Is laser periodontal therapy mad science or just the regular kind that hurts a lot?

September 10, 2008 3:25 AM

My dentist found a periodontal pocket in one of my molars and wants to use freakin' laser beams on it via a procedure called LANAP.

(Insurance calls it LPT, for Laser Periodontal Therapy.) He says deep scaling isn't going to help because it's more than 5mm deep, so it's either lasers or a procedure called open-flap debridement which apparently involves knocking me out and carving up my gums so he can get at the roots of the molar. Ow.

LANAP is about an order of magnitude more expensive, but everything I can find seems to indicate that it's just flat out a better procedure, period. Healing time is days instead of weeks or months and the results are much more permanent. The vendor says it has something to do with stimulating stem cells, but I don't completely understand how that works.

A family member has a successful general dentistry practice old enough to have presidential campaign stickers dating back to Carter/Mondale. I asked him about it, and he said:

I can't say that I am convinced that the use of lasers in the treatment of periodontal disease is any better than conventional therapies.

I'm probably going to make the trek to his office to get a second opinion in person, but I'm starting to get the impression that LANAP is very controversial in dental circles. True?

posted by thalakan to Health & Fitness (5 answers total)

Since you seem to be drawing a blank, and I thought the question was interesting and Googled a bit -- I have zero experience with this, but did come up with this GGroups post asking basically the same question, with some responses from dentists down the list. You might find more discussion by using the search terms LANAP and gum in Google Groups. There does seem to be some controversy, but those posts are back in 2006. I agree you should get a second opinion, but I would get it from a non-family member, non-LANAP using dentist, whose dentistry school loans are paid off, but not too much of a geezer.
posted by beagle at 6:41 AM on September 10, 2008

Response by poster: I agree you should get a second opinion, but I would get it from a non-family member, non-LANAP using dentist, whose dentistry school loans are paid off, but not too much of a geezer.

My relative just mailed me saying he's going to ask the two other periodontists in his building about the laser, since that's not his thing.
posted by thalakan at 6:56 AM on September 10, 2008

Is insurance paying for this? If so, why save them money at the cost of increased recovery time?
posted by jrockway at 8:31 AM on September 10, 2008

Anything "new" is going to be debated. Is it cheaper? More effective? Worth the time it takes to learn? The answer you want is whether it's right for you, and a second opinion on something like this is perfectly reasonable.
posted by dhartung at 12:01 PM on September 10, 2008

Response by poster: Is insurance paying for this? If so, why save them money at the cost of increased recovery time?

They're paying for most of it, but I still have to shell out 10-20%. That works out to about a thousand bucks for the laser compared to a few hundred for other options.
posted by thalakan at 6:18 PM on September 10, 2008