The Do-it-yourself starter kit for my “dream smile” comes in a white packet, with a magnetic flap, the contents wrapped with blue tissue paper. It feels like a birthday. To reveal a twelve-pot with silicone mass, four “Impression tray”, rubber gloves, “cheek retractor”, rear sendebox come. The accessories for my Dental records, which would usually make a dental assistant. Your content and the practice of rent is omitted, two possible explanations for the dumping prices, currently some of the Start-ups of the Guild of the jaw mean, orthopedists, fear and terror. All lead to a Sunny “smile” in the company name, some occur as a pure Internet companies. The promise: straight teeth in three to twelve months for the price of 1390 up to 4000 euros, money-back guarantee in case of non-success.
Your range is designed for adults with crooked teeth like me. We are in the profession and do not want the Smile of chunky steel brackets flash. The Start-ups sell tracks clear plastic, so-called aligners. The U.S. company Align Technology brought in 1997 to market maturity and continued to the last to two billion dollars. Three years ago, the first patents expired, since the gold-rush atmosphere.
Advantages of the toothed rail
The rails have to brush some of the advantages over Braces: Less problems in the teeth, when eating, nothing is stuck, for both of you to be taken out. Damage to the tooth enamel, which occur frequently in the case of fixed braces, are avoided in a comparison study, most of the time. If the caries risk is low, has not been studied.
The market potential there are only estimates: An older Dutch survey found that 14 percent of adults straighter teeth wanted there. “That is a beautiful set of Teeth has a higher priority,” says Jens Urbaniak, who founded, together with stock market analysts two years ago, the Start-up DrSmile. He refers to US data, according to which more than half of the population would require treatment and deformities. The word “treatment need” is controversial, because usually no disease is present.
Before my dental impression-self-experiment, I have obtained me an offer for a Hamburg-based practice. I have to bite a “cross bite”, the hump of a Seitenzahns on the cusp of over – in short, there is a higher degree of “misalignment”, which gave me never problems. The Teeth could in one and a half years, says the Orthodontist who examined me. Three-way there. First of all, the classic braces, 5500 Euro. Secondly, the lingual braces, the Brackets are glued on the inside of the tooth sides. “Incognito” is the name of the model, the Brackets are made of Gold: 9500 Euro. Variant three: Aligner for 6500 Euro. A multiple of the lump sum price of my dumping-party so.
Teeth marks, a race against the stopwatch to make. Silicone mass of the two pots mix, 30 seconds to knead, a sausage roll, on the Impression tray, and as soon as possible in the mouth so that the teeth press, three minutes to wait, then it is hard. Six of the Trials I have, the first go wrong. Painfully, I scraped the silicone out of the spoons. Nothing helps, always the rear-most molars are only half of it. The spoons are too small. Orthodontists for adults, five sizes in stock, the company has only a standard size beige. Call the Hotline: “Send it to us easy, we will see.” From the Post office so. Then I strut with the “cheek retractor” the lips, so that all the teeth are visible. A Zombie from “The Walking Dead”. Selfies from the front, the side, the lower jaw is advanced, on the provider’s Website, upload, done.
How to: silicone mass mixing, kneading and shaping it into a sausage. The mass in the teeth to press and three minutes to harden. After that, the print is ready for shipping.
If my case is accepted, will I see during treatment is probably never a orthodontist personally. The tooth movement predicted on the Computer, then a Set of ten to twenty seemed to be sent in pairs, every two weeks you take a new one. I regularly take photos of my teeth, which would control a dentist, will I be informed of the Hotline. Serious or dangerous?
“Low grade bug, you can eliminate positions already”, says the orthodontist Thomas Drechsler, based in Wiesbaden, works in rails for more than 20 years with the plastic. “Higher-grade anomalies, but in the hands of an orthodontist.” As is the case with other braces treatments, the risk of root damage due to the tooth movement was, among other things. “That’s why we make x-rays,” says Turner (although Routine x-rays in the dental braces patients are controversial). Most Start-ups have no x-ray in the program. Therefore, and also due to rare or even a lack of personal control appointments of the President of the professional Association of German orthodontists (BDK) attested to you a “unique Standard of undershoot in diagnosis and therapy”.
DrSmile-founder Urbaniak pulled due to “offensive and anti-competitive criticism” against the BDK-President in court – and lost. Nevertheless, the Start-ups are not allowed to sell their seemed to be therapies. “In the medium term, we want to offer the whole range of aesthetic dentistry,” says Urbaniak. The time was favorable. A considerable proportion of the German dentists was older than 55 years, for the offspring, but their own practice was often the target of many looking for flexible part-time jobs. And cosmetic dentistry is booming, a U.S. consulting firm predicts almost 28 billion dollars in sales in the year 2024. “The industry will change in the next few years,” says Urbaniak.
Great investors to discover the business model of medicine. In the United States, a Private-Equity company pumped last year, 380 million dollars in the Start-up “smile direct club”, of course, with corresponding expectations of return. The professional orthodontists are one of the first targets of these investors, other specialist groups will follow.
After two weeks I get Mail: A new dental impression kit. My first attempt was “not quite adequate”, – said in an E-Mail. I’ll make an appointment with DrSmile, the Start-up operates in large cities, practice rooms, to other Dumping providers to sell. A dental assistant poking ten minutes with a pen with a digital camera in my mouth. Live I see on the screen from more than 3000 individual pictures of my Teeth as a 3-D graphics adds together. A young dentist, no orthodontist – evaluated and then the result. “Your case is a little more complicated,” he says: “I would like to consult.” A week later, he calls me. “How do I put it? Your Denture is like an old Bicycle. Everything works, you have no problems.” When you have to put in a bike wars, it might not be more properly mounted. In the case of an orthodontist, I was better off. How tactful. But no matter! It was just a Test.
My conclusion: if you want to only slightly inclined cutting teeth to correct, like with the Offers of Start-ups, some Thousands of euros to save, but there should be earlier in the case of an orthodontist, a safety check, whether he has not also an “old bike” in the mouth. And ask whether it would not be cool would be to stand his Teeth to. Because it would be kind of sad, too, if soon all of the running around with a perfect unit of the dentition.
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