It's completely normal to worry about the safety of dental x-rays, especially for kids or during pregnancy. While x-rays do involve a small amount of radiation, they are considered completely safe for children and pregnant women. The benefits of x-rays outweigh even the low risks by safeguarding your oral health and helping your dentist diagnose and treat gum disease and dental problems early.
How Safe Are Dental X-Rays?
Routine dental x-rays, which includes 4 bitewings, comes with less exposure than a single day of natural background radiation or about the same amount of exposure as a short plane trip. Your dentist will take many precautions to protect you and keep the radiation exposure as low as possible with collars and protective aprons. Your dentist will also use advanced digital x-ray technology which has radiation as low as 10% of what you would be exposed to with film-based x-rays. Dental x-rays are also very targeted to a tiny area of the body to ensure just a small part of your body receives a very low dose of radiation.
To put this radiation exposure in context, the average natural radiation you are exposed to every year is 3.00 mSv. Even a full mouth x-ray will have a radiation dose of just 0.150.
Digital x-rays as safe for pregnant women with proper shielding. If you wish to be cautious, we recommend avoiding routine x-rays during the first trimester, the most vulnerable stage of development.
How Are Dental X-Rays Used?
X-rays are an important aspect of dental care that can help protect the oral health of you and your children. Dental x-rays can be used to diagnose problems as well as prevent oral care problems. Your dentist may use your x-rays to:
• Examine the roots of your teeth
• Locate cavities
• Check the health of the bone around your teeth
• Check on developing teeth in kids
• Spot early signs of gum disease by looking for changes in bone density
• Detect impacted teeth and infection
• Plan treatments, especially Endodontic therapy or Root Canal Treatment
Without dental x-rays, cavities may not be found early and may linger without symptoms until the tooth becomes infected. Gum disease may be difficult to detect when it's still early enough to reverse. Teeth may be unknowingly impacted or a child may have abnormal root development that goes undiagnosed and untreated. These benefits far outweigh the risk of the very minimal radiation exposure.
Upper Hunt Club Dental Centre located in South Ottawa is here to make your treatments comfortable. If you are in need of an x-ray or other dental treatment, contact us today to book an appointment.
