Bliss 32 Dental & Implant Centre
Low-dose digital imaging, read on screen during your visit.
Much of what matters in a tooth cannot be seen by looking at it. Decay between teeth, infection at the root tip, bone loss from gum disease, and unerupted or impacted teeth are all invisible in the mouth and obvious on a radiograph.
Digital rather than film
The image appears on screen in seconds, so you see what we see and we can discuss it while you are in the chair. It can be enlarged and adjusted to look more closely at an area, stored with your record so this year's can be compared with last year's, and shared with a specialist when a referral is needed. There are no chemicals and no waiting for development.
The dose
Digital sensors need substantially less radiation than the film they replaced. A single dental X-ray is a very small dose - the sort of comparison usually made is with the natural background radiation you receive over a normal day. We still take one only when there is a clinical reason, because the right number of X-rays is the number that changes what we do, not a routine quota.
What we take
A small intraoral film of one or two teeth for a specific problem. Bitewings, which show the contact areas between back teeth where decay hides. An OPG, a single wide image of both jaws, for wisdom teeth, implant planning or orthodontic assessment.
If you are pregnant
Tell us. Routine imaging is usually deferred; where an X-ray is genuinely needed for a painful problem, it is taken with a lead apron and the dose is very low.
Bring what you have
If another clinic has taken X-rays of you recently, bring them or the images. A repeat you do not need is one you should not have.