Posted on 11/11/2015 4:19:09 PM PST by SeekAndFind
Scientists in London develop pain-free filling that allows teeth to repair themselves without drilling or injections
The tooth-rebuilding technique developed at King's College London does away with fillings and instead encourages teeth to repair themselves.
Tooth decay is normally removed by drilling, after which the cavity is filled with a material such as amalgam or composite resin.
The new treatment, called Electrically Accelerated and Enhanced Remineralisation (EAER), accelerates the natural movement of calcium and phosphate minerals into the damaged tooth.
A two-step process first prepares the damaged area of enamel, then uses a tiny electric current to push minerals into the repair site. It could be available within three years.
Professor Nigel Pitts, from King's College London's Dental Institute, said: "The way we treat teeth today is not ideal. When we repair a tooth by putting in a filling, that tooth enters a cycle of drilling and refilling as, ultimately, each 'repair' fails.
"Not only is our device kinder to the patient and better for their teeth, but it's expected to be at least as cost-effective as current dental treatments. Along with fighting tooth decay, our device can also be used to whiten teeth."
A spinout company, Reminova, has been set up to commercialise the research. Based in Perth, Scotland, it is in the process of seeking private investment to develop EAER.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
I’ve been using remineralization gel for a couple of years and I have no more pain.
I bought it off Amazon. It’s not as high-tech as this, but it does work.
Beat me to it.
No ,Normal servce levels will remain. :)
Nothing of this nature is instantaneous. Can you imaging wearing a device on your tooth that contains a battery, wires, electronics, that stimulates the growth of what is essentially a bone, for what will require the length of time a broken bone takes to heal, usually about six weeks? Assume they can cut that down by 33% and they can do it in four weeks. Do you get to EAT during the treatment, or does food in the cavity impede the healing, or is there a special cleaning required to remove food residue? Frankly, I would be very surprised if anything comes from this.
Preventing the carries in the first place is FAR better than filling the lesion in the tooth after the fact. In other words: "Look MA! No cavities!"
Can you please post the name of the product?
I have sent it to our doctors for comment, but I can think of no methods where there is any natural "remineralization" that could be accelerated by any artificial means. Once tooth material is gone, it's gone. There is nothing coming from the inside or outside of a tooth that can, as far as I have heard of, rebuild a tooth naturally. No tooth regenerates naturally. They grow from buds underneath and erupt through the gums, building from below, and not once they are outside the gums.
I'll post what the doctors say when they get back to me from my messages.
Maybe a tax off topic, but has anyone used the Super smile teeth cleaning system & what is your opinion of it?
People wear braces. People have to have their jaw wired shut after surgery on the jaw bone. Both of those ideas were probably discounted as unrealistic when they were first proposed.
No one is saying this is a magic fix that will happen in the next few years, but just because you can’t see an immediate application for the process doesn’t mean that it won’t revolutionize how treatments of cavities are handled in the future. The fact that just a decade ago it was “settled science” that you could not recover lost enamel on a tooth means that we have already advanced our understanding of the human body.
btrl
Dentistry - now there’s a field in need of some real serious cost control measures....
I had a tooth that needed a new top. I could not do it at the moment and the dentist filled it with a temporary filling. Things being as they were I went to another dentist about 6 years later when the filling fell out. He said that the tooth rematerialized under the filling and he rebuilt the middle and it sits there nicely to this day.
I'm trying to figure out how the science could possibly work, as teeth don't grow once they've finished, nor do they regenerate once damaged. They aren't like bones, surrounded by a living sheath to feed them with materials. They aren't shed but once in a lifetime (usually), and don't replenish their materials. So, tell me, how can they "regenerate" something more rapidly, that doesn't regenerate in the first place?
I just heard from our top doctor and he is not aware of anything like this, but he says if there is something like this, it isn't in the current literature. He also says it would have to take several treatments and visits. They'd also have to clean out the carious lesion before treatment, which is not usually a painless procedure, so would require injections of lidocaine.
That means that it cannot be price equivalent to a simple filling which usually takes one visit and 20 minutes max.
He also pointed out that our office uses Ozone therapy to kill the carries which also applies electrical stimulation. We've done that on small carious lesions and they've healed without filling once the bacteria is killed . . . but only if the lesion hasn't penetrated the enamel. If the enamel is penetrated, a filling is necessary other wise other opportunistic bacteria can invade and potentially cause catastrophic loss of the tooth.
He agreed with me that it is a possibility in search of blue-sky funding to develop a product without a viable market. He also said that anyone would be foolish to put off dental treatment waiting for a future miracle treatment that may or may not develop.
Regular checkups and cleanings! Personal responsibility insofar as doing your due dilligence at taking care of your teeth (brushing 3x’s/day and daily flossing). The use of topical flouride to reminerilize the demineralized enamel works as long as the decay has not passed through the enamel into the softer dentin underlying the enamel. Once the bacterial are into the dentin, it must be removed or the decay grows and ultimately enters the pulp(nerve & blood vessels). Once into the pulp, root canal therapy is the only way to salvage the tooth. Otherwise infection sets in and can actually be deadly if not treated.
As far as I know, there is no way to remove decay without removing tooth structure. Once the dentin is infected, it’s irreversable. There is no growing it back!
Take care of your teeth. You only get one set!
Lol!
Let's hope it spreads fast. Thanks SeekAndFind.
Sorry it took me so long to get this to you.
Thank you, I will be checking this out. I’m an oral hygiene nut!
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