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Don't Be Afraid Of Those Much Needed Dental Xrays....Here's Why.

                              Why You Should Have Dental X Rays And Why You Should Not Fear Them

© wavebreak3 / Adobe Stock

For some, a dental appointment is a fearfully, dreaded appointment; while others don’t mind or even eagerly anticipate the appointment. However, no matter which side of the fence you are on it seems to be a mutual consensus that no one enjoys dental X-rays, and many are confused why they are even necessary. Often, dental professionals are questioned about the need for dental X-rays, yet even with thorough education, many patients simply forgo X-rays to save a dollar, or because of something they read regarding their safety. Allow me to lay those suspicions and curiosities to rest.
Before we get to the good stuff, let’s just quickly touch on the subject as to why your dental professional needs X-rays in the first place. If your clinician says it’s time for bitewing X-rays, what they mean is it is time for X-rays which evaluate the bone levels around your teeth, which can become destroyed if you have gum disease, and detect cavities between the teeth; all of which cannot be seen with the naked eye. It’s better to catch gum disease or a cavity in the early stages before they progress to a point where a simple filling or a regular dental cleaning won’t suffice.
Occasionally, your dental professional may suggest taking a periapical X-ray, commonly referred to as a PA. These X-rays are single images of a tooth’s entirety – all the way from the tip of the root to the top of the tooth you see. These are unlike bitewing radiographs, which cannot see to the tip of a tooth’s root. PAs help diagnose any root anomalies such as abscesses, cysts, and tumors. If you have a toothache, a PA must be taken to help determine the cause.
Every 3-5 years, your dentist will need a full-mouth series, or FMX, which is a combination of PAs (entire X-rays of each tooth) and bitewings. It’s important for your dental professional to have a comprehensive picture of all your teeth because gum disease and cavities don’t often cause pain in the beginning stages, which is why detecting them with X-rays is imperative. Prevention, and catching any issues early, is cheaper than restoration (i.e., fillings, root canals, crowns).
Lastly, your dentist might need a panoramic X-ray every 3-5 years. This radiograph shows the entire mouth, and surrounding structures in one image, including nasal structures, sinuses and temporomandibular joints (TMJ: joint that opens and closes your jaw). This is the X-ray professionals commonly use to evaluate wisdom teeth. Beyond evaluating wisdom teeth, a panoramic X-ray captures impacted teeth, cysts, fractures, infections, and tumors. A pano can even spot a clogged carotid artery, before you may experience symptoms of an impending heart attack, which is a lifesaving find.

Many patients are concerned for their safety when exposed to radiation. Rest assured there are many other forms of radiation in life that are far worse than dental X-rays. Many you are probably completely unaware of. The maximum annual dose permitted for U.S. radiation workers is 50.0 mSv. To set the bar, let’s go ahead and reveal the dosage of the most commonly taken X-rays at your routine cleaning appointment – bitewings. The dosage of 4 bitewing radiographs taken with d-speed film (in other words not digital) is 0.038 mSv. If those bitewings are taken digitally, that dosage reduces to 0.02 mSv. Now let’s see how that measures up to other forms of radiation in life.

• The dosage of a whole body CT scan is a whopping 10.0 mSv!
• A mammogram packs a dosage of 0.42 mSv.
• The average radiation in the U.S. from natural sources on an annual basis comes in at a dosage of 3.0 mSv.
• A chest X-ray has a dosage of 0.10 mSv.
• Radon in the average U.S. home on an annual basis is a dosage of 2.28 mSv.
• The annual dose received by food and water (potassium) is a dosage of 0.4 mSv.
• A cross-country flight from New York to Los Angeles comes with a dosage of 0.04 mSv.
• Living in a brick/stone/concrete house (annual) has a dosage of 0.007 mSv.
• Smoking one pack of cigarettes brings with it a dosage of 0.0049 mSv.
• Eating a banana will give you a dosage of 0.0001 mSv.

Radiation comes in all shapes and forms, not just from X-ray images. You receive more radiation from a single flight across the country than with bitewing radiographs at your dental appointment! However, no one thinks twice when booking their vacation and boarding that plane. If your dental professional needs X-rays, please be comforted that he/she is not only highly educated in making the decision, but is doing so for a legitimate reason – your health. “To see is to know.  Not to see is to guess! And we won’t guess when it comes to your oral health.”

A Little Humour

Kombucha From The Dental Perspective.........Interesting.

Kombucha Is Just as Bad for You as Soda, According to Dentists

Trouble in paradise for our favorite fizzy mold tea

byJelisa Castrodale

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Apr 25 2019, 9:00am

Photo: Shutterstock

Ten years ago, it had to be so much easier to manage a dentist’s website. All you had to do was make sure that the right address was in the sidebar, upload a couple of stock photos of smiling children, and occasionally write a 500-word blog post about gingivitis that included at least one all-caps reference to the office phone number, and at least one stock photo of a smiling child.
Now, though, even dentists have to worry about CONTENT, and they have to worry about SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION and they really have to worry about KOMBUCHA. Dr. Larry Molenda, a dentist in San Marcos, Texas, has an article on his website called “Kombucha and Your Tooth Enamel,” that outlines his acid-related concerns about everyone’s favorite fizzy mold tea. Wildflower Dental wrote “How Does Drinking Kombucha Affect Your Teeth?,” and San Francisco’s Glen Park Dental spends five paragraphs trying to answer the question “Is Kombucha Bad for Your Teeth?”

Well, is it? According to those three dentists (and quite a few more) the answer is, “Well, it’s definitely not great.” Salon recently spoke to a couple of other oral health professionals about its effect on our mouths, and they both cited kombucha’s acidity as a potential concern. “Kombucha is nearly as acidic as a pop and energy drinks,” Dr. Bobby J. Grossi told the outlet. “Acidic drinks mess with the pH level of the saliva which ideally should be 7 or 7.3, when the saliva level becomes more acidic it becomes a breeding ground for bacteria which can take over the mouth.”
Another tooth pro said that he’d seen ‘pitting’ on the enamel of heavy kombucha drinkers, which is superficial damage that can eventually lead to tooth decay.
In February, PopSugar also spoke to two dentists who warned about the potential damage that kombucha could cause. (If we’ve learned anything from television commercials, it’s that the third dentist—any third dentist—would disagree with the entire premise).
"The acidic pH found in kombucha also allows the 'bad' bacteria already found in your mouth to potentially create an unhealthier environment for your gums," Dr. Jeffrey Sulitzer said. "Drinking kombucha can be just as harmful for your teeth as drinking a sugary soda since the net result is lowered pH and the potential of having an increase in tooth decay and gum disease." (It’s probably worth noting that the American Dental Association shared this piece on its own Facebook page.)

            So what are you meant to do if you can’t stop, won’t stop with the kombucha? The dentists suggested limiting yourself to versions that are lower in sugar, downing it all in one sitting (to minimize the amount of time that your mouth pH is altered), drinking it through a straw, and rinsing your mouth out with water after you finish the bottle. Orrrr you could just put the kombucha in the trash and stick with water, period.

It’s like you don’t even want your picture to be on a dentist’s website.

 

How Cannabis Might Affect Your Dental Anaesthesia

#Health

Mon Apr 15, 2019 / 4:06 PM EDT

Cannabis users may need more anesthesia for surgery

FILE PHOTO: A Cannabis plant is pictured at the ''Weed the People'' event as enthusiasts gather to celebrate the legalization of the recreational use of marijuana in Portland, Oregon July 3, 2015.

Reuters/Steve Dipaola

(Reuters Health) - People who regularly use cannabis may need more than twice the usual dose of anesthesia for surgery, a U.S. study suggests.

As a growing number of U.S. states legalize marijuana for medical and recreational use, more patients who use the drug are showing up in operating rooms across the country. To get a clearer picture of how cannabis impacts the effectiveness of different types of anesthesia, researchers studied 250 patients who had minimally invasive procedures requiring anesthesia in Colorado, where recreational marijuana use is legal.

Twenty-five patients, or 10 percent, said they regularly used cannabis. Compared to other patients, cannabis users needed more than twice as much of the anesthetic propofol, the study found. Cannabis users also needed 14 percent more of the analgesic fentanyl and 20 percent more of the sedative midazolam. "Cannabis users cannot assume that their use will have no effects on their medical care," said lead study author Dr. Mark Twardowski of Western Medical Associates in Grand Junction, Colorado.

"Clearly the fact that use affects the effectiveness of these three medicines certainly raises myriad questions about potential effects on other medications (pain medicines, anxiety medicines etc.)," Twardowski said by email.

"Because cannabis has such a long life in the body, it may take months to ameliorate the effect," Twardowski said. "Patients absolutely need to inform their providers about cannabis use prior to any procedure."

Most of the patients in the study underwent colonoscopies.

More research is needed to confirm these preliminary results in a larger population of cannabis users and in patients undergoing a wider variety of surgeries, the study authors note.

One limitation of the study is the possibility that some cannabis users might not have disclosed this, leaving this information out of the medical records researchers used for their analysis. Even though recreational marijuana is legal where the study was done, stigma may have stopped some people from reporting it, researchers note in the Journal of the American Osteopathic Association.

But the results still suggest that doctors need to consider cannabis use when planning patient care and assessing medication needs, the study team writes.

"There is only a problem if patients do not tell their doctors that they are consuming cannabis and if doctors do not know the consequences of cannabis use for anesthesia," said Dr. Winfried Hauser of Klinikum Saarbrucken in Germany.

"Most probably, the number of patients which require increased dosages of anesthetics because of recreational and /or medical use of cannabis will increase due to the legalization of medical or recreational marijuana," Hauser, who wasn't involved in the study, said by email.

For dental procedures such as wisdom tooth extraction, when anaesthesia may be used, please inform your doctor of your cannabis use prior to surgery.

 

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We Have New Evening Hours!

Just a note to inform all of our patients and those who might need a new dentist or an emergency visit that we have a very convenient new schedule.
We have the following hours available every week!


                            Monday to Friday 8am- 8pm
                            Saturday 9am-3pm

If you need late night appointments we have you covered.