Kids fear a lot of things, from imaginary monsters in the closet or under the bed to more real-life worries like how the dentist is going to poke, prod, and pinch around in their mouths during their inescapable twice yearly dental appointment.
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But the fear and pain of dental drills may soon be replaced with cap and crown dentistry & painless fillings!
Parents have to employ some pretty fancy pushing, poking, and cajoling of their own just to get their children to the dental office.
Then once ensconced in the dental chair, another round of pain paranoia and kids dental phobia sets in anew.
But maybe, just maybe, our kids (and some adults…wink, wink) will have the pleasure of not having to endure a needle or a drill when it comes to dentists addressing kids tooth decay in the near future.
Cap it don’t drill it!
According to this article from the Daily Mail, painful fillings could soon be nothing more than a distant bad memory.
Experts are trialing a more patient friendly pain-free way of dealing with rotten teeth & tooth decay that dispenses with the dentist’s drill.
It is also done without the need for anaesthetic jabs and appears to be more effective than a conventional, if not more anxiety provoking, dental filling.
The results of pilot studies have been so promising that the NHS has pumped £3million into a nationwide study of the technique, which involves sealing decay in, rather than scraping it out.
The news story goes on to mention how under the Hall technique, named after Aberdeenshire dentist Norna (CORR) Hall, no effort is made to remove the decayed part of the tooth.
Instead, a metal crown is simply slipped over the tooth and cemented in place.
No anaesthetic is needed and, starved of bacteria and oxygen, the decay stops or slows down to such a rate that it doesn’t cause any pain.
The crown stays in place until it falls out naturally with the tooth, at around the age of ten.
Unfortunately for adults suffering from dental anxiety, this technique is so far only being applied in a trial phase on children’s teeth – but can adult treatment be too far behind.
You should really click over to the Daily Mail article and read the stats for yourself to see how successful the trials have been.
Is No-Drill Dentistry New?
Check out this (relatively…in the 24 hr news cycle) old news from the same UK newspaper, about painless fillings!
While kids fear the needle and the accompanying injection, we can be pretty safe in assuming the whirring metallic screeching sounds emanating from the dentist’s drill doesn’t help things.
We’re in the age of dental stem cells, cone beam lasers, and Bluetooth toothbrushes – has nobody figured out a better sound signature for the ‘ol reliable drill?
Sure headphones muffle the fingernails on a chalkboard auditory announcement, but we can do better!
We can see it now, come Holiday time 2012, we’ll be posting a story about the latest greatest newest friendly sounding dental drill to have ever hit the market.
Maybe an interchangeable playlist of easing, pleasing, relaxing sounds to replace the mechanical jet engine type whoosh plaguing dental drills (and dental patients) of yesteryear!
What are some of your preferred dental drill sound signature suggestions?
