When X-Rays were used at the Shoe Store

Re:When X-Rays were used at the Shoe Store by rob74 on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @08:51AM (#24979622)

Interesting and also scary - I guess it was ok for customers, but the employees using the machines would probably over time get a serious amount of radiation literally in their face (from what it looks like)? If you think that nowadays while making X-rays the medical personnel will either wear lead-lined aprons or leave the room altogether...

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Re:When X-Rays were used at the Shoe Store by joezydeco on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @09:42AM (#24980018)

My dad worked in a shoe store when he was in high school. His friends would goof around with the machine during slow periods. Thankfully my dad stayed away from the thing.

Many lost feet or parts of them, never making a connection back to the fluoroscope. Nobody knew how much radiation those things were actually putting out.

(Ironically or not, I now work in medical physics where even the slightest exposure gets noted and tracked)

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Re:When X-Rays were used at the Shoe Store by deepspace on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @12:51PM (#24982013)

Wait a minute - so you are saying that having parts of your foot fall off was just considered part of the normal high school experience? Does not sound right to me - surely a rash of radiation burns among teenagers would have been noticed, even in those days.

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Re:When X-Rays were used at the Shoe Store by joezydeco on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @02:16PM (#24982920)

Some developed problems years down the road, this wasn't a Demon Core-class exposure situation.

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Re:When X-Rays were used at the Shoe Store by 3JPLW on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @09:04AM (#24979717)

Especially given this:

> That 1948 study of 43 machines in Detroit showed ranges from 16 to 75 roentgens per minute. In 1946, the American Standards Association had issued a safety code for industrial use of X-rays, limiting exposure to 0.1 R per day.

I'd be curious how much a typical modern dental x-ray emits, but we no longer measure in roentgens these days as we have better measures of the actual dose (sieverts).

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Re:When X-Rays were used at the Shoe Store by TheOtherHobbes on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @09:31AM (#24979935)

Modern dental x-rays are basically negligible for most patients, although not for dentists who do them daily, even though they're well away from the beam - which is why they have to hide when they take them.

Less negligible are CT scans, which can expose you to multiples of the average annual background dose in a few minutes.

That's still relatively low level exposure. But there isn't really a safe minimum exposure level, and it's certainly not something you'd want to have regularly.

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Re:When X-Rays were used at the Shoe Store by copperx on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @11:38AM (#24981199)

Aren't CT scans equivalent to about 3,000 chest X-Rays? It sounds pretty bad if you're young.

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Re:When X-Rays were used at the Shoe Store by Teknoman117 on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @01:12PM (#24982256)

Not quite that bad. These days a chest CT scan (~7 mSv) is worth about 70 chest x-rays (0.1 mSv).

That's 2 years (CT) and 10 days (x-ray) of exposure to sea level background radiation respectively.

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Re:When X-Rays were used at the Shoe Store by adenner on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @10:44AM (#24980645)

With some hand waving 100 roentgens is equal to 1 sievert

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Re:When X-Rays were used at the Shoe Store by quickthrowman on Tuesday November 03, 2020 @09:12AM (#24979778)

Radiation from x-rays is measured in microsieverts, or less than a single day’s exposure to background radiation

https://www.iaea.org/resources/rpop/health-professionals/den...

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