Digital X-Rays – Bedford, VA
Precise, Clear Imaging for Effective Treatment
At PeaksView Dental, we are ardent advocates of preventive care, because the benefits of comprehensive and preventive care allow you to maintain a healthy smile, as well as help to reinforce a good homecare routine. One component of preventive dental care is obtaining consistent and routine digital radiographs, also called dental X-rays, at least once a year. Doing so can go a long way toward protecting your oral health and helping your dental team stay on top of potential threats.
The Purpose
of Dental X-Rays
In other medical settings, you might only have an X-ray taken when there is an obvious outward sign of a problem — for example, if you fell and might have broken a bone. In dentistry, things are a bit different because many issues develop over an extended period of time without showing any symptoms or causing problems. Because of this, obtaining routine dental radiographs is an important tool used to help prevent and reduce complications that arise from undiagnosed dental complications.
Coupled with an exam, radiographs help derive a complete picture of your oral health because they allow insight into what is happening beneath the gum line, in the tight spaces between the teeth, and within the teeth. Radiographs can therefore reveal issues that would be missed during a routine visual exam, and they can do so while these problems are still in their earliest stages. Here are a few examples of oral health concerns that a radiograph can shed light on:
- Cavities
- Infections
- Problems with the development of the jaw and teeth
- Non-erupted teeth (such as wisdom teeth)
- Cysts
- Some types of tumors
- Changes in the jawbones
Benefits of
Dental X-Rays
You should never take for granted that your mouth is free of these problems. They can afflict anyone, regardless of how well they care for their teeth and gums at home. The sooner we catch such issues, the easier and less costly they will be to fix.
Of course, the primary benefit of dental radiographs is that they help you maintain a healthy mouth, but there is even more to love about them:
- They allow visualization of areas not visible to the human eye.
- Getting radiographs taken is a fast, painless, and relatively comfortable process.
- Both the American Dental Associates and every dental insurance company endorse and advocate dental radiographs as a key diagnostic tool.
- The digital nature of radiographs allows your dentist to view them immediately, so you can know right away if the images reveal any problems.
- It is easy for your dentist to share your radiographs with other dental and medical professionals if they need to refer you to a specialist.
Are X-Rays Safe?
Some patients dislike the idea of getting regular dental X-rays because they are concerned about radiation. However, there is no need to worry! In our dental office, we use advanced digital technology that reduces the amount of radiation that patients are exposed to by up to 90% (compared to traditional radiographs). The risk of suffering complications from dental radiographs is next to nothing. In fact, when all of the proper precautions are in place, this diagnostic process is considered safe even for young children and pregnant women.
