Does everyone make digital dentures now?

Flipperlady

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I understand and agree about the journey.
I also have been doing dentures since the 80’s and the biggest problems with the digital approach are that they are not understanding the principles that all good removable techs have to employ.
In fact, it is this lack of knowledge that has caused the current offering of digital options to be so second rate. I literally just had a two hour conversation This week with some of the people from carbon about the gaps in the methodology. I was bringing up things that I thought would be patently obvious if they have talked with Denture technicians about how to implement this technology… They acted like they had never heard any of it before… It was discouraging and encouraging at the same time because they were thoroughly interested in learning about some of these gaps but apparently they’ve never been told… It’s crazy!


You need to talk with TomZ about giving away your knowledge to someone who will profit off you. Carbon is a subscription service , you are going to pay and pay for that service. D-Ply is the one to watch out for, I'm buying lots of their products and they are cutting out the middlewomen to sell digital dentures directly to dentists. There's your digital future, and don't give your knowledge away for free so easily to the competition :)
 
Jason D

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You need to talk with TomZ about giving away your knowledge to someone who will profit off you. Carbon is a subscription service , you are going to pay and pay for that service. D-Ply is the one to watch out for, I'm buying lots of their products and they are cutting out the middlewomen to sell digital dentures directly to dentists. There's your digital future, and don't give your knowledge away for free so easily to the competition :)
Actually I’m very willing to give away knowledge if it advances the industry or helps people.
I offer an open invitation to competitors to come into the lab and learn from some of our methods and share some of theirs.
Someone from Dentsply reviewed one of my creations and told me to get my patent right so that I could meet with their team...I told him there wouldn’t be a patent that I was giving it away to them and a couple others so it stood a better chance of becoming a reality and helping us all advance.
Don’t get me wrong I expect to be paid and paid well for what I do and the companies I help craft, but every “idea” should not be hoarded in the hopes it’s the “one thing” that makes someone rich.
If you are smart and work hard there is more money to be made than you could spend, it’s not necessary to have a “scarcity” mindset to get by in the world. I prefer an abundance mindset, cuz there is always “more”
 
Affinity

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So where are the pics of these dentures that dentsply is salivating over?
 
JMN

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Actually I’m very willing to give away knowledge if it advances the industry or helps people.
I offer an open invitation to competitors to come into the lab and learn from some of our methods and share some of theirs.
Someone from Dentsply reviewed one of my creations and told me to get my patent right so that I could meet with their team...I told him there wouldn’t be a patent that I was giving it away to them and a couple others so it stood a better chance of becoming a reality and helping us all advance.
Don’t get me wrong I expect to be paid and paid well for what I do and the companies I help craft, but every “idea” should not be hoarded in the hopes it’s the “one thing” that makes someone rich.
If you are smart and work hard there is more money to be made than you could spend, it’s not necessary to have a “scarcity” mindset to get by in the world. I prefer an abundance mindset, cuz there is always “more”
Knowledge has in itself the requirement to share it. Otherwise we'd all be teaching ourselves how to hunt and gather instead of probing the secrets of subatomic interactions.
 
OpalEssence

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in the nxt years i believe implants will become less costly, commercial and big labs will provide a milling service for mid and small sized labs and restorations will become mainly implant-supported bridge, dentures will never endure.
 
JMN

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in the nxt years i believe implants will become less costly, commercial and big labs will provide a milling service for mid and small sized labs and restorations will become mainly implant-supported bridge, dentures will never endure.
No way. The populace may be more able to afford them, but there will always be a large part of the populace that either medically cannot recieve implants or refuse to for higher maintenance concerns.
 
OpalEssence

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yes excluding the clinical cases that can not be done with such restoration for health or medical reasons ! The majority would rather favor resto. that maintain phonetic, esthetic , masticatory functions for example, and taste sensation etc... implants and porcelain will provide that acrylic dentures won't. Maintenance of fixed resto. is less perplexing and disturbing than dentures.
 
CoolHandLuke

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i think the denture paradigm shift is just about to begin. the market for it is continually growing, and technology is rapidly developing to marry old world waxups with new world printing.
 
OpalEssence

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yes and no, when technology covers all dental types resto. patients will go for what not what is " better" for them but what is " best". i would never place a plastic chunk in my mouth for just having the masticatory function reconditioned, burgers are not yummy with it!!
 
rkm rdt

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I'm not too concerned on how a denture will be made in the future.
What I do know is that it will begin with an IOS.
 
Jason D

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yes and no, when technology covers all dental types resto. patients will go for what not what is " better" for them but what is " best". i would never place a plastic chunk in my mouth for just having the masticatory function reconditioned, burgers are not yummy with it!!
That’s suggests that patients would be:

1 - educated about dentistry
2 - not limited by price or insurance
3 - not overcharged by dentists who feel squeezed by insurance and the desire to buy a yacht
4 - not go to a corporate dental entity that operates on churn and flush dentistry

There is no indication that any of these 3 phenomena are changing, and between one or the other of them, they cover the majority of dental patients.

So I would disagree. Our society is, in general terms, moving far more towards disposable, throwaway purchases than towards highest quality longest lasting purchases.
 
Jason D

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I'm not too concerned on how a denture will be made in the future.
What I do know is that it will begin with an IOS.
NOT the current generation of IOS....

Everything on the market right now relies upon light, and light does not compress tissue, and removables require tissue compression to function.
There will have to be a different methodology, unless you expect iOS to be “preliminary” and then they still do a physical impression or reline in subsequent steps… (iOS to create custom tray, iOS to create wax rim which gets refined, iOS for primary denture which gets relined upon insertion,…)
 
Flipperlady

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As for knowlege, it is our duty to help the next generation, I believe that and offer up anything I know to others, however as for digital dentures, it seems to me that most of the equipment is being made by people who don't have much denture knowledge, they are just putting out something to make money. If you go out there and help them fix what is obviously a money making business ( that has money, not the patient in mind) you are giving away decades of experience for free, that is my point. If you are ok with that, more power to ya.
 
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i think the denture paradigm shift is just about to begin. the market for it is continually growing, and technology is rapidly developing to marry old world waxups with new world printing.
Denture people talking to denture people about how they do things. I see the denial. Im just a fixed guy. Ive never made a denture, but I was proud of my old world skills.I was in denial about the new materials and digital manufacturing. Now Im rocking the new stuff and could never imagine going back. I dont surf, but I know a wave when I see one. Look how many C&B labs died in the digital revolution. Its not that the new stuff wiped them out. It was their own unwillingness to adapt.
I spoke to a local lab guy over a decade ago about the new stuff, just after returning from a CAD/CAM show in Chicago. I was blown away. I told him I was going to get a scanner and start learning. He was in denial and thought I was wasting a lot of money. Now, all his old accounts are retiring and hes hitting up everyone looking for work. The guys in full on panic that no one wants his PFMs.

My suggestion...start saving for new equipment. Theres a wave coming. Denial wont stop it.
 
Flipperlady

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I don't think anyone is in denial here, it's just that a lot of us are weighing if we want to ride the "wave" or just ride it out until we retire or do something else. These are the ones the industry should be worried about, because the knowledge lost will be hard to get back and patients are going to suffer.
 
Jason D

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There are always new generations, knowledge is passed on, and new torch bearers will carry on.

Don’t you think it’s kind of arrogant and narcissistic to think that - losing the people who will not develop, who chose to put their heads in the sand, is going to create some kind of crisis for the patients?

I can tell you I have seen 2 generations of technician lab owners retire, and each might have said that about us....would they have been right? Do we care less because we are not doing it the way it was done 30 or 60 years ago?
As W Edwards Deming said:
“Change is not necessary, survival is not mandatory”
 
Flipperlady

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There are always new generations, knowledge is passed on, and new torch bearers will carry on.

Don’t you think it’s kind of arrogant and narcissistic to think that - losing the people who will not develop, who chose to put their heads in the sand, is going to create some kind of crisis for the patients?

I can tell you I have seen 2 generations of technician lab owners retire, and each might have said that about us....would they have been right? Do we care less because we are not doing it the way it was done 30 or 60 years ago?
As W Edwards Deming said:
“Change is not necessary, survival is not mandatory”

Here's an example: Mrs. S, existing upper and lower denture comes in for her digital denture, she scans, adjustments are made to tweak teeth, she says teeth are perfect and goes home. She comes in 5 more times and dentist makes 5 more digital dentures, she has various complaints, they don't fit correctly, they don't look the same as they did in the office, she can't eat with them. The dentist who is a recent college graduate turns to the arrogant and narcissistic lab tech for help, however they have all retired and have been replaced with a manual that came with the machine.
 
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Since going full digital, my remakes have gone from a coupe a year to nearly zero. Quality and appearance have gone way up.
Thats the denial I was speaking of, to assume its not going to be better. Materials and technique are going to improve very quickly
 
Jason D

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Here's an example: Mrs. S, existing upper and lower denture comes in for her digital denture, she scans, adjustments are made to tweak teeth, she says teeth are perfect and goes home. She comes in 5 more times and dentist makes 5 more digital dentures, she has various complaints, they don't fit correctly, they don't look the same as they did in the office, she can't eat with them. The dentist who is a recent college graduate turns to the arrogant and narcissistic lab tech for help, however they have all retired and have been replaced with a manual that came with the machine.
This happens today cuz these “young punk lab techs never studied under earl pound and have no respect for proper methods”...an actual quote from a denture tech who retired in 1981 and told me it was the end of removables because new techs had no skill or knowledge and all the good techs were gone.

The fact is you can do a lousy job with outdated techniques just as easily as you can do a lousy job with new techniques.
 

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