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Comment by wmblaettler | Hacker News Reader

My dentist, a younger generation who took over the practice from a retiring dentist, has installed a Cerec crown milling machine. It was amazing to see the tooth modelled in 3d using a series of photos, then I watched my dentist raise the ridges of the tooth to create what would become the crown. After a few clicks he sent it off to be made - in the next room! In literally 10 minutes he had a crown milled from a block of dental porcelain or some kind of hard ceramic, ready to be fitted in my mouth. See a video of the process here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajj4zkXHe6U

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Yes! My dentist back in the Netherlands had this technology in 2004 and both of my crowns were made that way. When I came to the US in 2011 and had to go through the ‘old way’ of getting a temp crown, sending mold off to lab, coming back 2 or 3 times over the course of a month I was genuinely amazed it hadn’t caught on here. I finally found a dentist in the Bay Area with new technology.

Who is this Bay Area dentist?

They have a web site showing dentists who have their equipment:

https://www.cereconline.com/locator

Strange, my dentist doesn't show up there but I recognize the Cerec brand from his machine...

Endre Selmeczy DMD in Livermore. I can highly recommend.

My wife got a new crown using this new technology but managed to get it chipped in a manner of months. Her dentist reordered a new one using the old method and it is still good so far. Maybe she just got unlucky on the first one. Anyway I've had multiple crowns using the old method and have been pretty durable.

Both of my crowns from 2004-06 or thereabouts are still in very good shape. Your wife may have been unlucky indeed, or maybe they used different/weaker materials.

Just one thing you should be sure to check: how the crown reacts to UV light. Real teeth fluoresce!

Unfortunately, a surprising number of manufacturers don't take this into account when formulating ceramics for crowns.

It's quite disconcerting to find yourself in a night club, unable to smile or talk properly because of the huge black gap in your teeth...

Well, I didn't need another reason to never go into a night club, but there you have it!

> Just one thing you should be sure to check: how the crown reacts to UV light. Real teeth fluoresce!

Sounds like a cool way to embed secret messages on your teeth.

But with Morse that'll leave us fewer characters than a tweet does!

32 teeth, one bit per tooth, that gives us 4 ASCII characters to work with.

Works for FUCK and not much else.

Works for six of the seven words you just posted :)

To mimic that effect until late in the 20th century dentures contained added uranium. Sadly sometimes they would fluoresce in green or yellow.

https://www.orau.org/ptp/collection/consumer%20products/dent...

And the amusing inverse! https://m.imgur.com/gallery/lcmSI

How interesting. I just tried this, and you're right!

I don't think it's a huge deal though. I have had my false tooth for nearly 5 years and never found out it looks different under UV until now.

From what i've read, this tech has a lot of potential for savings: Instead of a few appointments, a long process, you can do the work in a single appointment. And you also don't need the materials for the temporary crown.

So this is a classic disruptive technology, in a market where people pay out-of-pocket(if not in the US , in many other places). so why haven't this disrupted the old way?

Hm, maybe exactly because of that? Dentists are reluctant to lose these extra appointments because of extra revenue? :) Don't know how it would affect total traffic though.

I too have an anecdote involving a recent dental grad who took over a local practice; he removed the cerec machine installed by the previous owner, and not long after I experienced two failures due the low quality of the crowns produced by that machine. Replacing them with traditional crowns did take some time but they fit and feel much better.

I had a crown put in two years ago, and my periodontist and I were talking about how this would be the next step. He had already done detailed 3D modelling of my jaw, mouth, implant site, and had a 3D model from my existing teeth that were removed. Glad to see it actually happening!

Side note: as impressive as the technology in the video is (very!), holy shit was that some terrible camera work/phone holding.

people will spend $1,000 on a phone, multiples of that on a fancy camera but not 20 bucks for a cheap tripod!

Not even fussed about a tripod - just hold the phone still! It looks like this was filmed on a boat out at rough sea.

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