One of the best ways to avoid many dental problems is by practicing preventive dentistry; excellent oral hygiene, visiting your dentist, and a healthy diet. There are many circumstances where you may not always experience symptoms indicating infection – take cavities, for example. However, with regular visits to your dentist, they’ll be able to detect problems like these before they can worsen. While your oral health can directly affect your overall health, majority of other medical conditions have oral manifestations as well. Often times, your dentist is the first to catch any health problem before it progresses – so, how do they do it?
All About Detecting Oral Problems
When you visit your dentist for your regular cleaning and checkup appointment, they’ll visually examine your entire mouth looking for anything abnormal, and use a dental instrument – known as a sickle probe – to touch and test the hardness of your teeth. Unfortunately, maneuvering around the nooks and crannies in your mouth is often difficult, even for the professionals – so, to further identify any problems, your dentist may use an intraoral camera.
While these are typically done at every checkup, your dentist will periodically recommend x-ray images of your jaw structure and teeth. Not only will this show the alignment of your jaw, but it can also detect areas of tooth decay. However, the best way to discover your cavities in their earliest stages of decay is by using a hand-held pen known as DIAGNOdent.
What Is DIAGNOdent?
DIAGNOdent may look like a pen, but it certainly doesn’t act like one! In fact, it uses laser technology to detect fluorescence inside your tooth structure itself. The ability to measure this laser fluorescence shows your dentist where cavities are going to form – giving them the opportunity to stop the infection in its tracks as early as possible.
With all of that being said, when’s the last time you visited your dentist? If it was over 6 months ago – it’s definitely time for an appointment! Don’t let any dental problems go undetected, especially because they can often be reversed when caught early enough.
