Anyone have experience with Waterlase?

[Shunwei]

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Recently a rep from the Biolase company came over to my office and was aggressively trying to sell Waterlase, their newest 'innovation.' After trying it on both extracted teeth and on a live patient, I was very underwhelmed by it. Despite what they market, it seems like any useful application would be very limited for the 80k price tag. I was wondering if anyone here have experience of their own with it.

 

[treasure_island]

the place i work at uses waterlase and i've been using it here and there for small occlusals/buccals/linguals.

pros: no numbing required; can remove miniscule amount of enamel w/o drilling; can use it for PRR

cons: cost of machine; u tell pt no drilling required, but sometimes u see theres more decay than waterlase can remove, so u end up drilling w/ handpiece anyway...pt gets confused lol.

honestly the waterlase just doesn't remove much enamel anyway (even at high setting), which is good for tiny cavities, but sometimes u see the cavity was bigger than u thought...and thats when u grab ur regular handpiece. i don't think i would invest in it.....but thats just me

 

[Shunwei]

Thanks, I personally think its hype. I can't feel the tooth structure where I am excavating as I would with my burs, and in some cases patients can still feel it. As for anesthesia, I am already doing a lot of my fillings w/o local anyway so the "needle less" catch is overrated. About the only catch is that supposedly you can charge more for the waterlase, but it seems more like a scam to me that way.