Dr Don Gibson, Yeovil
I am a ‘bit of a sucker’ for new technology. I read about BioMin® on a science website, found it interesting and ordered some about 15 months ago. The science made total sense, especially the fact that it had initially been developed for another purpose (ie bone grafting). Translating it to what we need it to do in the mouth was completely logical. The slow release principle appealed to me, as did the chemistry.
Laying down the apatite makes sense to a dentist. This is a principle that all dentists should recognize is going down the right road. The photos showing how the particles occlude the dentinal tubules were extremely persuasive, and I liked that the product was developed by dentists, not a multinational corporation. Sensitivity is a major problem and a big deal for patients. Dentists tend to be dismissive but it is horrible and affects their quality of life very much. Anything that can help is worth it, but there are so many different pastes out there with different claims – how can a patient be expected to know what’s best when even a dentist can’t work it out? My wife suffers from sensitivity – so we bought a box to try – within a few days her sensitivity was much better and 90% of the patients that I have recommended it to are passionate about it and have come back for more. I give them the first tube to try out and about 90% are sold on it.
The results have been better than I dared to hope, and beyond my expectations. Some of the patients with the most significant problems, who haven’t been able to find anything that works, have had great improvement. We routinely offer BioMin now when we carry out whitening – it’s standard procedure. We are seeing improvement in patients’ oral hygiene because they are cleaning areas that were previously too painful to clean thoroughly. They are happier to brush, and while of course, you can’t see remineralization taking place on the tooth surface, something must be working! I would point any sceptical colleagues back to the source of BioMin F.
A dental hospital would not be supporting this kind of product with so much research and going up against the ‘big boys’ unless it worked and they believed in it. I’m in favour of minimal intervention, so this must be worth a try.