I confess that I'm a bit jaded about dentistry, so I've valued PC Intern's voice of experience to counterbalance my kneejerk cynicism.

This could be pretty awesome for low income patients at risk of loosing teeth.

so this is all well and good for them. But until we can get Medicare to cover dental, and until we can get decent dental coverage from private health insurance then probably a lot of us can't afford this.

Edit - And we need better Medicaid dental coverage as well. Adults are not covered in a lot of states.

I'm neither for nor against UK's approach, but why not mention the downsides as well as the upsides when you cite them? It ultimately makes for a more persuasive argument when one doesn't suspect omission of inconvenient facts.

I don't have dental coverage, but at least I can get in to see the dentist on short notice, and get exactly the treatment I specify, from the dentist I choose. The downside there is that I pay cash.

So there are arguments in favor of both approaches.

I admit it was a long time ago, but when I lived there, I got great dental care and did not have to wait. That was pre-Thatcher.

Long wait with a low-grade tooth infection, and the dentist sucked when she got to see her. By that time it was a high-grade infection.

That's just one person's experience, but if you search, you can find more. Does it indict the whole system? No. But there is, to put it nicely, room for improvement.

I have no direct experience, but that's not a good reason for me not to have an opinion.

Especially for NHS dentistry. It exists, yes. Children have better access than adults to dental health care... Of course if you want to "go private", you can see a dentist sooner.

And as for the wait lists... I said it's a postcode lottery - in some parts of the country you could have a short wait for a given procedure, but a longer wait elsewhere. The alleged maximum wait time is 18 weeks... though I'm sure consultants are pressured to persuade patients that surgery can wait longer and medicate through the pain.

And even if you do don't expect they'll do everything. They routinely refer to private practices for root canals since they usually aren't equipped for it. And fillings? Expect the old amalgam fillings for back teeth if you go NHS.

I've gone private practice and haven't gone back. The quality is much better and more what I'm used to expecting from a dentist.

I'm hoping they eventually start adding fluoride to the drinking water in more places than the north and midlands. Would have likely saved me 3 cavities had I known that earlier. The dentist informed me of this since I come from the US and recommended a fluoride rinse.

Thanks for the thread, bananas.

Looks cool though. Hope it works!

almost every corner.

They just don't have an obsession with perfectly straight teeth.

They might be more crooked than you're used to seeing, but they're healthy.

I'll be toothless by then, but it'll be good for the grandkids.

after looking at any British person's teeth.

But even then, remineralization sounds promising. Hope this works out or at least there should be more research along these lines of healing instead of just filling.

And that we were wrong to get them fixed. We shoulda just waited for their fine invention.

I don't know what dentist Austin Powers sees but I think my teeth are quite decent, thank you very much

Agreed that healing and repairing is better than the status quo. Maybe remineralization can work on bones?

Severe dental phobia here. It would be great for people like me to have no drilling of injections.

Wishing, of course, too, that it will be affordable.

I have an appointment next week!

From what I understand in the article, it is possible utilizing this technic to remineralize enamel in vivo. Once the decay hits the dentin and causes damage there, it is not subject, to my knowledge, to be repaired/remineralized by this method. Note that at least I did not see that the underlying dentin can be repaired. This would be wonderful, if it worked, for incipient decay which has not yet affected the dentin, but is limited to the enamel. Once the dentino-enamel junction is compromised however, even if the enamel is remineralized, then the tooth to some extent is undermined and further decay/fracture may occur.

I will be interested to see further studies and limitations, if any, presented. Please do not forget that every twenty years or so the "rinsing out of cavities" is presented so that people believe that they won't have to get their teeth 'drilled'. A host of fallacies accompanies this and it is dismissed for another twenty years until a brand-new generation of rubes come of age.

makers of dental drills and grinding tools, makers of crowns and implants, denture makers, anything else dental labs do, and novocaine, nitrous oxide and other anesthetics.

Knowing the US 'health care' travesty, I'm sure this technology WILL be available, but will be priced so highly that few of us will have access to it. People die every day because health care, including dental is rationed in our brave new world of neoliberal capitalism.

that is grossly untrue and has never happened in dentistry. But what do I know, I've only been practicing for 40 years. We have brought down the rate of tooth decay in states with fluoridation to tiny fractions of what it used to be...and I mean tiny. I can see 25 new patients under the age of 30 and have maybe two new cavities to do among all of them. the cost of fluoride dosage is vanishingly small and is probably one of the greatest innovations to reduce long-term morbidity and mortality in this civilization. Yes, dental treatment is expensive, what isn't? I'm all for socialized dentistry and medicine and would support those initiatives and I also, parenthetically, am for socialized computer and automobile repair.

But I digress...if this becomes available AND is efficacious, it will be utilized and will save many teeth over the decades. A big IF...but anything's possible.

After moving to the UK from the states I learned that the fluoridation of water here is non-existent except in certain areas. My dentist here recommended a fluoride rinse to help with that (never needed it in the states). I do that once a day apart from brushing, is that enough to combat tooth decay?

raised in a non-fluoridated area, but if you have areas which are susceptible to decay, this is a great adjunct to scrupulous oral hygiene including, but not limited to, FLOSSING!

forget filling, or expensive root canals and crowns.

if it is within my means i plan to do everything i can to hold on to all of the teeth i have left (already lost one to periodontal disease, now i go for hygiene every 2 months)
i'm 58.

I'm 66 and am doing all I can to maintain my own teeth in my mouth as long as possible. They're fragile, with cracks they've had for decades; I've had 8 crowns (the first when I was 34) and almost as many root canals. Root canals are done when there's an abscess deep down inside -- and untreated abscesses not only make you sick, they can kill if left untreated.

Bridges eventually wear away the anchor teeth; dentures eventually wear away the bone beneath the gum, causing the dentures to not fit anymore. Then you have to buy new dentures.

I really feel sorry for people who can't afford dentistry; but I don't understand people who just don't see the point of maintaining their teeth in the first place.

capped to my real teeth. They don't slip.

fortunately i am not afflicted with a lot of tooth decay, but the fillings i have are so old they're amalgam.

In other words, consider the cost of drilling and filling the same tooth a couple of times, then putting a crown on it when there is no longer enough tooth left to fill, and it will be at least that cost effective.

In other words, at least initially, it's going to be damned expensive.

If it works (and that's a big IF right now), it will be a long time, if ever, before it becomes affordable, and won't help those of us who already have a mouth full of fillings. It will be for small, new cavities only, that have never been filled.

I have a lot of fillings from my childhood. All have been replaced at least once. The only "cavities" I've gotten as an adult, have been from failed fillings (which means this won't work for it) or a broken tooth...again, this won't work for it. Or will it...I wonder, if it is possible for this to repair a hairline crack in a tooth?

If it saves teeth from new cavities, then it will still probably be worth it...especially once costs come down.

But...it still sounds too good to be true, so I'm a bit skeptical.

And while Xylitol can’t actually remineralize by itself, when used in conjunction with fluoride it enables fluoride to be even more effective at repairing and remineralizing teeth than fluoride alone.