Checking Out Your Chompers: The Importance of Dental X Rays
Every day, you subject your teeth to chomping, grinding, and gnashing, ensuring that they work hard to make food go down easier. Your teeth even play a significant part of speaking, working in conjunction with your lips and tongue to form words and sounds correctly. With your teeth playing such a huge role in your day to day life, it is little wonder that they receive special care.
You brush your teeth at least once a day and floss (or at least should floss) just as often. You visit your dentist every six months to check for cavities, plaque buildup, and to receive a thorough oral cleaning. But that may not be enough. When your dentist has a hunch that something may be amiss with your dental health or if it is time to update your dental profile, he or she may have a better look at your teeth through the use of dental x rays.
There are several types of dental x rays and they are all used for different reasons. For example, the bitewing x ray captures the images of the upper and lower back teeth, as well as how the teeth touch each other. This shows the dentist whether the back teeth properly line up –misaligned teeth can cause tooth trauma – as well as signs of tooth decay in the back of the mouth. Periapical x rays, on the other hand, captures images of teeth from the root to the exposed crown. This gives dentists a chance to catch health problems bubbling beneath the gum line before they erupt on the surface. For example, impacted teeth, abscesses, and cysts can all be seen with a periapical x ray.
When your wisdom teeth start growing in, chances are your dentist will order an occlusal x ray, as this type of imaging reveals the roof and floor of the mouth, which exposes any forming and “hidden” extra teeth. With this, dentists can make note of which teeth still are at risk of falling out and whether you should remove your wisdom teeth before they cause any problems. Finally, a panoramic c ray captures the images of the jaws, teeth, sinuses, and jaw joints, which is used to detect bone abnormalities, tumors, infections, and fractures.
There is much involved with dental health that cannot be seen with the naked eye on the surface of the mouth. This is why many dentists rely on x ray technology to help them catch dental issues well before those issues develop into serious problems.
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