“The
Tooth And Nothing But The Tooth”
By Chris “Dr Smile Maker” Branfield
Let There Be Light
Well,
Elvis’ crown was in the building for a day.
We had some fun but more importantly did some free mouth cancer
screening. Mouth cancer screening is
part of our 6 step smile audit at examination.
We use magnification and illumination followed by a fluorescence
screening with a device called a Velscope Rx.
People came down for photos with the crown and
health checks.
We were all dressed up with the crown. My hands look massive in this picture and
they’re only small really
Do My Hands Look Big In This Outfit?
How To
reduce X-rays At The Dentist
A few weeks ago I was in London again. I was actually a speaker at the Innovations
In Dentistry Symposium held at Millbank Tower in Westminster. I was really chuffed to be asked to speak
about a cracking innovation that I am now using to detect decay without X-rays.
It’s
called a DIAGNOcam. It is absolutely
fantastic for children, pregnant women and people who do not have loads of
fillings. Having said that it is great for showing up cracks and monitoring
early decay in teeth that do not need fillings it can get the decay process to stop
with diet and lifestyle changes. Xrays
only show 2 dimensions so this can be used with xrays to give a third dimension
to give a clear assessment.
Overcoming
A
Xrays are really useful in dentistry. With digital images doses now are reduced by
about 90% to when I started in practice 20+ years ago. But if we can decrease the dose further then
that is great.
One quandary I have is when to take xrays when
somebody is low risk regarding tooth decay.
You don’t want take xrays just for the sake of it but you don’t want to
miss anything and leave somebody at risk of losing a tooth when we may have been
able to save it if we found the decay earlier.
I hope that makes sense.
Anyway, by using the DIAGNOcam we can do a
screen and see if there is decay. If
everything is clear, brilliant. If there
is some early decay we may not need xrays, if the decay is deeper then we
probably will.
It is a really good technology and is easy to
show my patients. It shines a special
wavelength of light through a tooth and a sensor picks up the light
transmission and puts a picture on the computer screen. We actually see it as a live video and press
a button for still pictures. It is much
easier to explain things and communicate.
Minimum
Intervention/Minimum Fillings
This
is my tooth. There is a small crack in the enamel towards the left with some
slight shadowing. It doesn’t need a filling but just monitoring. This is easy as we just take another picture
and compare. I do need to stay off the sweeties and floss every day!
It’s holiday season now. I’m off to Cornwall in my caravan with the family. My eldest, Edward, isn’t coming though. He’s 18 next week and just got back from his first “mates” holiday. Frightening!
Until next time. Take care and be good.
