow variety, to get the right shape and surface. The mechanical feedback is important to dentists to know when to stop drilling and to create subtle surface features that make the fillings actually stay in.
And even if you could ablate half a tooth with a high powered laser, frankly, I wouldn't want to have half a tooth, or old amalgam fillings, for that matter, vaporized inside my mouth.