Dental X-Rays For Kids: Types And Purpose
Dental x-rays are pictures of teeth dentists use to evaluate oral health. These x-rays help capture images using low radiation levels to take photos of the interior of your teeth and gums. Dental x-rays enable dentists to identify issues like cavities, tooth decay, and impacted teeth.
Although dental x-rays might seem complex, they are standard tools essential to identify problems similar to dental cleanings. Children also need dental x-rays to detect problems in their mouths, but many parents express concerns about the radiation levels in x-rays from film-based x-ray technology.
Advancements in x-ray technology make available the latest and safest technology to capture images by using as low as reasonably achievable (ALARA), a safety principle essential to minimize radiation exposure. The new technology enables dentists to capture digital x-rays near your children by reducing exposure to radiation by over 90 percent. In addition, digital x-rays offer all the benefits of digital x-rays providing a safer alternative to conventional x-rays.
Why Do Dentists Need X-Rays on Children?
The pediatric dentist in Bloomfield, CT, uses x-rays as a diagnostic tool with oral exams to identify dental problems in children in the early stages. Early detection helps prevent the need for painful and expensive procedures. Dentists use x-rays to detect cavities, cysts or tumors, infections, impacted teeth, unerupted developing teeth, and additional or missing teeth.
Benefits of Digital X-Rays
The practice of dentistry has received considerable enhancements from digital radiography. The pictures captured are available in high resolution instantly in a large format allowing dentists to evaluate and diagnose them immediately. The evaluation and instant diagnosis enable dentists to focus more on the child. If the dentists need another image, they can capture it immediately. The quality of the pictures is more sensitive than conventional x-rays and requires less radiation, ensuring they minimize exposure to the patient. The digital format lets dentists send and receive images electronically, enabling them to communicate faster with other medical professionals if required.
What Does the Process of Getting Digital X-Rays Entail?
If your child needs digital x-rays in Bloomfield, CT, the dentist might ask you to sit in the dentist’s chair, holding the child on your lap. You might also receive a request to hold the film to capture your child’s mouth. If a child is old enough, they can sit in the dentist’s chair next to the x-ray unit. This is because digital x-rays have a fraction of the radiation. However, as a protective measure, everyone in the x-ray room is protected with lead aprons.
Dentists use smaller and softer x-rays to make the procedure easy, and a dental team member advises patients how to bite or hold the x-ray and holder to capture accurate images. The process is repeated until all necessary images by the dentist are captured. Processing of the x-rays happens immediately to make them available and facilitate a diagnosis or discussion about the treatment options after an examination.
Are Children’s Dental X-Rays Essential during Dental Exams?
A visual exam makes it challenging for pediatric dentists to identify cavities between the teeth or below the gum’s surface. Dentists can detect surface decay through a visual inspection. However, dental x-rays are essential to detect hidden cavities or undetected problems to the naked eye unless dentists use the latest technology to capture images. In addition, X-rays provide dentists with information about the severity of the decay in the child’s tooth to determine the best course of action for creating it and eliminating the problem.
X-rays are essential for children because they are chronically prone to dental infections like cavities and impacted teeth. For example, pediatric dentists might find it challenging to identify impacted wisdom teeth hidden below the gum line to cause complications and infections in the child’s mouth because children find cleaning behind the third molars challenging. Similarly, dental x-rays help determine severe damage in the child’s tooth if a cavity remains undetected, resulting in dental pulp infections creating a severe problem.
Dental x-rays are routinely used on children and adults to capture their teeth’ images and identify problems invisible to the naked eye. The introduction of digital access has minimized the risk of radiation exposure by 90 percent, making them safe for everyone, including children. In addition, X-rays serve a valuable purpose by helping pediatric dentists identify problems in children’s mouths and treat them immediately before they aggravate into severe conditions.
If your child is due for an exam at Bloomfield Pediatric Dentistry, kindly do not worry about dental x-rays because the practice uses the latest digital radiography to capture images of your child’s mouth. Visit the practice with confidence because your child will not suffer radiation exposure from the x-rays the dentist takes.