So shouldn't this really be something that could be opened sourced. I think I've seen a few write ups of people that did their own, but seems like a highly functional implementation could be democratized.
Tangential, but I have sleep apnea. Fortunately I have it mild enough to get away with a mouthpiece instead of a CPAP (which is good anyway because I also have bruxism).
The mouthpiece works great and I would recommend everyone get tested for sleep apnea if your insurance covers it, but I have to admit that paying for it bothered me. Even with insurance covering some of it, it cost me about $600.
I know that there's a deceptively high amount of engineering required for these kinds of things, but it was very hard to wrap my head around paying $600 for what amounted to a couple pieces of clear plastic. I actually got them to send me the STL of the scan of my teeth, and some back of napkin math indicated that it would have cost me about fifteen cents of resin to print it out myself. Instead I'm paying about 4000x that price.
Obviously this is not apples to apples, I'm sure they're using different and/or better resin that what I have, and as I said there's probably engineering and fine-tuning for this, but even still it was not fun to pay for.
All the same, I sleep like 10x better, so I suppose that considering that $600 is a cheap price to pay.
I think your comment would have been more insightful if you had at least pretended to try to account for labor before saying "They charged me 4000x the cost of goods!".
To be clear I'm not even asking for you to account for the cost of your printer, the 3d scanner, and software licenses in your math. Let's assume that all those are free. How many hours of specialized human time was spent on consultations, scans, design, reviews, to produce working guards for you?
The next question is then, of course, how much do they charge for subsequent guards now that the scan has been done and validated? Is it still 4000x the cost of raw resin?
With sleep apnea, I highly recommend you look into myofunctional therapy, which is like airway physical therapy. (full disclosure, my mom is a myofunctional therapist). It worked for several friends; They still use their cpap but they get much better sleep after committing to a routine. Not advertising but spreading the word, find someone local!
fwiw, if your sleep apnea is when you're on your back, consider somnopose/torena and put your phone is a running vest like https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D24X29WQ
I have a MAD I got online as well and the experience is a bit subpar, lots of parts broke (the bands) and I can’t easily get replacements parts. My MAD also broke, and I can’t replace it easily (they sent me a new one but it doesn’t fit). They also are not testing me to see if there’s any difference (I think it works because I wake up less, and definitely wake up less to pee). Figuring out what band to use is also a esoteric process. It’s amazing that this exists besides a CPAP but we are really beta testers at this point. Oh and I learned later that they don’t replace your retainers
2) For 5k (Cdn) - I get 42 moulds, a method used to scan and submit my progress for each mould duration, feedback and advice from a dentist, a scan test to see who they fit
3) Considering the cost of braces and the flexibility these allow (as long as you are disciplined in wearing them) it's well worth it
4) My teeth were really misaligned. At 42 I just decided to do it so I could smile more in pics. Not confidence issue, just sometimes in life you have to do things for yourself
5) You can see the 3d printing lines and its pretty detailed given how lightweight and accurate the shape is for each tooth
6) There are little mounts they install on your teeth for the moulds to latch on to as well, so its not just a fit on the teeth but the mounts as well
7) Each individual mould has a unique number on the package in comes in as well as on the mould. Each package has my name, the dentist and the mould number out of 42.
8) I could see changes starting with mould 6
9) If look even close to mould 42, I will be extactic
10) it also comes with an attachment for your phone that alows you to submit self exams each mould. Its really cool. its very impressive
My 2 kids had those and it is amazing compared to traditional way, pulling healthy teeth, wearing braces which are brutal to your teeth.
It should be illegal to pull kids teeth when this tech exists. Dentists were angry about this but it is superior in every way. I think costs will come down, but they are already cheaper then alternatives.
I am happy my wife researched and discovered Invisalign.
One required much more alignment, I don't remember but it was 20+ weeks, other was done in 16 weeks. Now they have retainers and that is it.
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[ 6.1 ms ] story [ 40.9 ms ] threadE.g. I do
The mouthpiece works great and I would recommend everyone get tested for sleep apnea if your insurance covers it, but I have to admit that paying for it bothered me. Even with insurance covering some of it, it cost me about $600.
I know that there's a deceptively high amount of engineering required for these kinds of things, but it was very hard to wrap my head around paying $600 for what amounted to a couple pieces of clear plastic. I actually got them to send me the STL of the scan of my teeth, and some back of napkin math indicated that it would have cost me about fifteen cents of resin to print it out myself. Instead I'm paying about 4000x that price.
Obviously this is not apples to apples, I'm sure they're using different and/or better resin that what I have, and as I said there's probably engineering and fine-tuning for this, but even still it was not fun to pay for.
All the same, I sleep like 10x better, so I suppose that considering that $600 is a cheap price to pay.
Well that's pretty close to how much the entire CPAP system would cost depending on the sale.
To be clear I'm not even asking for you to account for the cost of your printer, the 3d scanner, and software licenses in your math. Let's assume that all those are free. How many hours of specialized human time was spent on consultations, scans, design, reviews, to produce working guards for you?
The next question is then, of course, how much do they charge for subsequent guards now that the scan has been done and validated? Is it still 4000x the cost of raw resin?
life changing for me
2) For 5k (Cdn) - I get 42 moulds, a method used to scan and submit my progress for each mould duration, feedback and advice from a dentist, a scan test to see who they fit
3) Considering the cost of braces and the flexibility these allow (as long as you are disciplined in wearing them) it's well worth it
4) My teeth were really misaligned. At 42 I just decided to do it so I could smile more in pics. Not confidence issue, just sometimes in life you have to do things for yourself
5) You can see the 3d printing lines and its pretty detailed given how lightweight and accurate the shape is for each tooth
6) There are little mounts they install on your teeth for the moulds to latch on to as well, so its not just a fit on the teeth but the mounts as well
7) Each individual mould has a unique number on the package in comes in as well as on the mould. Each package has my name, the dentist and the mould number out of 42.
8) I could see changes starting with mould 6
9) If look even close to mould 42, I will be extactic
10) it also comes with an attachment for your phone that alows you to submit self exams each mould. Its really cool. its very impressive
For some reason now it’s assumed these were some kind of injection molding, but it makes perfect sense that it’s 3-D printed.
It should be illegal to pull kids teeth when this tech exists. Dentists were angry about this but it is superior in every way. I think costs will come down, but they are already cheaper then alternatives.
I am happy my wife researched and discovered Invisalign.
One required much more alignment, I don't remember but it was 20+ weeks, other was done in 16 weeks. Now they have retainers and that is it.