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...")
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.