Why a practitioner has been using BIOLASE lasers for more than a decade.
The development of dental equipment continues to increase in terms of functionality, ease of use and patient comfort. The BIOLASE laser system has taken a big step forward on these fronts. The laser can handle both hard and soft tissue at the same time and in a way that minimizes patient pain and shortens healing time.
We talked to Dr. Jeffrey Harrison of Dr. DDS at the Briargate Dental Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado, about how he used lasers in practice, why BIOLASE is an integral part of his daily work, and why his patients love it. .
Use dental laser to tell us about your history.
I started using lasers in my own practice in 1998 and I was hooked on BIOLASE in 2005. I graduated in 1994 and spent three-quarters of my time working with lasers. I'm looking for a laser that every patient can use every day. It's not the laser I've pulled out for some procedure. The versatility of this wavelength attracted me.
When we begin to understand lasers for dentistry, we have two types. We have soft tissue lasers, which are diodes and Nd:YAG lasers. Then we have a whole tissue laser group, this is your helium laser, now CO 2 .
Inside the machine there is a crucible, chromium: YSGG crystal. It produces wavelengths that interact with water and hydroxyapatite. So, if our goal has a lot of water-like soft tissue, it has a good indication. If it is a hard tissue such as a tooth or bone, Waterlase provides the water needed for laser interaction with the target. We are able to treat teeth, we can treat bones - for coronary extension or tooth extraction - and we can treat soft tissue.
How does the patient react?
When I entered this field in 2005, the lasers were priced much higher. When such money is spent on equipment used on soft tissue, it is difficult to quantify the return on investment. But that's really the most surprising thing for me, because it is cut with vitality water. Compared to soft tissue lasers, this is a cool way to cut, all using heat cuts, so my patient's tissue reaction is stronger, post-operative discomfort is less, healing is faster.
My favorite word has always been 'wow'. As long as you can get the patient to say 'wow', or if you have a team member who helps to say 'wow' in the program, that is the golden moment.
Will you replace any other dental supplies in your office?
The key to dentists considering the use of lasers is never thinking of a piece of equipment as a substitute. The same thing applies to cone beam technology. We do not think it can replace occlusion or apical X-rays, so we should not regard lasers as a substitute for cell phones. In many cases, it can be used in restorative situations. In this case, unless the repair body is slightly modified, you may not need to pick up the head, or if you have a hard to get laser attenuation point, but I think it is more of an alternative to my belt.
How often do you use it?
Every patient uses Waterlase at some point in the procedure every day, whether it is the ability to repair without the need for local anesthetics, or to replace the retractor for better soft tissue management, or to create better The impression is either digital or with a conventional polyethylene siloxane. I like it because it's always my belief that the gum tissue is the frame of the picture, and if you create a beautiful picture with a porcelain veneer, but you don't have the correct soft tissue frame, then this situation just never seems right.
How is it used to treat conditions such as periodontitis and peri-implantitis?
Periodontal disease is on the rise because nearly 40% of all patients I see have mild to moderate periodontitis. The REPAIR protocol is a minimally invasive solution that offers me a wide variety of flexibility and access options to address the growing clinical challenges beyond me and patient expectations. When we are treating failed implants, we are using a specialized technique that only BIOLASE can access, called lateral radiofrequency techniques. This innovation has changed the treatment of peri-implantitis. It has a unique design that allows us to disinfect the threads of a failed implant without releasing the flap. We removed 98% of the biofilm, which is the killer of failed implants.
How to change the way you work?
As an instructor of BIOLASE, it did help me remember that I didn't feel it in my arsenal. Because when you have something available every day, in the end you think it is taken for granted. I like to think of my laser as my problem solver. So, if I'm doing V-level recovery and armpit treatment, that's a problem before I use the laser. How can I remove soft tissue? How do I prevent it from bleeding when I place a composite restoration, so I end up with no pink restoration? Laser solved my problem.
Or, if I have a broken tooth on the gum line, how can I get the tooth out without referring to a specialist and keep it in practice? If I was doing crown bridge surgery and I knew the bones were close to the edge, how would I deal with this problem before I used the laser? If we are performing traditional crown extensions, we have been observing for a long time after fixing the bones away from the edges before we can make final restorations.
Laser is a problem solver for me. It allows me to get immediate, long-term goals that I want to achieve in less time.
