The PerioLase® MVP-7™ as a GP Practice Builder

Transcription: 

Marty Klein:
Welcome to Dentistry for the New Millennium. I’m Marty Klein, training manager at the Institute for Advanced Laser Dentistry. My guest today is Dr. Tyler Bond, a general dentist in Missoula, Montana. Dr. Bond graduated dental school from Midwestern University in Glendale, Arizona. He then served in the United States Navy before starting his own private practice. He’s taken over a thousand hours of post-doctoral training and actively teaches other dentists as well. Dr. Bond, thanks for being my guest today.

Dr. Tyler Bond:
Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited to chat with you today.

Marty Klein:
Wonderful. Well, let’s start back at your training. Now you trained in August 2023 with LANAP and the PerioLase. So as of this recording in February 2025, you’re about a year and a half in. So, let’s rewind the clock back to how you first became aware of LANAP and what was the sequence of events to get you trained.

Dr. Tyler Bond:
Sure, yeah. I was introduced to LANAP probably back in 2019 when I had moved from my first duty station to Camp Lejeune in North Carolina where I ended up doing some rotations with Colonel Black. She was retired while she was working at the Marine base, but she was trained on the LANAP protocol, and we had the PerioLase there. And so she basically took me under her wing and showed me a lot of things to know about LANAP.

Marty Klein:
This was in the Navy you said? And we’ve been training in the US Navy since 2016, I believe. Was it ever discussed with you to be trained through the Navy program, or no?

Dr. Tyler Bond:
Not as a general dentist, no. All the periodontists get trained during their residency, but no, it was never discussed that I could get trained in it, so I was actually doing the osseous surgeries while Colonel Black was doing LANAP therapies.

Marty Klein:
So, at some point you went into private practice, but you’ve been exposed to LANAP. So how long was it before you knew you wanted to be trained on this yourself?

Dr. Tyler Bond:
I always knew. I knew it worked. I got to see it work.  When I first got out of the military, I worked at a full digital practice there in Boise and there was a number of LANAPers periodontists out there, and they all swore by it as well. And so, I knew that one day I’d be getting one, and we were potentially looking at getting the PerioLase at that office, but I ended up leaving after a year and bought my own practice. And after I bought that modified startup that I ended up getting, I think three months in, I bought the PerioLase and just haven’t looked back since.

Marty Klein:
So, as a general dentist, I mean not all general dentists are really interested in periodontal disease or at least treating themselves as opposed to referring it out. So how did that differ for you in terms of being interested in treating it in your practice?

Dr. Tyler Bond:
Yeah, well, I mean, one of the things is I got into dentistry because of the surgical side of things, and I was constantly flirting with going to oral surgery and periodontal programs. I in fact actually applied to the Navy Perio program, but I always had a passion for treating the whole mouth and I had a really hard time justifying taking teeth out when I knew that they could be saved. And so I bought a practice that had a lot of periodontal disease, very, very severe periodontal disease. The county that I’m in, there’s only really one and a half periodontists in the county, and the people in the area just aren’t getting the treatment they need because there’s just not enough people to do it. And so I kind of took that on my shoulders and it’s been really good.

Marty Klein:
Was there any hesitation at all that this was a laser-based treatment? I mean, correct me if I’m wrong, you’ve had other laser experience prior to the PerioLase?

Dr. Tyler Bond:
Yeah, so I’m actually before the PerioLase, I was trained in every other modality, laser modality while I was in dental school. And so, I had experience with Erbium YAG, CO2, diode, even low light laser therapy, light therapy with the four lasers. So I was exposed to everything except the Nd:YAG. And so you have to understand the science behind the laser that you use, and I think that’s kind of one of the biggest key points with the Nd:YAG is understanding how it actually works when compared to a CO2 or an Erbium YAG laser. And so once you understand the fundamentals there, you can really expand the use cases with the laser outside of just LANAP and LAPIP.

Marty Klein:
So in other words, you knew you couldn’t effectively treat Perio with the other types of lasers that you already had or been using?

Dr. Tyler Bond:
You can’t get the same results; it’s just not going to work. I mean, in the way that the PerioLase works, it’s fundamentally different than targeting. It doesn’t target water, it doesn’t target hydroxyapatite, it targets red and black pigments, so it fundamentally works different. It penetrates; it creates bio stimulation. So I mean, yeah, to me it was a no brainer. My kind of mantra is we can save your teeth, or we can start over. So, I’m probably one of the only ones that I am the only one in the county that actively tries to do a lot less hybrids in my office. People are like, oh man, I bet you’re doing all sorts of hybrids. I’m like, I’m doing a decent amount, and I could be doing a lot more, but I elect to try and save these teeth and so do my patients. Avoiding significant surgery is always my goal. We can always go there later. And so probably just in the last year, I’ve probably been able to save, I don’t know, 30, 40 arches of hybrid because of LANAP, so I could be doing that stuff, but no, I’d rather save teeth, that’s what it’s all about. It’s trying to be the most conservative and providing the best result for your patients.

Marty Klein:
I do want to ask more about how the results have come across the clinical results in your patients, but I want to back up first. You had mentioned biostimulation in there, and I need to sneak in that biostimulation is not an FDA cleared use of the ND: YAG, just need to get that in. But let’s talk about, if you don’t mind, that your training experience getting trained to do LANAP. Now, as I mentioned in the intro, you take a lot of CE, you had enrollment in the Kois Center for Dental Excellence, so I want to ask how the five day LANAP training continuum taken over the course of a year compares with some of your other training experiences?

Dr. Tyler Bond:
I think it was really good. It was very comparable to any continuum that you would take to where you go back what I went three times. So the first time I went for three days and then the next time it was like a day or two, and the next time was a day or two as well. And you got to see people that were also new to using the laser at the second and third visit and just being able to follow up with those guys as well and just seeing what kind of results everyone’s getting because I’ve been able to get some really, really great results with what we’ve been doing, and so just kind of being able to see how everyone’s doing it. I think that it was really cool to just build that comradery with people. But the training itself was also very, very good. They bring in the periodontal leaders to teach on these courses.

Marty Klein:
Alright, let’s get to some of those results. I remember when you first came to Laser Bootcamp, you had inquired just for yourself out loud, will LANAP be predictable in most patients? So, my question to you, it’s been a year and a half, what have you found it to be in terms of predictability?

Dr. Tyler Bond:
Yes, I’ve done some pretty crazy cases and no, you can’t save every tooth, but you can save a lot. If you can just follow the fundamentals and do everything that they teach at that course, you’re going to be able to save teeth that you’re like, there’s no way. There’s no way. But I can tell you, you absolutely can save those teeth, but you can’t skip the steps. You have to follow the protocols.

Marty Klein:
Has that a win also just for the whole practice in terms of your staff and speaking with patients? What I mean by that is saving teeth versus potentially taking them out. Is that a…

Dr. Tyler Bond:
Absolutely.

Marty Klein:
Yeah,

Dr. Tyler Bond:
Absolutely. I’ll tell you what, man, my hygienists love that they don’t have to go digging down a pocket to try and clean up calculus. I go in there and do it, and I do the LANAP therapy, and I’m sure their risks are thanking for it.

Marty Klein:
You said a couple times about how there’s not very many periodontists in your area. You’re the only one doing more conservative saving teeth in your area. Does that mean that patients are seeking you out for this?

Dr. Tyler Bond:
Yeah, we’ve had a few patients drive three or four hours away just to come see me specifically at this point. So specifically looking for LANAP,

Marty Klein:
Were there any downsides, any challenges to implementing LANAP that you can recall?

Dr. Tyler Bond:
Any challenges? I mean, I was fortunate enough around the same time that I had purchased the PerioLase, I happened to get a lead Perio assistant from periodontist down at Bozeman who already had the PerioLase, and so I was able to utilize her to help set up the systems in place. I knew the protocol, but having the patients understand, having the consent done and giving proper post-op protocols, it was a lot easier for me just because she already was doing that stuff. And so, I imagine that’s where your difficulty is going to be is just making sure that from beginning to end, that the steps are covered. Right, but I mean, as far as using the laser, no, no, I haven’t had any issues.

Marty Klein:
Good to hear. Good to hear. Now, as you are very well aware, the PerioLase can be used for more than just LANAP, other procedures around implants, value added procedures. What are some of those ways that you’ve also used your PerioLase outside of saving natural dentition?

Dr. Tyler Bond:
Sure. Well, saving implants is kind of my thing now too. There’s been a number of cases where other doctors have sent to me, they’re like, hey, something’s up with this implant. We don’t quite know what, and I go ahead and take a look at it. There’s bone loss, upset tissue. It’s stuff like that. So, one of the most surprising things is how successful I’ve been with LAPIP. I don’t know. I’ve probably placed 150, 200 implants in the last year, and of that, we’ve only had two actually fail. We had two outside of that that were ailing, but because of LAPIP, we were able to save those and restore ’em pretty quick. It was quite surprising we were able to get bone growth. ISQ numbers increased significantly from 60 to 70 in a matter of two months on geriatric patients. And so doing LAPIP for 15, 20 minutes instead of taking out the implant, starting over is a lot more attractive to me. And on those two specific cases that I placed from what we were able to save those to where our failure rate is very, very low, and that’s been a great adjunct, and so I’ve used it for that. I’ve used it for hemangiomas. That’s really cool. It kind of looks like a magic trick when you do it, turned it from purple to white, and that certainly works too. Treated it for, we’ve treated cold sores, Frenectomies. There are lots of different things that you can use it for it and you’ll find out what works well for you and what doesn’t.

Marty Klein:
Last but not least, you were recently featured in a short article in Compendium Magazine all around the PerioLase. Can you tell me just a bit about that or where listeners can find it?

Dr. Tyler Bond:
Yeah, it’s in the Compendia Magazine. It was really good. I basically just talked about my experiences in Missoula and how things have been able to change for not all in my practice, but for the patients here. The next closest PerioLase to me is three hours away in Bozeman, and so I’m just being able to even offer this service has been huge, and being able to get away from osseous surgery is a blessing, not only for myself, but for my patients. Not having to use any biologics, sutures and anything like that is also very nice.

Marty Klein:
Have you done osseous in the last year and a half?

Dr. Tyler Bond:
No, I don’t. No.

Marty Klein:
Okay. Just checking.

Dr. Tyler Bond:
Yeah, I don’t do that. I did that in the military and that’s all I was authorized to do. I’m not doing that ever again. Yeah, it’s not a practice builder, in my opinion.

Marty Klein:
Not a practice builder. I would guess given the choice; a patient would not choose it.

Dr. Tyler Bond:
Yeah, I mean, it’s like taking out wisdom teeth. I mean, the outcome, the postoperative outcome, it’s just, I mean, you’re flapping it open and cleaning it up and suturing it back together. It’s surgery. It’s significant surgery.

Marty Klein:
Well, thank you for that overview. We can wrap this up here. I do want to invite our listeners if they’ve not already, to subscribe to this podcast. We’re available on all major podcast platforms, also on our website, LANAP.com/podcast. Hey, Dr. Bond, thank you again for taking the time out today and telling us about your LANAP story.

Dr. Tyler Bond:
Oh yeah, absolutely.