There have been many predictions about the end of dentistry over the last couple decades. Some day there will be a solution that gives us the perfect dental health cure. It will be dispensed at McDonalds like a DVD movie! It will be here very shortly. The minute after the common cold is cured, the hour after the heart-safe-instant anti-obesity pill is introduced and day after the devil throws salt over his ice covered doorstep. With just one statistic, I can crush this propensity for dental health positive predictions. But I believe it is better to start with reality if we really want progress. If you want reality-based results, read on.

Growing teeth is likely to be commonplace if Canadian and U.S. dentists can create and then stimulate a consumers' farmers' market. Get it as low as corn prices and they will have a winner.

Of course, it will take a while to germinate and flower, but I can see the fruits of this labor and a bountiful harvest just over the horizon. Imagine showing up at the dentist and getting furrowed rather than undergoing a harrowing experience.

We are stuck in old habits about dental health and dentists. I want to present dentistry in a way that moves it beyond what our parents thought of it and experienced it.

My father-in-law had a sore tooth pulled out by his dentist at the bar both frequented in the 1950s. The dentist carried a pair of pliers with him everywhere.

Well, dental treatment has improved significantly. But few things have changed about how we talk and think about it. We force our kids to go because it is important. Yet, we fear and/or avoid the dental visit like our dentist is still using a pair of rusty pliers after throwing back a few cold ones.

I have written a couple different stories about why we should be excited about dentistry! Okay, excited is too optimistic, but possibly you will feel better about what can be accomplished.

Few people would attempt to write about Dental Implants and Advanced Fillings (onlays) in an exciting way. I have already presented myself an "A" for effort - you can grade the result - as long as it is on a curve against those who have attempted the same.

Dental technology (and the expertise utilize it) gives us the results we want, so I am not sure why it pains us so much to pay real money for it.

While this level of technology might be dispensed in DVD format from a machine at McDonalds for $1 some day, the reality is highly trained, highly paid, people now provide it. Yet we Americans are extremely conflicted. We want the whiz-bang of no-pain, less invasive dental technology, but whine like we want the whirr of the dental drill to hang around.

"Do you know how much it costs to go to the dentist nowadays? It's ridiculous!" If you are talking about uninsured Americans who are near or below the poverty line, I say, "Sign me up to that rant!" However, to the rest of our consumer society, I say, "Welcome to the reality you created." We are energetic, pathetic consumer schizophrenics.