Re:The 'Irrational' Way Humans Interact With Dentists
by ugh on Tuesday October 12, 2010 @04:35PM
(#1784835)
“Plus, they hold up an x-ray and say ‘This is …’ not ‘This might be …’.”
Ha! My dentist actually said ‘This might be …’ as we looked together at a X-ray. He said that we could be looking at very, very early caries or just a shadow and that X-ray images are always tricky. I will be X-rayed again at the next routine checkup to see if anything has changed.
Incidentally, how common are X-rays in the US? It sounds like they are quite common which surprised me. They don’t seem to be part of the yearly checkup in Germany if I’m remembering right. I think it’s rather a every-other-year or every-three-years thing.
Re:The 'Irrational' Way Humans Interact With Dentists
by ubernostrum on Tuesday October 12, 2010 @06:26PM
(#1785233)
Standard practice here in the US is a full mouth x-ray about once every 12-18 months, because that's what insurance will pay for.
(and my dentist is the same way -- he'll sit down with an x-ray and sometimes photos as well, and go over "OK, this might be the beginning of a cavity, or it might just be a stain from drinking tea/coffee...")
As an example, as a child I was under government health care (Indian Health Service in the US) and "had to have" a root canal done. The dentist did the work (come to find out it is generally someone else who does this). I think nothing of it other than the extreme pain. This is when I was in 6th grade.
1st year of college and I get this incredible pain in my mouth. I go to a dentist (not IHS) and get my mouth checked. Come to find out the original dentist left some infected material in there and I am in a world of hurt. Antibiotics and Percodan for two weeks and then oral surgery. The oral surgeon had some not-so-kind remarks about the person who originally did the root canal.