What should a patient’s #1 LANAP® Protocol concern be?

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. Janice Kaeley, a periodontist in San Ramon, California. Dr. Kaeley earned her Bachelor of Dental Science degree at the University of Melbourne in Australia and continued her education at the University of Southern California for her DDS degree and then her specialty training in periodontics and implantology at Indiana University with a minor in oral pathology. Dr. Kaeley, thanks so much for taking the time out to be my guest today.

Janice Kaeley: Well, thank you so much for having me, Marty.

Marty Klein: You were trained with the PerioLase and the LANAP® Protocol in 2016, so it’s been a few years now. I want to go back to before that point and how you first became aware of LANAP® and what your original thoughts were before getting trained.

Janice Kaeley: Well, I actually had learned about LANAP® and the entire LANAP® Protocol, or I heard about it while I was in my residency, and it was one of those things that I was unsure of during the residency, perhaps because of biases that existed back when I was training. I’m not sure, but it was one of those things I knew about, but I wasn’t 100% convinced about. It was always intriguing, but I didn’t know very much. It was once I graduated that I started delving a little more into it. I was still a little unsure, but for me it was when the FDA clearance came in for regeneration, that’s when it really piqued my curiosity and that’s really when I opted to delving deeper and ultimately made the purchase.

Marty Klein: Did you have any laser experience in your residency of any kind at that point?

Janice Kaeley: No. None. I had absolutely zero laser exposure when I first purchased the LANAP®.

Marty Klein: Was that concerning at all to you going into a totally different paradigm of treatment? Even with the FDA clearance?

Janice Kaeley: Yes and no. It is always a little frightening to go into an area that you’ve never been in. You haven’t been trained in, but then again, I’m also one that’s very open to learning different techniques and different procedures and expanding myself as a as a clinician.

Marty Klein: Did you have any colleagues that you checked in with or any other dental professionals that were encouraging you in any in any way?

Janice Kaeley: There was one periodontist in town that I had spent some time with in his office after I graduated from my residency. He was using the Millennium Laser doing the LANAP® Protocol, and he had spoken to me briefly about it, and I saw a couple of cases with him in his office. But that was really it. I didn’t really have anybody that was telling me that I should be doing it. It was my own research. It was my own delving into the details and figuring out if this was something that I wanted to pursue.

Marty Klein: Okay, I do want to point out for listeners regarding that 2016 FDA clearance for True Regeneration. You can see that for yourself at LANAP.com/research. You can see what Dr. Kaeley saw at that point. So you came to get trained in 2016. What were your initial thoughts of the training program, and did you feel confident coming out of it that you can do this back home?

Janice Kaeley: It was a very overwhelming, BootCamp, and anyone who has been through it can appreciate that. Did I have the confidence? Yes and no. I understood the protocol, but there’s always that initial fear with that first case that you do without someone looking over your shoulder. Like, Am I doing this right? And you just have to rely on the training, and the training was very thorough. It’s not like I didn’t know what to do. I knew exactly what to do, but there’s still that little bit of fear when, I don’t know if fear is actually the right word, but just that trepidation of your first case coming up and that uncertainty. I worked through it. It took me quite some time with that first case I still remember, but it worked well, so the training was good. It was great, actually!

Marty Klein: One of our instructors, Dr. Ray Yukna, likes to say, “You just have to get on the horse and ride.”

Janice Kaeley: He was actually my trainer, and yes, that’s exactly that’s exactly what he said and I took it to heart. I got on the horse and I haven’t looked back. So it’s been it’s been a great journey.

Marty Klein: Well, tell me about the first – you mentioned getting back to your practice originally – but at some point, you must have gotten the swing of things. What was it like incorporating it into the practice? What did your patients start saying when you pitched this modality to them?

Janice Kaeley: So, in talking to patients about this protocol in my treatment plan, even to this day, I always present whatever options exist for the patient: be it osseous surgery versus LANAP® versus scaling and root planing. Whatever their options are, I present them all, and inevitably, patients are drawn to the laser. There’s a lot of patients out there that know what traditional osseous surgery is like, and I’m not saying that osseous surgery is dead in my practice. You know, there is a place for osseous surgery, absolutely, and there is a place for LANAP®. It’s up to me to educate my patients as to which one. But going back to it when I when I’m talking to them about it they’re always asking more about the laser. They’ve done the research. They want the laser, and they always ask, “How long will I be down?” Initially it was hard for me to answer, but over the years it’s come to me telling them, “You’ll be down for a day, maybe a day and a bit. But honestly, the hardest part of this entire surgery for you is going to be the diet.” And inevitably, they all laugh and they go, “Oh, no, no, no, no. The diet will be easy. I’m more worried about the postoperative discomfort.” and I tell them, “You’ll be fine. I promise you the discomfort will not be there, but you’re going to hate me for the diet.” They come back for their post-op check, and what do I hear time and again? “Oh my gosh, Doctor, you’re absolutely right. That diet is horrible. I absolutely hate it. But the pain? I had no pain. I had no discomfort. It was exactly what you said.” So that’s I spend a lot of time prepping the patients and telling them, and it’s just evolved into a joke in the practice, it’s, you know, the “Kaeley diet” is the worst thing. It’s not the post-operative discomfort from the surgery.

Marty Klein: You’ll take the diet complaint any day!

Janice Kaeley: Absolutely. And that’s inevitably and we all laugh about it when they come in. And I’m like, “Yeah, I told you that, but you didn’t believe me, did you?” And they’re like, “No, I didn’t. But I should have listened to you.”

Marty Klein: You said a little while ago that the patients have done their research, which tells me that sometimes you have patients who already know about LANAP®. Have you had any that specifically come to you because you’re a LANAP® provider?

Janice Kaeley: Actually, yes, I have a lot of patients that seek us out for LANAP®. It’s pretty interesting, actually. I didn’t think this would be my practice, but it has evolved into me doing a lot of LANAP® and helping a lot of patients, and patients honestly coming to us from a great distance to have their procedures done, which is very humbling. But it’s also great because I know that I’m helping a lot of people.

Marty Klein: Have you found that the results have been consistent? You’ve been doing this for four years, just to remind listeners, and you’ve certainly done a lot of cases, but are you finding the clinical results are what you would like to see?

Janice Kaeley: Yes, absolutely. Obviously that we do have the outliers that sometimes require a little more, be it a single tooth or a single area that needs to be redone. But, yeah, the results are definitely consistent, and that’s what I like about it. It’s predictable.

Marty Klein: Have you been using your PerioLase® MVP-7™ for any other procedures other than LANAP®, I mean?

Janice Kaeley: Actually, yes. We use it a lot for cold sores. We have patients that come in just as they feel the tingling of their cold sores coming on and we zap them. That is another part of my practice that I would have never imagined existed, but it truly does. We have people coming in for Herpes labialis, and it’s been interesting. I have used it a couple of times for a frenotomy as well. I use it the odd time after an extraction to close up the, or to clot the socket, I should say, but that’s about it thus far.

Marty Klein: For the cold sores, are you doing that treatment or is that a hygienist doing it?

Janice Kaeley: Um, it’s either or. Whomever you can get that patient into the schedule because it’s usually a call in the morning. “Oh, my goodness, I feel the tingling. Can I get in today?” And it’s whomever is available truthfully, that gets to do it.

Marty Klein: And you have a hygienist who clearly has been trained on the PerioLase® MVP-7™ for lower level procedures such as herpetic lesions, as you mentioned, are they also doing laser pocket disinfection?

Janice Kaeley: Yes, they are. They are definitely doing that as well, which has been a wonderful adjunct to my practice as well.

Marty Klein: Are there any downsides of using your PerioLase®?

Janice Kaeley: I’m still trying to figure that one out. I don’t think so, not from where I stand. Not today. It can be a bit of a beast to carry around if I need to bring it home for whatever reason. But other than that no, I absolutely I don’t think there’s a downside at all that I can see. I love the machine. I don’t know. You know, all these years, I’ve been using it for four years. It’s been great. There’s definitely not a downside.

Marty Klein: I didn’t mean for that to be a trick question, but I appreciate you having to think about it for a little bit. Well, fantastic. I’m happy to hear that it’s going well so far, and I wish you many more years of success out of your PerioLase®. I do want to point out your website, for anyone listening in the East San Francisco Bay area, that’s SanRamonPerio.com. And I would invite you, the listener, to subscribe to the podcast if you haven’t yet or go to lanap.com/podcast. We have all of our previous episodes listed there. Dr. Kaeley, thanks again for taking the time to join me today and share your experience.

Janice Kaeley: Well, thank you for having me, Marty. It’s been a pleasure.