Technology

Digital dental x-rays are necessary because they show the parts of your mouth, such as inside and between teeth, that we can’t see with a visual exam. The benefit is that catching a cavity or the beginning of gum disease in its early stage allows us to treat it promptly before it advances and becomes more complicated and costly to correct. We can also provide less invasive treatment, allowing us to preserve more of your healthy tooth structure, which is always our priority.

We also use digital x-rays at Desai Family Dentistry because they are safer and expose you to about 80 percent less radiation than film x-rays. Since we use flat digital sensors to capture the images, taking this type of x-ray is also more comfortable.

Dental x-rays are also an excellent way to inform you about your oral health needs. Dr. Desai can share the image with you so you can see what’s happening and understand the benefit of treating it promptly.

Sometimes a dentist needs to see all your teeth and jawbones in a single x-ray image. A panoramic x-ray does just that and allows us to view them in relation to your head, neck, and jaw to see how they work together. This type of x-ray is ideal for identifying the following:

• Jaw abnormalities
• Tumors, cysts, and growths
• Tooth infections and abscesses
• Impacted wisdom teeth
• Jawbone loss

Another benefit of pano x-rays is that we take them outside the mouth. You stand in front of the x-ray unit as an arm rotates around your head to capture the image. This method is perfect for young children, adults with a strong gag reflex, and people with special needs or mobility issues.

Cephalometric or ceph x-rays provide an image that shows us the entire side of your face. We commonly use ceph x-rays to obtain information about your dental bite, identify tooth and jaw fractures, injuries, and impacted wisdom teeth, and plan dental implants. We take ceph x-rays outside the mouth, similar to panoramic x-rays.

Root canals are one of the most misunderstood procedures in dentistry. The fact is that root canal treatment doesn’t cause pain; it relieves it. At Desai Family Dentistry, we’ve made root canals more comfortable using rotary endodontics technology.

Instead of manual instruments that many dentists use, we use leading-edge rotary endodontics. This electrically-powered technology has a flexible tip that our dentist uses to carefully remove the infected material inside the tooth.

The result is root canal treatment that is more comfortable and efficient and delivers more reliable long-term outcomes than the traditional method.

Have you ever had a dental exam and wished you knew what your dentist was looking at? With intraoral cameras, now you can!

Dr. Desai performs your exam using a small handheld digital camera that records live images of your mouth and displays them on your monitor. You can see what he sees during your exam as he moves the camera around your mouth. You can watch the process in real-time as he points out problems like cavities, cracked or broken teeth, broken fillings, and signs of gum disease.

We save the images from your exam and add them to your patient files for future reference or to share with your insurance company as needed.